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.
learnthelesson: schizophrenia most commonly appears late teens /twenties – but really can appear at any age.
Yes it can appear in the teenage years, twenties and very rare in young children but possible, and can also appear later in life in the forties.
After watching the behavior of S for much time and finding out the father of S, had the disease that mayhave been associated with alcohol, I tried to find out as much information as I could on this disease. And tried to put it together if S may have had it during the teens and twenties.
Only assuming through S’s behavior that was described then, I reasonably thought it came on in the forties, because of the severity of the symptoms I was observing and alcohol may have accelerated and made the symptoms worse.
And with S having a genetic predisposition possibly, environment can play a role on the severity of the symptoms.
Pain management with cluster Bs seems to be a serious problem.
I’ve seen the S get really crazy on codeine, but I’ve seen the N and our families unspecified cluster B go paranoid/hostile on neurontin.
No one should have to suffer from extended pain, but pain management for these people seems to present special problems.
Sociopaths and opiate addiction: my comments on the article.
If through these studies, patients on treatment programs and through inpatient programs, some are assumed to be a potential client, and may be a sociopth, shown by their behavior in their arrest records, and through personal physician records, “WHY” are they allowed and administered the potentially deadly drug that may get out of their hands?
A sociopath cannot be trusted on their words and honesty, to have in their possesion a weekly supply of take home meds or any prescribed medication.
I have seen a video of patients at a clinic showing a client, and other clients that would come for thier daily dosage of Methadone and hold it in their mouth, and once out of the clinic, and while in front of the building, and being filmed undercover, spit the dose out in a cup they had just recieved, and sell it to a person that is not a patient, in front of this alleged clinic.
And by this action it can be assumed this client is still addicted to heroin and uses the program for money to maintain their habit, and through their lies obtain unwarranted medication. This may be isolated instances captured on video.
The programs of issuing daily doses, may be working for other patients that are committed in their effort to get clean of heroin.
The others, the S’s can use this system and slip through the cracks through their deceit, and can cause harm and fatalities to a person not in the program.
My grown child had gotten Methadone from a patient that was in the Methadone treatment program. This person who they worked with only, would go daily to the site to get the medication where it was dispersed to them and allowed to be taken home by them.
It was contracted by this client to be keep the Methadone in a lock box. It was not, it was sold or given to my grown child at the place of employment, which the contract clearly stated and signed by the patient that it was to be kept at home in a safe place. But on this very day the client stated, to authorities that they were running late for work and usually kept the Methadone at home, but being late brought it to work and had it inside the place of employment. There was access to this drug to anyone, other than the patient
My grown child who took this take home Methadone, one time, (that was given to them by a client of the system treatment program), proved to be fatal to my grown child.
Methadone in this case was entrusted to someone, the client, that was not obviously trusted to keep the Methadone out of reach of others.
This client was on a daily dose of Methadone of 350mg. a day. At the corners inquest the toxicology showed my child had less than 100mg. in their system. The corner stated at the coroners inquest that my grown child had 100mg. of Methadone in their system at the time of death. The coroner also stated that 100mg. of Methadone is “Not” considered to be a lethat dose, but for a first time user it can be fatal.
Statistics and stories of the first time user of Methadone and the fatalities show this.
If it is considered that a person is a sociopaths and they are an addicts, “WHY” are they able to have this deadly medication, or any medication in their unsafe hands?
I believe treatment programs do, and can work for the person who is honest, the addict that is willing and committed by their honest actions to make themselves free of addictions to heroin or any type of addiction.
But other clients that cannot be trusted by being a sociopath should “NOT” have “ANY ACCESS” to these drugs. There should be an alternative way of working with that particular clients addiction, or “NOT” at all for allowing them to partake in the take home dose supply. They should be excluded from clinics, and having in their possession, the take home dosages of Methadone or any prescribed drug.
Schizophrenia, like most mental illnesses can be milder or out into space. A person can appear “normal” and then have a “breakdown” and be totally “crazy” hearing voices and seeing hallucinations.
My sperm donor’s half sister was a young physician and had a “mental break down” in the early 1940s and was hospitalized, then “hidden” by the family for the rest of her life. She never practiced medicine again. My grandfather, her father, blamed her Psychopathic step mother for the “break down” but of course that was the “knowledge” of the day that it was environmentally caused. The real truth and details of what happened are pretty well gone as all the people who knew what was going on or the details are all dead, but I suspect that she apparently had a psychotic break, and it might have been schizophrenia. I know nothing about her mother except she was a nurse and she was a “very sweet” woman who died in her late 20s in child birth from the placenta detatching during labor.
I do know my grandfather had a half sister who was I think either BPD or bi-polar or both (I am making the “diagnosis” from the family stories about her chaotic life). So even in a large family of successful and mentally stable people the “odd duck” will crop up every now and then. There are few of us that can examine our pedigrees and not turn up the “Uncle Nut-case” or the “uncle Monster” or the “Uncle Alcholic” so the genetics of our families are pretty much a crap shoot in lots of cases, though there are lots of families where there are MANY MANY psychopaths or alcoholics, drug addicts etc.
Also, because a chaotic lifestyle with mental illness and/or psychopathic behavior results in lack of job and financial stability, many of these families live in poverty for generations. I think our society “blames” their addictions, lack of job stability, etc. on the POVERTY, which is the RESULT, I think, of the mental instability of the family, not the CAUSE of it.
The children who are NOT mentally ill or psychopathic who are born into these families are severely emotionally damaged environmentally by the treatment and abuse they suffer at the hands of P parents and sibs. Henry is a perfect example of this. I know others who have come out of HORRIFICLY abusive families and lived GOOD successful lives by comparison, and become worthwhile conscience-driven individuals.
Not all Psychopaths are “poor” and not all “drug/alcohol” addicted people are “unsuccessful” in making money or holding a job, so there are degrees of all of this, but to me I don’t see any “easy” or “quick” solution to the under-belly of society who suffer from ignorance, mental illness, psychopathic abuse, and poverty. Diane Sawyer did a piece on the Children of the Mountains recently in the mountains of eastern Kentucky where my husband’s family have been for generations. My husband’s grandfather brought himself up by his boot straps out of the ignorance and poverty to become a physician, and thus gave my husband an opportunity to have an education and a life outside the hollows that Sawyer so heartbreakingly depicted of kids trying desperately to break free from their lives there, the drug addictions of their parents, the abuse, incest, etc. One high school kid lived in his car to finish high school and got a scholarship to a college, but wasn’t able to make it. The program got such a response though that he was given another chance. I hope he makes it.
We here on LF are educated, bright, have computers and know how to use them, and yet we too were impoverished by the deceptions and egocentric actions of a psychopath or two, we were wounded and are having a difficult time coping with the after match. I can only bleed for those people who are wounded and don’t have the intellect, knowledge, resources or support that WE HAVE. If we are having a hard time coping, I can’t even imagine how some girl in the hills of Kentucky with a drug addicted psychopathic BF or Husband and two kids could “heal” or “recover.”
A news program last night talked about how couples who want to divorce now, in the economic down turn, are having to stay together because they can’t sell the house or survive in two seprate households. Filing for divorce has apparently dropped 30% according to some attorney-kept records.
We can’t fix what is wrong with the world, or society, or the psychopats, we can only fix ourselves….but that’s a start, a GOOD start. If we can help our own children, educate them to what psychopaths are and how to spot them, we have made a difference in lives for generations. If we can comfort a fellow traveler who has been wounded by a P, we make a difference. “I cannot do everything, I am only, one, but I can do what one can do.” I’m not sure who wrote that but it was something I remember from school.
The more I think about it, most of the human beings in the universe have something, if not by genetics or genetic predisposition or environmental exposure or personal trauma or violation – its just that we have to figure out who we do well with, who suits us best personality wise as it relates to friends, co-workers, and as Oxy says even with family members.
I must admit although i had a mentally ill mother, I was mildly subjected to her throughout my childhood/teenage years as my grandparents and eventually my father raised us. She went out “on the road” when I was 2. I still remember the times we were courtordered to visit her (the most surreal moments of my life) and the letters and the lawsuits, outlandish accusations, hallucinations of her being married to Howard Hughes…etc.. you name it.. I basically spent a greater part of my life afraid of her.
The strangest thing about her illness and disconnection from us – was that although she travelled from one place to another — she was able to befriend people. When she finally came home, I had to contact a woman who runs a local storage rental company in the town my mom was residing. She talked to me for an hour about what a lovely, bright, sweet and interesting person my Mom was. How shes been thinking about her and missing her conversations with her. It wasnt the first time I had that experience. Even early on when she was in the hospital for a cancer related surgery – she managed to befriend the woman next to her in her room they exchanged numbers and my Mom went to church with her one day.
I was beyond perplexed and at times angry. WTF??? Dont they know she has a mental illness, left her children, wanders from state to state. Cant they tell her conversations are off the wall?? WTF? WTF? She was reaching out to and able to be friends with so many. A random question to a passing stranger about thier top or where they get their nails done – and nine times out of ten, they would stop, chat and some even strike up a friendship. How can she get close to them and not seek out her children? Didnt she wander the streets seeing families, moms with kids and yearn for her own? … Maybe, possibly at times? But the journey she took and the time and distance and mental illness between her reality and reality was perhaps way to much for her to delve into. It was easier to connect with strangers. (I guess)
What I didnt realize is, there are so many wonderful nice welcoming nonjudgmental beings in the world. And eventually, if they stayed in her life long enough, they would be able to recognize that she was not only a colorful soul but very mentally disturbed. Some remained connected to her, because in small doses she was a real pip to be around, and others just faded away.
It was a way of life. Her way of life. She lost everything she had. Her husband, her family, her children. But the mental illness, her spirit, her dysfunctional way kept her going – most times without a care in the world – except what she was going to wear for the day.
Oxy, I honestly dont know if she was aware she had a choice to fix herself. She didnt see anything wrong with herself. Or perhaps the realization, the PAIN associated with the journey she would have had to take to FIX herself – ie. facing the reality of her past, her childhood, her severed bonded trust with her parents/family was just too overwhelming to turn her mind body and soul and around, slow down, and find her way home.
At times I see it as there are ones who choose to face reality and ones who choose not to…to live in denial…to say in their comfort zone of their personality disorder, mental illness. Life goes on, just not the traditional way, but a way in which they can individually make it through each and every day.
We all have skeletons in our closets, we all have experiences with all walks of life and we all have choices. It is up to us to choose who we want to be and who is best for us in our circle of friends and family. Sometimes we may not be able to figure this out until we go through multiple colorful as well as hurtful experiences in order to find our place. Other times people just get it right, right out of the gate. And other times people never quite realize their potential and dont look past their own nose for growth and enlightenment.
I know each and every one of us here are the ones who are looking to find our place with friends, family, coworkers, and partners and be true to ourselves and each of our own REALITY. Thats what its all about for me. Its a choice.
Some people with mental illness of a severe kind are NOT able to make an “informed” choice to get out of denial. Those people I do not hold accountable for their actions. Your mother sounds like one of those lost souls. Your opportunity to see her, the her underneath the mental illness, before her death, the “her” that from time to time peeped out and had some attachment to even strangers, was a blessing from God.
Sometimes with some people who are mentally ill, have family members who are mentally ill, have intellectual challenges, financial challenges, along with other challenges to over come, it becomes almost impossible for these people to “succeed” at a healthy life style. Yet, occasionally, someone will succeed in overcoming the tremendous odds and “break free”—those rare iindividuals who do break free from the horrible burdens with which they are born or born into, keep the light of hope alive that more can break free of even overwhelming odds.
My step father, as a high school teacher, and as a mentor to some of his students helped this kind of kid, and at his funeral over 50 years later, some of his “success stories” showed up to pay their respect to him, some of the in their 70s themselves, yet still grateful to a man who gave himself to them, gave a hand up to them. Some of the kids he tried to help didn’t make it out, but some did, and I will always honor him for the kind of giving and caring man he was. The best thing my egg donor ever did for me was to marry such a man. He gave me more than I even realized until the last couple of years before his death, including my faith by his example.
I hope that the day I die, even one person can appreciate me as much as I appreciate him, and as others appreciated him. He taught by example, inspiration and motivation. He knew somehow how to REACH kids that other teachers couldn’t, and to motivate them to reach for the “stars.” He motivated kids who had never had indoor plumbing to want to go to college and acheive it, rather than drop out of high school to go to work for a family that needed the income to survive.
He was always my biggest cheer leader, and even when I did drop out of college to take off for the wild’s of Africa with my sperm donor, he was’t critical (though now I know it broke his heart) when I DID go back, later, much wiser, etc. and graduate, he was there the night I was inducted into the national college honor society (I wasn’t even going to go, but he “made” me go and went with me).
I feel strongly that those of us who have “been through the fire” and survived, and grown, owe our help and support and encouragement to those still IN the fire of pain. NOt that we are without scars or still healing ourselves, but we are farther along in the healing process than those who have just stepped on the road…we may not be able to “help” everyone stay on the road, but if even one person benefits from our efforts, then we have WON because our experience has benefitted another. That is why I am SO grateful to Donna for this site, she h as benefitted so many—hundreds, thousands? from the ashes of her own trial by fire! Thanks, Donna. (((Hugs)))) and thanks to all of you who share my journey on this road to Healing.
OxDrover: In reading the article above and having had an S/P cross my/our path is another path of the devastation of an S/P can cause, like you say for generations to come, in the form of an addict that was able to fool the system and receive a lethal drug that got passed along and became fatal.
I believe we all do have choices and should be held responsible in this situation. Twenty six years of teachings and just say no, and watching who the friends are and generally looking out for your child’s well being, nurturing and loving, did not stop the destruction that this S/P had created.
We all have choices, it was not forced upon to my knowledge,
I do understand that and cannot change the situation.
But as 1 person I can educate others in various manners. And I have had numerous contacts with the DEA locally and the DEA in Washington and keep up with various government organizations. This S/P mentioned above got off of any charges, was not held accountable for their actions. Another S/P fooled the system, by convincing the system they were once a heroin addict and had a hard time through life and got a job and got clean through the program. These were the exact words we were told. An S/P fooled the system. We all have choices….
Oh, yes, I agree, but my point to learnthelesson was that people who have schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses where they cannot stay in “reality” (see things and hear things that aren’t there) those people may not have the same choices that others do and should exercise.
Some people have some very difficult choices to make, and are influenced by genetics and environment to drink, and they take the “easy” road and do, but they DO have choices.
My P-son had the genetics to be like my P-sperm donor, but he KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG, he had choices, still has choices, but chooses NOT TO EXERCISE HIS CHOICES FOR RIGHT. He is accountable and responsible for the consequences. People who are truly mentally ill and can be treated need to exercise those positive choices to seek treatment, but sometimes it is difficult or “next to impossible” for them to do so. Sometimes involuntary treatment is the order of the day if they are a danger to themselves or others. During Reagan’s administration many people who were held and treated involuntarily were released if they were not an IMMEDIATE (this minute) danger to themselves or others and literally turned loose homeless on the streets without much if any support and bingo, they were off their meds and back in involuntary treatment, in and out, a revolving door. It is a pitiful and sympathetic situation for these people and I have empathy for both them and for their families. There is no real viable alternative and they are caught between the supreme court’s ruling and REALITY of the situation. Unfortunately, many of them become violent and end up in prison where they are involuntarily treated until release and back to the revolving door of violence and incarceration.
There is even court cases where a patient is “sane” on meds, and the court had to decide if he could be forced to take drugs so he would be sane enough to execute because when he was off drugs he was legally INSANE. (didn’t know right from wrong) I mean gosh, when will they (the courts) put some COMMON FREAKING SENSE INTO THIS CAULDRON OF MISERY????????
When I worked in the community mental health program with these chronicly mentally ill people, their stories would “curl your hair.” Week in and week out these people came in for medication (sometimes court ordered injections) to keep them “sane” (non-violent) and marginally functioning, along with counseling and social services. There were just so many that fell through the cracks though, like learn’s mother. Many of trhe chronically homeless or daily shelter clients are mentally ill as well. This whole underclass of people with insurmountable problems—and it pithes me off that these CEOs get BILLIONS in “bonuses” of our tax money! (gotta get off my stump or I will raise my blood pressure, this isn’t a political forum either! LOL)
OxDrover: Re: We can’t fix what is wrong with the world, or society, or the psychopats, we can only fix ourselves”.but that’s a start, a GOOD start. If we can help our own children, educate them to what psychopaths are and how to spot them, we have made a difference in lives for generations. If we can comfort a fellow traveler who has been wounded by a P, we make a difference. “I cannot do everything, I am only, one, but I can do what one can do.” I’m not sure who wrote that but it was something I remember from school.
Thank you for your explanations with the above information of mental illness and disorders. In trying to put it all together, in a short amount of time this past month, with alot of information here on the site and in posts, to digest all of this has been so enlightening, in the midst of an S/P, and moving on from the chaos and the pian after they are gone.
Sometimes life happens in an accelerated pace, ie. the S and years of trying to understand and fix them, and then life with S bottoms out for good, for personal safety and the mental health and well being for family.
I finally Know that I can’t, not even in part, whether or not there are other disorders genetically or environmentally fix this individual. I cannot make a difference for a healing and personal revolution for S, that will never come to be.
If I had not happened to find this site, I would still be guessing what is this, and still possibly is it part of me, what can I do to change life with S.
Oxy, I appreciate the time and effort you put into these blogs.
And your animal stories.
I am only one, as we all are. But informed we can make a difference with the new knowledge we gain here, from people like us that have informed us with this site and carry that knowledge into the world and make a speck of a difference as a whole.
In my experience you get to be a certain age and thought you had it all figured out. Not even close. I have learned so much more in middle age than ever before, even at times I was not looking to. It is called life. The path.
Dear Is opn,
Thank you, I too have learned more in my “elderly” years than I think I ever did in the previous 60 years of my life.
The thing is, I accumulated a lot of “knowledge” before, just never put it INTO PRACTICE, so I am “practicing what I preach” more now as well as learning new things as well.
There is a bit of that “too soon old, too late smart” feeling down inside me, but I am glad that I am here (on the road to Healing) now rather than never having found the path to healing at all. Sometimes it takes some of us more than one run through the “fire” to get burned enough to finally decide “fire is hot!” LOL I’m a slow learner of the practical part of it all, though I think I’ve had a great deal of the “theory” part down for a long time. Knowing and not DOING though is worse than not knowing, I think!
I’m just glad you find my animal stories amusing, I sure love critters and they have so much to teach us. I think I am animal train-ED more than animal train-ER. Every time my dog goes to the door and barks I get up and open the door. Who has WHO trained I ask?