Drinking With Psychopathy

Is it the same for us as it is for neurotypicals...

Photo by Jeff Siepman on Unsplash

Once upon a time I had a friend who really liked to drink and would sometimes insist I come along with her. She was a much larger person than I am, but even though I could match her drink for drink, she would get intoxicated, and I would not. She always wondered why. It actually annoyed her a great deal.

Granted, some people are simply better at holding their liquor than others, but I don’t think that is what is happening when it comes to the difference between her drinking and my own experience with it.

When Kevin Dutton tried transcranial magnetic stimulation he got a glimpse of what it is like to be psychopathic, or at least slightly so.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (or TMS) was developed by Anthony Barker and his colleagues at the University of Sheffield in 1985.

The basic premise of TMS is that the brain operates using electrical signals, and that, as with any such system, it’s possible to modify the way it works by altering its electrical environment. Standard equipment consists of a powerful electromagnet, placed on the scalp, that generates steady magnetic-field pulses at specific frequencies, and a plastic-enclosed coil to focus those magnetic pulses down through the surface of the skull onto discrete brain regions, thus stimulating the underlying cortex.

Now, one of the things that we know about psychopaths is that the light switches of their brains aren’t wired up in quite the same way as the rest of ours are—and that one area particularly affected is the amygdala, a peanut-size structure located right at the center of the circuit board. The amygdala is the brain’s emotion-control tower. It polices our emotional airspace and is responsible for the way we feel about things. But in psychopaths, a section of this airspace, the part that corresponds to fear, is empty.

In the light-switch analogy, TMS may be thought of as a dimmer switch. As we process information, our brains generate small electrical signals. These signals not only pass through our nerves to work our muscles but also meander deep within our brains as ephemeral electrical data shoals, creating our thoughts, memories, and feelings. TMS can alter the strength of those signals. By passing an electromagnetic current through precisely targeted areas of the cortex, we can turn the signals either up or down.

Turn down the signals to the amygdala, of course, and you’re well on the way to giving someone a psychopath makeover. Indeed, Liane Young and her team in Boston have since kicked things up a notch and demonstrated that applying TMS to the right temporoparietal junction—a neural ZIP code within that neighborhood—has significant effects not just on lying ability but also on moral-reasoning ability: in particular, ascribing intentionality to others’ actions.

In which, with the aid of a psychopath makeover, I’ll have another go at the experiment, only this time with a completely different head on—thanks to a dose of TMS.

The effects of the treatment should wear off within half an hour,” Nick says, steering me over to a specially calibrated dentist’s chair, complete with headrest, chin rest, and face straps. “Think of TMS as an electromagnetic comb, and brain cells—neurons—as hairs. All TMS does is comb those hairs in a particular direction, creating a temporary neural hairstyle. Which, like any new hairstyle, if you don’t maintain it, quickly goes back to normal of its own accord.” Nick sits me down in the sinister-looking chair and pats me, a little too reassuringly for my liking, on the shoulder. By the time he’s finished strapping and bolting me in, I look like Hannibal Lecter at LensCrafters. He positions the TMS coils, which resemble the handle part of a giant pair of scissors, over the middle section of my skull, and turns on the machine.

Instantly it feels as if there’s a geeky homunculus miner buried deep inside my head, tapping away with a rock hammer. “That’s the electromagnetic induction passing down your trigeminal nerve,” Nick explains. “It’s one of the nerves responsible for sensation in the face, and for certain motor functions like biting, chewing, and swallowing. You can probably feel it going through your back teeth, right?”

I nod.

“What I’m actually trying to find,” he continues, “is the specific part of your motor cortex responsible for the movement of the little finger of your right hand. Once we’ve pinpointed that, I can then use it as a kind of base camp, if you like, from which to plot the coordinates of the brain regions we’re really interested in: your amygdala and your moral-reasoning area.” “Well, you’d better get on with it,” I mutter. “Because much more of this, and I’m going to end up strangling you.” Nick smiles. “Blimey,” he says. “It must be working already.”

Sure enough, after about 20 seconds, I feel an involuntary twitch exactly where Nick has predicted. Weak, at first. Then gradually getting stronger. Pretty soon my right pinkie is really ripping it up. It’s not the most comfortable feeling in the world—sitting strapped in a chair, in a dimly lit chamber, knowing that you don’t have any control over the actions your body is performing. It’s creepy. Demeaning. Disorienting … and kind of puts a downer on the whole free-will thing. My only hope is that Nick isn’t in the mood to start clowning around. With the piece of gear he’s waving about, he could have me doing cartwheels round the lab.

“OK,” he says. “We now know the location of the areas we need to target. So let’s get started.” My little finger stops moving as he repositions his spooky neurological wand in the force field above my head. It’s then just a matter of sitting there for a while as my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right temporoparietal junction get an electromagnetic comb-over. TMS can’t penetrate far enough into the brain to reach the emotion and moral-reasoning precincts directly. But by damping down or turning up the regions of the cerebral cortex that have links with such areas, it can simulate the effects of deeper, more incursive influence.

It isn’t long before I start to notice a fuzzier, more pervasive, more existential difference. Before the experiment, I’d been curious about the time scale: how long it would take me to begin to feel the rush. Now I had the answer: about 10 to 15 minutes. The same amount of time, I guess, that it would take most people to get a buzz out of a beer or a glass of wine.

The effects aren’t entirely dissimilar. An easy, airy confidence. A transcendental loosening of inhibition. The inchoate stirrings of a subjective moral swagger: the encroaching, and somehow strangely spiritual, realization that hell, who gives a s—, anyway?

There is, however, one notable exception. One glaring, unmistakable difference between this and the effects of alcohol. That’s the lack of attendant sluggishness. The enhancement of attentional acuity and sharpness. An insuperable feeling of heightened, polished awareness. Sure, my conscience certainly feels like it’s on ice, and my anxieties drowned with a half-dozen shots of transcranial magnetic Jack Daniel’s. But, at the same time, my whole way of being feels as if it’s been sumptuously spring-cleaned with light. My soul, or whatever you want to call it, immersed in a spiritual dishwasher. So this, I think to myself, is how it feels to be a psychopath. To cruise through life knowing that no matter what you say or do, guilt, remorse, shame, pity, fear—all those familiar, everyday warning signals that might normally light up on your psychological dashboard—no longer trouble you.

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels good. But what if it’s as tough as old boots? What if one’s conscience has an infinite, unlimited pain threshold and doesn’t bat an eye when others are screaming in agony?

Back in the chair, wired up to the counters and bleepers, I sit through the horror show again: the images modified, so as to avoid habituation. This time, however, it’s a different story. “I know the guy before me found these images nauseating,” I hear myself saying. “But actually, to be honest, this time round I’m finding it hard to suppress a smile.”

The lines and squiggles corroborate my confession. Whereas previously, such was my level of arousal that it was pretty much a minor miracle that the state-of-the-art EEG printer hadn’t blown up and burst into flames, my brain activity after the psychopath makeover is significantly reduced. Perhaps not quite as genteelly undulating as Andy’s. But getting there, certainly. It’s a similar story when it comes to heart rate and skin conductance. In fact, in the case of the latter, I actually eclipse Andy’s reading.

“Does that mean it’s official?” I ask Nick, as we scrutinize the “gures. “Can I legitimately claim to be cooler than Andy McNab?” He shrugs. “I suppose,” he says. “For now, anyway. But you’d better make the most of it while you can. You’ve got a quarter of an hour. Max.”

I shake my head. Already I sense the magic wearing off. The electromagnetic sorcery starting to wane. I feel, for instance, considerably more married than I did a bit earlier—and considerably less inclined to go up to Nick’s research assistant and ask her out for a drink. Instead I go with Nick—to the student bar—and bury my previous best on the Gran Turismo car-racing video game. I floor it all the way round. But so what—it’s only a game, isn’t it?

“I wouldn’t want to be with you in a real car at the moment,” says Nick. “You’re definitely still a bit ballsy.” I feel great. Not quite as good as before, perhaps, when we were in the lab. Not quite as … I don’t know … impregnable. But up there, for sure. Life seems full of possibility, my psychological horizons much broader. Why shouldn’t I piss off to Glasgow this weekend for my buddy’s stag party, instead of dragging myself over to Dublin to help my wife put her mother in a nursing home? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? This time next year, this time next week even, it would all be forgotten. Who Dares Wins, right?

I take a couple of quid from the table next to ours—left as a tip, but who’s going to know?—and try my luck on another couple of machines. I get to $100,000 on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” but crash and burn because I refuse to go 50-50. Soon things start to change. Gran Turismo the second time round is a disappointment. I’m suddenly more cautious, and finish way down the field. Not only that, I notice a security camera in the corner and think about the tip I’ve just pocketed. To be on the safe side, I decide to pay it back.

What does this have to do with psychopathy and drinking, you might ask, and in reality, it really doesn’t. It has more to do with neurotypicals and drinking, or rather what they are attempting to achieve by doing so.

What he is describing is the natural state for psychopaths. It is normal for us to be relaxed, lack worry, not be concerned about the moral implications of things, we can lie easily and convincingly, we do not feel afraid or concerned about things, we do not have things that weigh on us heavily, we are simply living in the moment and enjoying life.

What he said here:

The effects aren’t entirely dissimilar. An easy, airy confidence. A transcendental loosening of inhibition. The inchoate stirrings of a subjective moral swagger: the encroaching, and somehow strangely spiritual, realization that hell, who gives a s—, anyway?

That’s psychopathy in a nutshell, more or less, and it is my understanding that this state is what neurotypicals are trying to reach by drinking. It is considered a desirable experience that they are chasing.

Some neurotypicals enjoy drinking for the sake of the taste and texture of the alcohol. I know many people who very much enjoy drinking wine for this very purpose. However, a large number of people want to alter their mental and emotional state and do so by self-medication. My friend above was one such person. She drank for the emotional release of it all.

As this is the desired outcome there is a willingness and eagerness to get drunk. This is the place that the person wants to be, so they shift their mentality to accommodate it faster. It’s an escape for them, and one that psychopaths cannot understand.

For a psychopath, there is no emotional release to chase when drinking. It is simply something that is done because it is socially needed for the mask, or because it is something that we enjoy doing for the sake of it. However, lacking the emotional alteration, alcohol has a very different impact on us than it does on neurotypicals.

Alcohol messes with my speech and it messes with my coordination if I drink enough of it. What it does not do, however, is impair my memory. Regardless of how much I drink, there isn’t a point where I become blackout drunk. I may not be able to stand steady on my feet, but I can relate all the details of the night prior on the following morning, much to people’s surprise.

The difference between psychopaths drinking and neurotypicals drinking is significant, and that means that the motivations are different as well. Chasing a state of emotional release is a very enticing thing for many. I believe that many people want to get drunk as quickly as possible. That is the state that they are looking to be in, and therefore invite that place into themselves. In other words, you will become drunk faster because you want to be drunk for the sake of being drunk. That is the point.

That will never be the case for a psychopath. Instead, we are dealing purely with the physical effects of alcohol on the system, and therefore I think we have a purer experience with it. There is no state of suggestion, jus the cold reality of how alcohol interacts with out systems. I could be wrong about this though.

Medications often have a paradoxical effect on me. It is perplexing for doctors to deal with, and often it gets to the point where it is noticeably frustrating for them to deal with. To the point that they would like to say I am making it up, but they have the physical evidence in front of them that demonstrates what I am saying. Due to a difference in the way our brains process chemistry, it is possible that alcohol falls into this category, but I truly believe that the emotional aspect is very much in play on the neurotypical side of things, and is very absent on the psychopath side of things.

It seems that either we are capable of processing alcohol in a different way, therefore leaving us with a much higher tolerance for it, or because alcohol provides no emotional changes, such as release and emotional relief that it does with neurotypicals, there isn’t the sacrifice of control at its alter that many people willingly make so they can feel good. We don’t need alcohol to feel good. What you are chasing is our natural state. With that being the case, and our lack of ability to be addicted to anything, drinking doesn’t have the same purpose for us as it does for the general population.

It is something that I have considered for a good while, but there are obviously things about drinking that neurotypicals experience that we do not. If I am missing anything, let me know.

Psychopathy’s Double Edge