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Comment by dusklight | Hacker News Reader

That's very interesting. Do you think addicts already have those personality traits from before they became addicted, or the traits developed as a result of the addiction?

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From anecdotal experience I would say that behavior is __always__ first.

I can even think of more than one person of top of my head that is obsessive about stuff and does not consume drugs.

I used to read obsessively as a kid. I also ate lots and lots of candy- I'd finish entire packets at one go. Went on to be an internet addict and cigarette smoker.

I think... I just never learned focus, discipline, self-control, portion-control, when to stop. I think it's a habit more than anything else. I think I've always had some "addictive" personality, but I think I could've kept it in better check if I developed habits of discipline and control- which I never really did.

Most addicts are abused (or experience comparable longterm stress) as children, which causes brain damage, which leads to addiction. There is a certain genetic component also, but it mostly has to do with your childhood.

This sounds rather much like speculation to me. Do you have any sources to back up your "Most" statement. Since the disease is generational, quite often children of addicts will have a stressful upbringing, but your theory of brain damage from stress causing the addiction is quite a stretch.

Gabor Mate discusses this in his Angry Ghosts book. If you search through my comments for his name, there is a link to an interview where he discusses this also.

I did not find your comments, but I did a quick google search. Here is one refutation that I found: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/201...

It says just about what I would have guessed too. :)

What's the point of reading a refutation if you haven't read the original? You don't even know what you're reading.

It's not necessarily always "abuse" so much as mis-parenting and/or unhealthy environments. I forget who said it but there's a quote that goes something like this: 'All healthy families share similar traits and patterns, but unhealthy families all have their own hosts of unique issues.'

For one source that hit home for me, see Addiction as an Attachment Disorder by Philip Flores

That is the first line of Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

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