Heroin and oxycontin belong to a class of drugs called opiates. Lovefraud recently received a letter from a reader that raised the issue of heroin addiction in sociopaths:
For nearly two years after my relationship with him ended, I was on the web researching heroin addiction because I assumed this was where all of his abusive behavior came from, but I stumbled upon information on sociopaths, and realized that he fits every trait”¦I know substance abuse behavior can mimic sociopathic behavior, but it is clear that the man I was in a relationship with is a sociopath, and was able to use his addiction as an explanation and excuse to further manipulate the many people who offered help to him”¦ The man I dated definitely went beyond the regular lying and stealing that takes place and went far into the realm of sadism- taking great joy in manipulation and emotional devastation of others. He was breaking into cars and taking great risks to his physical safety as a child/young man, well before his drug use started. It makes sense to me that people who are sociopaths and do not have a conscience would be more likely to become heroin addicts, as seeing others being hurt by their behavior would not be a deterrent. Whereas someone with a conscience would feel just as good when they take the heroin, they would be more likely to think about its effects on others, and stop the behavior.
I trained in three public urban hospitals where the prevalence of opiate addiction was so high that I treated countless numbers of these patients and encountered them on a daily basis. That nearly all were sociopaths was an inescapable reality. It did not seem possible that all these people were sociopaths prior to becoming addicted, so I have long believed that heroin especially makes people into sociopaths.
My beliefs have been confirmed by a number of scientific studies. One particularly thorough study was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1998 (Vol. 107.p 412-422) entitled, A Typology of Antisociality in Methadone Patients by Dr. Arthur I. Alterman and colleagues of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
These researchers studied 252 men in methadone maintenance programs. Their average age was 40. The researchers looked extensively into the backgrounds and histories of the subjects and had them complete a number of personality tests. They also interviewed them using Robert Hare’s PCL-R.
The study identified 6 groups of subjects, each with a unique psychological profile. 72 percent of the sample were sociopaths. That means that only 28 percent were not significantly antisocial. The researchers believed that in perhaps 17 percent of the sample the sociopathy was due to the addiction. The take home message though was that 55 percent were highly psychopathic as measured by the PCL-R. About a quarter of the total sample were married and we can assume the rest had relationships of some sort.
Government statistics indicate there may be as many as 2 million opiate addicts in the US. There are only 650 methadone maintenance programs in the US with an estimated 120,000 clients. These clients are likely similar to those of the reported study, but it is reasonable to believe that non-sociopaths are over represented in treatment programs, so the 28 percent figure may be an over-estimate with regard to the total addict population.
One of the most interesting findings of the above study was that Machiavellianism was high in the 55 percent of methadone clients who were sociopaths. Machiavellianism was measured by the 20-item MACH-IV which measures egocentricity, a lack of concern with conventional morality, and interpersonal manipulativeness. These symptoms would predict a great deal of distress in the spouses and romantic partners of the subjects- not to mention the children born to these parents.
The results of the study raise other important points I have made on this blog. First, among the very antisocial and manipulative opiate addicts there were a range of PCL-R scores. This means that you should not be concerned with trying to decide if the person who is hurting and manipulating you meets some magical cut-off score. Instead look at the list of traits Donna has posted and see if the description more or less fits.
Also, childhood and teen problems cannot always be identified in people who are very psychopathic. Things happen in late adolescence and early adulthood that change people. Furthermore, just because we can’t prove a given person had antisocial tendencies early in life, doesn’t mean they weren’t there. The other implication of this is that at-risk young people require careful, loving, hands-on parenting even if they seem OK. Addiction may be an event that tips at-risk individuals into the realm of psychopathy.
The brain opiate systems are central to love and attachment in humans. This fact may account for the propensity for sociopaths to use heroin. It may also be that opiate drugs specifically poison a person’s ability to love, making him/her egocentric, grandiose and manipulative.
Sunshine: I’m writing from this post because it has smaller blogs on it. The 600 and something on the article you wrote from, makes my computer go into an hourglass spin.
So, Welcome. Read as much as you can. Blog with anyone at any time. Whoever is on line at the time you write, will gladly write you back.
Peace to your heart and soul as you heal from this devastation.
Well Wini you know that you and I disagree on this one. I try to stay with what the evidence based scientific community has to say and I know that as more and more evidence comes in the thoughts I have today could be proven wrong tomorrow.
So far the evidence (and my own experiences treating, living with, and working around) points to it likely being both genetic and environmental. Saying that it is all learned behavior goes back to blaming the parental figures. I know better from experience. I have seen young children (under age 10) in very nurturing and positive environments that had good guildelines and accountability for behaviors and still some come out anti-social where others did not. Not to mention if it was simply conditioning why do most children raised by psychopaths not turn out psychopathic? Or do they?
I have a much different view of our society as well. There are quite a few negative things in it but in the year 2009 we are much much much better than in the past. Just look at the reduction in violence in our society, though it certainly does not seem so if one does not step back and take the long view. I find it encouraging that people like Madoff and the Enron stories are actually news worthy as 100 years ago they were common practice and no one blinked an eye.
As this video presentation shows, perspective can sometimes help http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/163
Oh and Wini I am talking about psychopaths not just anti-social behavior/people. I agree with you that much anti-social behavior is often learned and/or reinforced by the environmental factors.
Blogger and Wini – Its a bit of both. It is absolutely a lethal mix of both. One S might be completely screwed with the worst genetic make up and another S might have experienced the most harmful dysfunctional experience in his environment that set the path. Or another S might have had a little bit of this and a little bit of that which began the self deception/destructiveness.
In my family, my mothers baby pictures were never of her smiling. She was always sad in family photos with two older siblings smiling away – was that some kind of a clue? During her childhood years she made friends, she was an over-achiever, extremely high I.Q. – adored by all.
When she was 16 she experienced an emotional trauma finding out the man raising her was not her real father. Her real father was in an institution for being an alcoholic and the family secret was revealed to her in her front yeard when her biological father sent his sister (her Aunt) to bring her to meet her biological father on his deathbed.
My father, her boyfriend and the time, says she was never the same person from that day forward. She stopped trusting anyone and everyone. She shut down. She changed. Genetics or Environmental Atmosphere. Or Both. ??
She went on to have two children by age of 19. Married my father, a workaholic. And eventually diagnosed with schizo affective bipolar disorder
Blogger
Sorry Wini but I have to agree with Blogger that both environment and genes plays a large factor whenever an child starts to learn and interact with it’s environment. How much one given factor is involved in development is yet unknown to us.
Wini,
I don’t want to appear to gang up on you on this one, but my opinions on this are well known to everyone here.
Many (most?) mental disorders from depression and bi-polar and psychopathic personality disorder have a STRONG genetic basis. The twin studies where identical twins (genetics 100%) were separated at birth and studied, 80% of the time if one was a P the other one was too—raised in totally different environments. I have also seen where people who have had TRAUMATIC events in their lives that seem to predispose to them becoming disordered (in some ways) and we know that neglect and abuse can have terrible effects on kids later.
Learned’s mother probably had some genetics from her mentally ill father that were “triggered” by the betrayal she felt at finding out the family secrets. But who knows? Humans are not “lab rats” so it is more difficult to solve all the mysteries of genetics, and especially where behavior is concerned. Also, lots of variables in life so holding one or two variables “static” while the others are changed is impossible.
You are right about one thing for sure, the EGO of the Ps and Ns, is a big part of their problems, the narcissistic bent that they all have makes them “value” themselves higher than anyone else and “de-value” others. IF that part alone could be changed it might help, but the problem is is that it is a “catch 22” their ego gets in the way of them valuing a darned thing besides themselves, that’s why therapy doesn’t work. They do not SEE A NEED to change themselves, cause all their problems are YOUR FAULT. (they think) so there is NO motivation for them to change the way they look at things. Without motivation to change, there is no change. There can be NO change.
My friend, Mike, who taught the “anger management” class ordered by the courts and worked with me at the community mental health clinic used to tell me that most of his classes were filled with Ps. Mike was a therapist who “got it” about Ps. He also didn’t see 1 in 10 of his “clients” in the class do more than “parrot” what they had to to get through the class instead of going to jail. Some wouldn’t even do that, and Mike would send the cops to arrest them if they missed a class and didn’t have a VALID excuse–like being in the ER on life support! Therapy of any kind that is “court ordered” and “forced,” rather than voluntary, isn’t likely to produce any positive result.
At the same time I think there is a great deal of genetics involved, they DO know right from wrong and have a choice to do “right” or “wrong” just like you and I do, they can “plan” and execute plans and so they are, in my opinion RESPONSIBLE for their actions, they are NOT IMHO compelled to abuse, they just like doing it.
Southernman wrote….”I’ll always wonder how someone could be so dead on the inside once the mask slid down and possess a heart made of stone.”
See, that’s the kicker right there….the fundamental disturbing difference between the Ns/Ss/Ps and “normal” mentally/emotionally healthy, loving and caring individuals.
I STILL, after almost a year away from the X Sociopath in my life cannot begin to fathom the degree, the extent, the TRUTH of not being able to return love that is being honestly and openly offered.
And the cold calculating deception, the masterful illusion created to seduce and exploit will forever boggle my mind. I just don’t frikkin work that way!
I think those of us who are truly kind, gentle and loving consider manipulative exploitive behavior to be utterly repulsive. Downright evil, for sure!
On a side note, I was perusing the reviews on Amazon for “The Art of Seduction” by that Greene author. I clicked on the 1 stars first because it was clear to me I would agree with many of the negative reviews. And I did. More than a few of those folks were candid in their disgust regarding exploiting another person’s insecurities and weaknesses for the sole purpose of “seduction.” It’s aberrant base behavior to me.
What was not so shocking (after spending years studying and researching PDIs the realization of their predatory natures hasn’t caused me to be de-sensitized but AWARE) and kind of pathetic were the reviewers who nonchalantly considered it “OK” to use and manipulate people for your own selfish needs because (in their false logic) “everyone deceives and manipulates and lies to get what they what.”
Riiiight. Whatever you say, mr/miss lacking knowledge and any sort of authority what-so-ever!
Thank goodness that there are MORE decent, good people in the world and predators are in the minority, otherwise every house, every street corner in the world would be like a mini-tribal war zone.
Genetics and environmental. As I have talked about before about the S, that his father had alcohol related schizophrenia in his late 40’s. Diagnosed by the VA at a time of heavy alcoholism. What the possibly is that S’s father was, genetically linked to having a relative that had schizophrenia. Through his life “May” have had symptoms of schizophrenia but unrecognized, and dismissed by others as ecentric, angry or unable to reach because of an ego. Scizophrenia diagnosis is common in the 40’s. This awareness of his behavior became apparent in his 40’s. Alcohol, triggered it to a very noticeable degree and he was taken to the VA for help. He was put on medication and it seemed to help as I was told by one of S’s relatives. Then there was more control, alcohol was stopped and he lived a better life until 60. Was he still exhibiting schizophrenia symptoms, mildly, perhaps?
With S I always felt it was mental illness, years before even knowing that his father had been diagnosed with the alcohol related scizophrenia. S told me for years he did not drink. Towards the last year of the so called relationship S would go out 2-3 times a week, he had been drinking heavily. Another lie. I do not drink ever. S lied to please me and mirror that I don’t. I believe for all that it’s worth, my opinion only, there was a genetic link in the family for schizophrenia, that the family did not acknowledge and were in denial of and found it easier to say it was the alcohol. The environmental impact on the illness was that S was delayed in dating women, and could not hold a steady job, and found alcohol soothing to drown his fears and possible symptoms of schizophrenia that he may have been aware of. So this case of the S that I knew seems to be genetic and environmental. Was S’s father a S/P ? Possibly. If the father and son were an S/P this seems to be genetic, and environmental due to many exposures of the S that I knew and hardships of no job, not getting along with others etc and alcohol, which also may have been genetic.
The links of genetic and environmental impact on an individual for alcoholism/schizophrenia/mental disorders, maybe somewhat similar for an S/P. Even if, there is no other mental illness, or alcohol or drugs present.
I speak of my family, my natural father was an alcoholic to the most maximum degree. When I was 5 he had beat my mother so badly in front of 3 of the 4 children. My mother was rushed to the hospital, and was not recognized by her brother while she lay in the hall, in a bed waiting to be transferred to a room. Covered with bruises and blood completely all over her face. The fight as I told many years later as a teenager was that my father thought my Mom was cheating on him. She had 4 children and 1 was a newborn, a month old when this happened. Was there more to my dad being an alcoholic? Was there an obvious mental illness? I will never know.
My Mom immediately had my dad barred from the home and a few months later left with all 4 young children in tow. We were never to see or have contact with my dad again. She remarried almost 2 years later.
Out of 4 children in my family and not being raised with an alcoholic father. One sibling, an older brother is a heavy alcoholic, just like my dad was. He cannot hold a job, and he is enabled by my mother with money to feed his habit of alcohol. He was not raised with our dad, and was 6 when this witnessing of a horrific beating of our mother took place.
Was my brothers alcoholism environmental? Maybe, but it had a strong genetic link to alcoholism from my dad. My brother had hardships in his life as we all do, a construction job that became more scarce with the economy.
Another sibling, the baby, my sister has struggled since being a young teenager with severe alcoholism, and being hooked on prescription RX’s. At a young age she had been in a bad car accident and through many surgeries became hooked on RX meds, and all the while still drank. And still does into her late 40’s. She stays in bed most of the day and when up is drinking and feeling good with RX meds until the good feeling wears off and then she is back in bed for days and has even said sometimes she has not left the house in 3 weeks! So with her you could say it was environmental. The car accident triggered the alcoholism and RX med addiction. But there was also a strong genetic link to alcoholism from our father so it was Both genetic and environmental.
A younger brother has an addiction too, but is high functioning and has a good job, a family and very active in the community, but has limits with his alcohol for weekends and social gatherings. (He is the one that did not witness the beating).
The last child me, I do not drink. When in my 20’s I would have 2 drinks and be violently sick and feel the alcohol effect the next day, from only 2 glasses of wine. Is this because I cannot tolerate the alcohol, possibly an allergic reaction to it, or is it because of what I witnessed as a child, and remember small parts of and I have seen over 20 years how my siblings have come to be with alcohol literally destroying 2 out of 4 of our lives. It is probably a little of everything, an awareness of genetic predisposal, environmentally witnessing of a beating under the effects of alcohol is why I cannot tolerate alcohol. Which genetically I am aware I am predisposed to.
A Misdiagnosis, maybe of many years ago. S’s father was mentioned to be diagnosed as alcohol related schizophrenia. Maybe it was schizophrenia, wrongly or not diagnosed at all for many years and later a diagnosis of alcoholism followed, producing alcohol related schizophrenia.
Maybe the father was an S/P. And at the time, only mass murders were considered to be an S. His son I have no doubt is an S and has every trait possible, along with other things.
Dear Is Opn,
I am so sorry that you and your family have had so much trouble from all of this, and I totally agree with you that there is a genetic predisposition toward “addiction” to alcohol, etc. and also to mental illnesses. Many times people with mental illnesses (depression, bi-polar and other illnesses) will “self medicate” with drugs/alcohol so the alcohol becomes a problem in itself, making the other mental illness “invisible” and the “drinking”more visible. In truth, they have TWO (or more) problems. Just because you have ONE mental illness or personality disorder doesn’t mean you cant have a second one as well.
Dr. Leedom has shown research where people with bi-polar also tend to have a high rate of personality disorders as well. So those people have the DOUBLE GENETIC WHAMMY, then if you put them in a home with a mentally ill and/or psychopathic parent, they get the DOUBLE GENETIC WHAMMY + THE ENVIRONMENTAL WHAMMY and that equals “Hell on wheels” for a person.
Studies of children who are adopted and raised by “good” parents are starting to show an “adoptive syndrome” and many of these kids who are available for adoption now come from mothers with personality disorders and/or drug or alcohol addiction. It used to be assumed that somehow these kids “turning out bad” was the adoptive parents’ fault, but it is now realized that the HIGHER THAN TO BE EXPECTED number of “conduct disordered” and other mentally ill or disordered children is more genetic than environmental.
Children adopted from Romania who had been in orphanages where they were neglected (and who knows what the genetic back ground was/is) also had a HIGH rate of personality disorders and conduct disorders.
It is also known that children in England during WWII who were taken out of London and cared for in orphanages where they got little cuddling etc. had some problems with “failure to thrive” and literally died. I’m not sure what if any follow up studies were done psychologically on the survivors. Dr. Leedom might now.
I think you can take a child with normal genetics and ABUSE IT ENOUGH and early enough to make it a personality disordered individual, though not all children abused become personality disordered or abusers, but I also think that some children are born with such genetics that the “Virgin Mary” for a mother wouldn’t help them much if any.
Is Opn, I am glad you have refrained from alcohol, and you made that CHOICE, and others with a genetic potential to become alcoholics have that SAME choice of NOT to drink. Hat’s off to you! (((hugs)))))
schizophrenia most commonly appears late teens /twenties – but really can appear at any age.
I am hyper sensitive to it happening to one of my children. I pray and leave each one of their sweet special spirits in the hands of god. If there is one thing I have done my best at, it is trying to make sure my childrens environment was as healthy as I could possibly make it along the way. The past year, they knew Mom was struggling with depression – I was honest with my daughters about that much. I made sure that my time spent with S (good and bad) was limited in front of my children. Mostly exposed them during the first year of friendship and shortly after red flags, I just chose to see him out or over his place. Guess I knew…