Addictive Personality Traits: What Raises the Risk and What to Watch For

People toss around the phrase "addictive personality" pretty loosely, and there's some truth buried in it. Certain personality types and individual traits really do carry a higher likelihood of addiction than others. If you worry that addiction could become a problem for you, a personal development plan built around your own type and traits gives you something concrete to work with. The point is to set growth goals that keep you steady, which matters a great deal when you're in a vulnerable stretch of life or regularly around the kinds of things that tend to hook people.

When you think someone close to you may be dealing with an addiction, a few signs are worth keeping an eye on. Noticing them early lets you lean in and help that person find the support they need. Depression and anxiety often surface. The person may come across as impatient, quick to anger, awkward in situations that used to feel easy, or oddly arrogant. Another signal: pushing to get narcotic medications when there's no real pain to justify them.

Some personality traits simply raise the odds. You'll usually spot them in other people before you spot them in yourself, though with honest attention you can catch them in the mirror too. If a friend shows traits that put them at greater risk, saying something, as uncomfortable as that conversation is, can matter. Common threads among people who struggle: impulsive decision-making, a sense of being alienated from mainstream society, impatience with any kind of delayed reward, a constant hunt for new sensations and excitement, and a pull toward behavior that's nonconformist or outright deviant.

Teens don't line up neatly with adults on this. The risk profile shifts, and there are warning signs specific to adolescence. A teen headed toward trouble may do badly in school while staying socially popular. Low self-esteem tends to run underneath. Some show little respect for other people's belongings, and some turn violent or aggressive toward others.

Personality disorders deserve their own mention, because every one of them carries a raised addiction risk. Having a disorder doesn't doom anyone to addiction; it's a risk factor, nothing more. Two stand out. Antisocial personality disorder brings reckless behavior, a thin or absent sense of remorse, and indifference to social norms, including the usual view that addiction is something bad. Borderline personality disorder tends to involve self-harm, a shaky self-image, and impulsivity, acting before weighing what comes next.

Other disorders show elevated rates too, but those two see addiction more often than the rest. Once an addiction takes hold, it climbs to the top of a person's priorities, and it can be lethal. That's the reason spotting addictive traits early is so useful: it opens a door to prevention, now and down the road.

No two addicts or addictions look the same; keep that in mind. Still, personality type and traits carry real weight, and certain combinations push the risk upward at some stage of life. And addiction isn't reserved for hard drugs or gambling. Nicotine and caffeine count. If you recognize the higher-risk traits in yourself, a personal development plan is a reasonable place to start building the coping skills and changes that bring that risk back down.

References: http://www.state.gov/m/a/os/64653.htm, http://aedfoundationinc.org/index.php/2014/03/07/the-addiction-tree/