Is addiction really a ‘special gift’ that, if harnessed, can be used for good rather than evil?
Yesterday I wrote about Amy Winehouse’s tragic death and wondered out loud about what role her art, and addiction, played in her demise, along with a long list of other great artists who killed themselves at the age of 27.
I picked up the paper this morning to read John Hopkins professor of Neuroscience David J. Linden’s research on why addicts tend to be among the most successful individuals if they manage not to kill themselves. (To be honest, I am embarrassed to say my mom sent me a link to an NPR interview with Linden weeks ago, but I was too lazy to read it.)
Linden’s research points to addiction being genetically correlated to blunted dopamine receptors. “Addicts want their pleasures more but like them less,” according to Linden. That’s because they have a problem in the pathway—the dopamine receptors that make normal people feel happy and complete—that should allow them to feel pleasure. That’s why addicts are a restless bunch, constantly in search of some artificial way to fill that gap.
Linden’s explicit conclusion based on his research is that the correlation between greatness, in pretty much all fields from art to business to politics, and addiction is not despite the addiction but in fact because of it. Greatness doesn’t cause addiction, but addictive qualities actually cause greatness. (Wow, why didn’t I think of that! I’d like to go find this guy Linden and give him a Good Men Project bear hug.)
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The very traits that make an addict crave pleasure make him or her more creative and take risks. “The risk-taking, novelty-seeking and obsessive personality traits often found in addicts can be harnessed to make them very effective in the workplace,” says Linden.
There’s a reason my mom sent me the NPR piece on Linden, and it all started ringing a bell for me. I’m no Kurt Cobain, but my dopamine receptors are pretty damn blunted. Food, booze, coffee, the Internet…I have had my struggles with addiction. When I got old enough to consider work an even semi-important objective, I also became an insane risk-taker in my professional life—before, during, and after getting sober.
I’ve had success far in excess of my talent (became CFO of huge company at 29, sold it, then at 31 saved a web company from certain death that went on to become $5 billion market cap, among other notable “wins”). Harder working and, frankly, smarter peers didn’t get as far. I always described that difference as their playing by the rules and my refusal to do so. But it seems there’s more to it than that.
As an addict I sought out risk whether or not it led to success or absolute gut-wrenching failure—and to be honest, there were more failures than successes. Over time I realized that no matter how many times you fail, the world measures you by your greatest successes, not your many failures. In fact, if you blow up and come back, it’s called heroic. So my strategy was just to keep rolling the dice until I hit the jackpot. Normal people wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t not do it.
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In the end, as Linden points out, it came down to risk tolerance. As an addict I sought out risk whether or not it led to success or absolute gut-wrenching failure—and to be honest, there were more failures than successes. Over time I realized that no matter how many times you fail, the world measures you by your greatest successes, not your many failures. In fact, if you blow up and come back, it’s called heroic. So my strategy was just to keep rolling the dice until I hit the jackpot. Normal people wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t not do it. It was the only way I could function. Get slapped to the ground, pick yourself up, and shoot for the moon again. “You can’t go lower than zero,” I would tell myself, “so losing doesn’t matter.”
The killer—literally, when it came to Amy Winehouse, who had enough fame and fortune to last any non-addict a lifetime—is the inability of the jackpot, once you finally hit it, to make any real dent in those dopamine receptors. The “high” from even the most stunning triumph lasts about a minute and a half. Then the restlessness sets back in.
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One of the leading physical chemistry researchers in the world, who I met in a church basement, always described it this way: “The prize I win today quickly goes into that ‘file of stuff that I deserved but someone has been screwing me out of for years’ and is promptly forgotten in favor of the research outcome that will stun the world. The problem is that outcome wins me another prize which goes into that same file and is immediately replaced with the need to do something even bigger and better. It never ends, and I’m never satisfied. Even for an instant.”
There’s one more element that makes us addicts superhuman, when we don’t kill ourselves. The obsessive character trait is often combined with an ADHD-like (or in fact, diagnosed ADHD) hyper focus followed by non-focus or, in fact, an inability to change focus or keep everyday things in perspective. A family member who is both an addict and has been formally diagnosed with ADHD recently described this phenomenon as zoning out punctuated by “bursts of focus.”
I had never heard it described that way, but it is me and my life in a nutshell. I aspire to be a slug. I really don’t like doing much of anything if I can get away with it. My friends often ask me what the hell I am doing with my time (I generally don’t have a good answer) and get more than a little perplexed at my apparent success, financial and otherwise. What happens is that I get obsessed with something for no good reason other than an addictive attachment. And that mobilizes a burst of focus during which time I know that I do things most others couldn’t and wouldn’t want to.
That extreme focus is a secret edge that allows me my modicum of greatness. I suspect for many other addictive personalities—those who write songs or start companies like Facebook or rule countries—it works the same way. In sports nomenclature it’s a “zone” where that 100 mph fastball slows down in the eyes of Ted Williams and becomes something he can smash rather than miss. And as soon as it is over, I go back to my slugdom. I have a couch in my office, which is in my home these days, where I like to nap during weekdays when I really should be working like the rest of the world.
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The question, of course, that remains is how does an addict, even a sober one, possibly cope with never feeling enough pleasure to slow down or fight off the need to do the deal or write the novel that fills the void for an instant. All the premature deaths of amazing talent suggest that the upside of addiction may be superpowers and success, but the downside is still devastating. For me, it has been particularly challenging to have a somewhat normal amount of patience, with myself or others, and to learn how to socialize with any semblance of grace. I’ve come a long way, but I still wouldn’t call myself “normal.” My non-addict friends get a kick out of my insanity, but they still really don’t know what to make of me. I’m kind of a freak to them. So I just try to embrace my freak.
Perhaps the answer for us addicts is to see addiction not so much as a pathology—a disease—but a special gift. As Linden concludes, “So, when searching for your organization’s next leader, look for someone with attenuated dopamine function: someone who is never satisfied with the status quo, someone who wants the feeling of success more than others—but likes it less.”
And, of course, try not to kill yourself, but instead try to enjoy life for longer than a nanosecond, even if your brain isn’t wired for it.
—Photo timtak (main) esparta (inset)/Flickr
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For more on addiction, see our Special Section:
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Addiction.
Read more on Addiction on The Good Life.
Addicts is really a super gift as it make normal people feel cheerful and complete and let them to feel pleasure.
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Interesting research by David J. Linden’s. Although in my opinion each case is one case. The question that comes to my mind is if addiction is genetically correlated to blunted dopamine receptors does this means that people gets this blunted dopamine receptors by their genes?
Thanks for an intriguing article. You might want to read Princeton’s John D. Gartner “The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of Success) in America”.
According to Gartner, hypomaniaI is a feature of entrepreneurial types. I think hypomania is a factor for many, if not all, addicts. Bill Wilson certainly noticed the connection. He didn’t use the same language, but he was talking about the same phenomena.
I’m not totally convinced.. Will have to read the original article. It seems like selection bias is hard at work here.
Matlack took greater risk, and had great success.
Ascribing your success to ‘taking risks’ is essentially the same as saying you had ‘guts’ to try, and then you got lucky, because there is a very large cemetery of other risk takers (addicts perhaps) who did not get lucky, and hence they didn’t get to write this article, and hence you have never heard of them.
Risk taking is a factor, that’s all.
yeah. you just described myself. bursts of focus and then slugdom…
hitler too. “He would doze for days like a crocodile in the Nile mud before erupting into frantic activity. ” drove his generals and the other Nazis mad apparently.
I’ve always tried to explain to people that I’m inherently lazy, but they see my accomplishments and assume I’m not. This really explains me so very well. Thanks for sharing your insights, they make me feel less alone.
This is a really interesting perspective on addiction. Read “Mastery”, by Robert Green.
I’d like to suggest reading the book ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He argues that human happiness consists in occasions of ‘peak experience’, defined by flow, a state in which arousal and control are perfectly optimised. He offers an account similar to what you’re arguing here, albeit evidence based and non-pathologising.
Nice spin. I can run with this.
Note* Just lost everything I had during a 6 month cocaine relapse. Kids,, finace, job, house..the works…all within the first month toothen in the second month my father passed away from brain cancer…wow.
I relate to this piece. My current job keeps me on the road traveling to buy “widgets” for my company and lots of different kinds . It is a thrill to find them and then negotiate the price. I am always looking for more and trying to be the best. I never feel satisfied in any area of my life whether parenting, work, athletic activities, etc. TM we may be kindred spirits.
Wow! Thank you for that.
Also what in that case to do?
AT LAST somone has explained what is the reason for the tortured brilliant all over the place existance of us strange freaks/ For a time I did find a profession that fitted in quite well with this disposition Its called “community development” – but even that’s not enough!
@VWFringe – That’s an interesting idea, that people with ADHD have learned to avoid dopamine- increasing behaviour and thus are always in withdrawal from it, but where did you get that idea from may I ask?
I think addicts are just missing out on one of their needs and they try to fill the void with something else.
I am a Super Addict
I think a better term for ADHD would be Reward System Avoidant. The brain structures develop several years later than our peers, by age seven, but we don’t recognize the skill as important due to family stress, the inability to emotionally bond, and learn to avoid the dopamine, but are constantly in a state of chemical withdrawal without it – it is genetically the human reward system. So, we’ve been taught, by rich people who own all the TV stations, and newspapers, to see people who have this condition as criminals, not as people who need help understanding what most… Read more »
Really interesting comment and commentrary but what happens when you add childhood trauma to the mix? – it simply becomes too much for most to handle unless they are privileged with wealth or sufficient education and they get called addicts or homeless and become the ones no one can tolerate. But also isnt it the case that the trauma causes the addiction?: The article and this comment seems to imply its simply genetic make up but I ve yet to meet anyone who has experience childhood trauma who isnt prone to addiction and usually a much more chaotic and less… Read more »
John,
You have never worked with addicts in a recovery capacity, have you?
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Thank you for such a concise, thought provoking article. As a recovering addict this made a world of sense to me.
I wish this argument came with a step by step instruction manual for those of us who fall into the attenuated dopamine function category but are desperate not to become addicts. I would love to “succeed” in an artistic field but my bursts of creative energy never seem to live long enough to see the light of day. I also have a history of addiction and am so cautious with it that I think I’ve driven it away. I’m glad you started this conversation because I feel less alone, however I now feel more frustrated that I can’t do anything… Read more »
Tom, I admire your candour. And naturally, respect your point of view. But I strongly disagree. “Over time I realized that no matter how many times you fail, the world measures you by your greatest successes, not your many failures. In fact, if you blow up and come back, it’s called heroic.” And this is how stuff like the current global financial crisis comes to happen. Juggling insane risk becomes the norm in business. Modern commerce, in the last several decades, has demanded it. Tom, you were lucky. In my observation, most people who regard risk-taking as a virtue in… Read more »
i think the argument is a slippery slope. Often when we equate our mental health challenge as a “gift” is exactly the point where we stop seeking the help we often need for it. I do, though, like the underlying argument of accepting our abilities/brains for what they are and using them for our advantage. Thanks for this post and sharing yourself openly! I continue to really dig this great “good men project” site!! I wish I had found it a long time ago!
cheers.
What about the issues that lead a person to the habits that become addictions? There is a certain amount of wanting to escape reality that leads to many addictions. Especially when it comes to substance abuse.
Great information either way! Love the bumper sticker and the Ultraman pic!
This is a great write Tom. I am not always sure that in my life, my experiences after active addiction equate “risk taking” per se, but a willingness to charge forth with less regard for outcomes surely does. An ability to withstand, and survive the world, as it comes is the greatest gift though I get tired. Tired, I believe to a point where the “average Joe” may simply call it quits. For that I am daily grateful, because I’ve needed it. So, with that in mind, I think the premise of the article is right on. Where my frustration… Read more »