It started with one sip. I hadn’t had alcohol in many months and I was determined to just have a drink to take off the edge. One sip turned into a shot, and a shot turned into an eventual blackout. What started as one drink turned into a frenzied drinking endeavor to satisfy my need for stimulation, for anything – including intoxication – to take the numbing boredom away. What I did while I was in a state of brownout and blackout, I do not know. Eventually this routine will catch up with me and I don’t know how to quit, for I search for anything to take the numbness away.
Addiction can be especially problematic for the psychopath. Given that we do not adhere to most social or business contracts, the consequences of addiction seem negligible to the psychopath. What problem is there is missing work when the job isn’t taken seriously? What is a DUI worth if the psychopath does not care about punishment to begin with? What is the threat against his life if he feels invulnerable? These points raise great challenges in the fight for the antisocial against addiction, assuming he wants to combat the addiction at all.
Addiction can be especially problematic for the psychopath. Given the psychopath’s irritability as well as his parasitism, the psychopath can become a callous and/or violent individual looking for their next fix. Gods know that I’ve spent most of my adult years chasing a drink or two each night at any price required. Whether it was draining my ex-husband’s bank account dry to fuel my own alcoholism or the ill-advised adventure to grab another drink, I’ve been overtly antisocial with my addiction.
For this coming year, I am going to try again to go sober. I’ve contracted with my therapist to attend an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting should I slip again. I may be drinking fewer and father in between, but I still lack the ability to control myself. When I drink, I blackout; there is no such thing as moderation. I am also going to try and ditch my tobacco habit. While a less immediate danger, I have to realize that I am not invincible; I will one day die but there is no reason in speeding up that process.
While addiction can only bring ruin, the psychopath tends not to care. His antisocial ways cause him not to care about the social contract that is ruined with each foray into drug or alcohol misuse and abuse. The psychopath’s feelings of self-grandiosity and invulnerability cause him to avoid the considerations that others would take when evaluating the “benefits” of addiction. With every needle and every drink, the psychopath flirts with disaster; it is a disaster that he simply cannot imagine as being truly possible.
You probably aren’t a psychopath. Just an addict. The symptoms of addiction mimic the symptoms of psychopathy. I remember thinking I was a pyschopath back when I was in active addiction. But my feelings were just numbed. Through working a 12 step program I began to experience real empathy and love. Wishing you all the best for the future.
Did you also have the narcissism and antisocial behavior not caused by substance abuse that psychopaths have?
Oh, no, you didn’t. Because you aren’t a psychopath.
She is a psychopath. She was diagnosed and she has the symptoms even now that she has beaten her addiction.
Addicts may act like psychopaths at times, but it’s certainly not consistent throughout the addiction. I lived in a building full of them (myself included), and my upstairs neighbor was both, so I’ve had the dubious privilege of observing the differences firsthand. An addict may do some pretty fucked-up things when chasing, but we certainly feel a metric ass-ton of guilt and shame when sober, which is of course a major impetus for avoiding that state at all costs. A psychopath will do something fucked-up when chasing or high, decide it was fun or useful, and do it again twice as hard when they’re sober.
Wow. You could be describing my late husband in your posts this one in particular.
Sadly he didn’t want to change and died last September in odd circumstances.
Bipolar with alcohol addiction and probably psychopathic too between the spending the drinking and the lies oh and the grandiosity. He wouldnt care if they sacked him.
The only way I escaped was to stay abroad because he wouldn’t have left me alone. He used to fone as though nothing had happened.
A very tortured soul.