Are we less likely to be addicts?

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I watch the show Celebrity Rehab and it's partying acting wild leading therefore into drugs/alcohol/sex addiction. I don't understand this behavior of partying etc. it's wild and immature behavior. I remember my speech teacher mentioning if you want to skip class and go to the beach fine but don't be upset if you fail my course UH IMO WHO WOULD BE STUPID ENOUGH TO SKIP CLASS!! !! ! FOR GOD SAKE GET A TUTOR TRY YOUR HARDEST AND GET A C AT THE LEAST!! ! Don't just skip class work and party etc. So IMO since this addiction behavior etc. IMO seems like NT type stuff (although maybe some people with ASDs have been addicts I'm curious to hear your stories on the issue.) I don't do drugs and casually drink while out with family at a restraunt otherwise I don't get hangover drunk or any wild behavior. Although I love me some flavored stuff Strawberry wine coolers/Daquari for me.

I can see your point; people with AS may be less likely to even consider the 'forbidden' path, let alone go down it. Also, most drinkers seem to start off with social drinking, so if you don't hang around in groups, then the opportunity doesn't arise.

That said, I can easily see it being harder for someone with AS to break bad habits, so perhaps the statistics even out.

People get addicted not just because they're partying. It can happen if they are using something to self medicate like for anxiety. Some people drink for instance because they hope it will give them social courage and they can meet someone.

Although alcohol can work as a social lubricant, which might make it attractive to people with Asperger's syndrome.

As has been said a lot of people drink/do drugs socially, and since people with AS generally don't have as big of a social circle as NT's it makes sense that not as many would be addicted to drugs.

Hmm... would you consider a special interest an addiction? Not being able to concentrate on much else? Perhaps, not in all cases, but with some, I know I have been pretty bad about it. I do enjoy the sensory experience of being drunk. Also, I'm told I act normally. However, I am not an alcoholic, I'm an information-holic, if you know what I mean.

Some people drink to shut off the incessant internal monologue so they can get to sleep.

Some people drink because that's the only way to tolerate living on this planetful of morons. To understand the monkeys, one must be able to think like a monkey.


And don't make the self-righteous mistake of assuming that chronic self-medication is synonymous with addiction. It is possible to do something because one chooses to do so, and not because one is compelled to do so. The smug and judgmental refuse to acknowledge a difference.

I am an alcoholic, now sober. The last thing I'm going to be is smug, self righteous or judgmental. I don't believe everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. I don't believe everyone who drinks too much is an alcoholic. The OP characterized drinkers as party animals and I was just trying clarify that some drink to self medicate. If you have the physiology of an addict (which I think is compulsion) then you have a good chance of becoming an addict.

and what sort of attitude do those who insist on it being both ways have, Willard?


Merle

No I don't think so. I think we just have a bias towards slightly different kinds of addiction.

We might be less likely to start an addition to social drugs, but I suspect that the compulsive side of our personalities makes us more likely to be susceptible to addition once exposed.

We might be more likely to end up addicted to Warcrack than to actual crack, for example.

agreed ^ addicton to research....

If anything I would think Aspies would be at greater risk for addictive behavior than NTs. Obsession and compulsion are key elements of addiction. Whether or not one is social or not or skips school to party has little or nothing to do with it. Addicts are more likely to act out alone than in company and no one makes a choice to be an addict. Take it from one who has been there.

Addicted to what? I have an aversion to breaking the law with illegal drugs, but I have been addicted to cigarettes, ephedrine, caffeine and television. All of which I have overcome by going completely cold turkey. I don't know if its an AS trait or just my own thing, but I find I can not do things "in moderation" at all.

When I was teen I did everything I could get my hands on.

A lesson from a former druggie, the best way to not get addicted to anything is to spend all your money on prostitutes instead of smack. Either that or you're born poor and don't have the money to finance an addiction. I've known people that'd blow $100 a day on coke and more if they had the money and it's so ridiculous what they are doing to pay for it all from burglary, sucking dick, robbery, stealing from their mother's purse, and just some low-life crap. Pawning the family plasma screen, there's no low they cannot go.

The best way to not get addicted is to be poor like I was and smoke weed instead.

I see no reason to believe we are less likely to be addicted. Many of us probably by early teens/adulthood have a number of risk factors for drug abuse/addiction. Combined with the tendencies to fixated behaviours/thinking and compulsivity, I think that it's probably not all that uncommon, and unlikely to be less common than among non-Austic people.

Check out Saul Hudson (Slash)'s description of his opiate fixation for a prototype of plausible Autistic addiction behavior (not saying he is Autistic as non-Autistic people can have traits and behaviours that overlap ours, just pointing to his self reported behaviour as a good model of the way a fixated perservation can combine with biological dependency to strengthen and reinforce addiction).