Smarie78

I laid in bed awake last night thinking about this and wondering about the link toward addiction to alcohol being more about impulse control than anything else. I will tell you why this came to mind and why I am boggled by the idea.

I suffer from an ICD, namely, trichotillomania. This means that for no apparent reason and despite the negative impact it has on me - along with knowing full well the consequences - I pull out my hair. In particular my eyelashes. I am not drawn to pull out the hair on my head or really any other place as much as I am drawn to my lashes. This is a thing and has been a thing in my life for the last 15 years or so.

I have tried to stop multiple times and always fail. I never know when it's going to happen. I can have a great day, a terrible day, an average day. I can even wistfully have a day where I look in the mirror in excitement that the lashes are finally growing back and feel motivation to never pull again. That I am on my way to being and looking normal. But it doesn't matter, as if by random selection, it will be the same day that later on when I am in bed and cannot fall asleep, my hands will wander up to my eyelids and I will tell myself "just one". When I pull just one the feeling is so intoxicating that suddenly I am saying "one more", because I am in the zone and I don't want to stop even though I know all the waiting for them to grow is being destroyed and I can just stop at any time. Yet I keep going, and suddenly every hair has been pulled and my lids are again completely bald.

This happened to me last night. Despite almost being to the point where I could leave the house without liner, I made the conscious choice to revert back to something I absolutely hate the effects of afterward. This happens over and over again, no matter what I promise myself. I wake up mad at myself and ashamed. Why did I make the choice and feel like I couldn't stop? I started to wonder about alcoholism and why A's drink. Could the compulsion be the same? Would I have not pulled last night or all those other nights if I knew that doing so would mean I was going to hurt my family and lose my job and possibly even die? Sure the consequences are clearly not as life altering as they would be were I to replace pulling with drinking. In other words, the consequences for pulling are minor, albeit distressful. But were they not just minor and instead major, I am not convinced I would have stopped.

The reason this weighed so heavily on me isn't just because the A in my life drinks despite knowing the dire consequences it has and continues to have on his life. It's because treating alcoholism like an ICD might give more power toward treatment than just trying to tame the beast with traditional methods that have high rates of failure. It is widely known that treating trich is very challenging and most people do not recover despite understanding the insanity of it. There are people walking around completely bald on their head because they can't stop pulling even though they physically have the ability to stop their hand from heading toward their crown and understand that when they do it they are making themselves look a way they don't want to look.

I'm not a scientist and have no data to back up what I am proposing, I just wonder out there if this has been looked at. Perhaps my inability to feel anger toward the A in my life who has really destroyed so much even knowing full well that when he drinks what can happen, is because I look at things like my trich and really wonder, are the nominal consequences the real reason why I continue? Would I somehow stop if I knew it was destroying my life and that of my families? Because I certainly went through a similar bargaining last night ("just one") despite what i really wanted if I could just stop. If it's impulse control that my brain has not fully developed, can alcoholism be just another behavior issue?

Ariesagain

This is an interesting theory. There may be similarities, for sure.

But...is this you looking for a way to rationalize his behavior and re-classify it into "something that I can live with"?

biminiblue

Well, alcohol absolutely impairs executive function/impulse control.

A lot of alcoholics are self-medicating other mental health issues, including adult ADD, bipolar, OCD etcetra...so of course there are similarities. Alcohol begins as a stimulant, very seductive for someone whose brain is going too fast such as it does in those disorders. I know I drank to shut up my speedy brain. Then it becomes so relaxing to be able to do so that I had to keep returning to that quiet. And then, I could find no quiet without it. That's how it gets its claws in.

In sobriety I've spent a lot of time meditating and exercising which both also slow down my jumpy brain.

Smarie78

Noooo...definitely not, though can't blame you for theorizing that. Makes perfect sense. But the thing is, overtime... I can't live with it. That I know. It reminds me of when my sister once asked me, "Let's say he was a child molester because he was molested as a child, would you stay with him and have a child with him?". Sorry for the disturbing example, but that's really the parallel for me. In other words, regardless of what caused a behavior, it doesn't make the behavior acceptable. Really, the reason it came to mind was again my inability to understand why someone would stick themselves in a sick cycle knowing that the consequences would make what they are trying to run from, a million times worse.

He drinks to escape and run from responsibilities he feels are too big for him to handle. He feels trapped and drinking lets him hide. As you know, he drinks severely and isn't the 'drinking for fun and laughs' kind. It seems impulsive for him despite the horrific sickness (I can't imagine anyone likes the taste of hairspray and sitting in their own pi**). So last night as I lay in bed pulling I started thinking about whether it was like that for him. Doing what I know was wrong and going against my end goal because I felt I 'couldn't stop'. More than anything it was me trying to understand the psyche - the method of the madness. Not to justify, but to put some logic around something so illogical.

Smarie78

Interesting. And I agree that alcoholics are self-medicating other things. But I still wonder if the drug of the alcohol itself is tied to those same receptors that give the wash of calm over someone like me who with each pull, hates that I am doing it, but can't stop the power of that high. In other words, is it just a compulsion that feeds the same part of the brain that other compulsions feed? I think addiction treatment needs more medical research than just 12 steps. I am not at all against them and know they have helped many people, but with the relapse rate so high, couldn't science find better ways to treat it if they can tie it to some kind of biology? And again, I'm not a scientist so maybe they already do. But I sometimes wonder if Alcoholism isn't just a branch of something like OCD.

biminiblue

There already is a lot of research about the effects of alcohol on neurotransmitters, and the effects on the brain of long-term alcohol abuse. The problem is getting alcoholics to prefer treatment over alcohol - plus there isn't a good way to research ethically - they have to use people who come into the system other ways.

What are you doing to address your trich? I have some issues with my skin that sometimes get triggered by stress and it's a battle for sure. I've tried different medications, mostly SSRIs, but I don't tolerate the side-effects. The best things for me is reducing stress, regular exercise, eight hours of sleep, limiting caffeine, and good nutrition combined with regular meditation/prayer. Xanax helped me a lot, but it's an addictive benzo so I got off that. I really like being able to control it with natural remedies.

Smarie78

Interesting bimini - I've actually kind of given up on addressing it except for trying to just stop on my own and saying I am never doing it again (sound familiar?). I have tried CBT and was already on a very low dose of SSRI (Paxil) before the onset back then. Sometimes I wonder if it caused it but then again I had been taking it for years before the trich showed up. I continue to take 20mg of Paxil every 4 days or so mostly to combat the withdrawal effects vs feeling I need it any longer. I initially went on Paxil after the onset of an anxiety disorder. Not sure where the trich came from but would love to beat that some day.

I also suffer from skin picking too :/

biminiblue

Hm. What does your doctor say about maybe upping the Paxil dose or switching SSRIs?

I can't take SSRIs because of a genetic glitch I have in a liver enzyme that slows my metabolic ability with certain drug pathways, and Paxil is one of them. Paxil is what they prescribed to me for the skin thing, too. It is a treatment for OCD/obsession. I found out about my "Intermediate Metabolizer" diagnosis because I worked with a company that did/does pharmacogentic DNA testing and I was able to get the test done for free. It has been an interesting piece to my personal struggle with addictions in general and obsessive thought in particular. Since I can't take the drugs I had to look at other ways to treat it.

I really think there is a lot to be said for "having to find another way." I couldn't continue to do the behaviors, and I had to believe that I could find a solution. Have you been going to Al Anon? Or do you have any personal faith? I had to believe that healing was possible. Then I had to act as if.

Centered3

My therapist thinks there's an OCD link and I completely agree.

Whether it's drinking, skin-picking, hair pulling, binging, etc. there seems to be all an underlying reason: trying to avoid the discomfort of feeling our feelings.

JamesfrmEngland

One of the consistent findings in experiments is that addicts lack impulse control

Dee74

How do we find it again then, James?

D

Forward12

There have been a few studies that have linked a mental defect in alcoholics in the rational part of the brain, which can be something helpful to finding a cure. It is pretty nuts when you think about it that in the alcoholic mind, that short "high" far outweighs the devastation it causes, yet for some reason, this seems worth it.
Though it sounds like you have some pretty serious issues yourself to work on, self harm is no joke. Both get worse over time without solid treatment. Perhaps go back to, or start seeing a psychiatrist?

Smarie78

Oddly enough I never thought of pulling as self-harm. Hmm...strange to read it that way but I suppose that's correct? This may be splitting hairs (no pun intended!), but where then does nail biting fit in? Or say cuticle biting since you are in fact harming the skin? Curious now!

PhoenixJ

Perhaps talk to a therapist about this. The whole basis of CBT, for example is to change thoughts and feelings through action and behaviour. I would be careful to adapt theory from one disorder to an addiction.

Centered3

If I may chime in here, what worked for me is learning to "pause". It was utterly impossible to do before AA. I would get angry if a therapist (she was an incompetent one, but that's not the point) even mentioned it because I thought if I could pause I would have. But now I can do it almost naturally.

It's in the big book here: "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action." It took a lot of practice but it has helped me greatly with my lack of impulse control over my addiction compulsions.

Centered3

My response is not my personal experience but the experience of a childhood friend. So with that I say, "definitely self-harm".

Try to practice self love instead. You deserve it.

I'm wondering if a professional can teach you some kind of affirmation or mantra you can say to yourself to interrupt the behavior?

120degrees0ut

Great Thread OP. ive been thinking about alotta things; why i choose to do this, ETC. I do know that my impulse control is messed up. Gonna read more about Impulse Control Disorder.

CelticZebra

What an interesting thread!
The Alcoholic or substance abuser has the effect that alcohol or DOC has on the brain which actually changes the way of it's functioning, this is how it appears to get worse over time and is resistant to cognitive therapy while in active addiction as the 'override' has become as natural as a primal instinct to eat in the damaged brain.
The anxiety sufferer is reinforcing the 'soothing effect' of the 'habit' without the 'self-medicating' hence why talking therapies and retraining the ways in which we think can be more beneficial to those without those addiction problems in the first instance and further help as required to allow changes to occur without further distress of feeling helpless against our own thought processes.
Not sure if this makes sense but I know what I'm trying to convey...
Live peacefully in the now

Pathwaytofree

This makes sense because of the seemingly out of control obsession and compulsion to drink despite known consequences.