Originally Posted by MantaLady

I think the traits you mention as "alcoholic traits" are more behaviours whilst drunk and the consequenses. Not everyone is a nasty drunk, not everyone jumps in to bed with anyone who shows an interest, some are overly nice drunks. It affects everyone differently.

Addiction however and traits of people with addiction often start in childhood. When I was at rehab we talked a lot about identifying addictive behaviours we exhibited when we were young and stealing and hiding/hording sweets was something a lot of us had in common. At an early age we all learned a quick way to trigger our internal reward system with dopamine by getting a kick out of the sugar. As a child this can lead to behaviours that mean you will look for things that provide you with instant gratification, why work for it when you can take a short cut and trigger your reward centres in the brain.

Another thing we all had in common was that we didn't deal with things well as kids, we internalised or blocked out bad stuff. As we got older and started to feel feelings we didn't know how to cope so we turned to drink or drugs or whatever your poision is. Over the years of using many of us just didn't grow up and still had the emotional age of a teenager. So when we got stressed or upset or anxious we turned to the drugs as we had never really learned to adult properly. I had a lot of emotional growing up to do (and still do!) when I quit, I was 45 going on 12 a this point.

Not sure if this makes sense as I am not the best communicator! xx