Specialists in Psychology distinguish different theories that put in common the main characteristics of the personality of an alcohol dependent person.
Personality structure theory
From the theory of personality structure it is complicated to establish a pattern of alcoholic personality, although it is true that the habits of alcoholism produce the settlement of habits that take root as traits, since the alcoholic builds his life around the substance.
This theory refers to the alcoholic’s habits and how alcohol intake influences his behavior, more specifically behavioral disinhibition.
The alcoholic personality appears when the disease has become established. About half of alcoholics have no previous personality problems. However, there are certain personality disorders that are extremely vulnerable to substance use, headed by borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, which together with the presence of alcohol addiction make up what is called dual pathology.
Given that the essential characteristic of borderline personality disorder is instability, it increases vulnerability to the consumption of psychoactive substances in general. A marked impulsivity characteristic of this personality significantly hinders tolerance to frustration, favors the appearance of short-circuit reactions, and limits a complete and adjusted vision of reality, which makes substance use a pathological sense of control.
Psychodynamic theories
Psychodynamic theories postulate hypotheses related to the immediate satisfaction of impulses, intolerance to aversive internal states, the rapid search for pleasure and the radical escape from pain, which lead the person to find immediate gratification in the ingestion of alcohol.
Socio-environmental theory
The socio-environmental perspective understands the use of alcohol as a facilitator of interpersonal relationships through behavioral disinhibition, i.e., it favors the perception of warmth in the bonding sensation.
Family theory
Family theory postulates that alcoholic parents “project” their alcoholism on their children by identification or imitation. Dysfunctional or dysfunctional families, in which an extremely rigid, inflexible, normative climate predominates, can provoke a kind of “asphyxia situation” in which alcohol acts as a disinhibitor of this tension and rigidity.
Systemic theory
Finally, from the systemic theory, pathological alcohol intake is understood not as a disorder related to the substance, but understood as its action in a complex system such as the person’s psyche, i.e., that alcohol solves, even in a pathological way, some problem generating distress that exceeds the person’s adaptive coping resources.