We have been following a trail here at AddictionNews, from addiction backwards to the origins of behavioral compulsions and substance use disorders (SUDs). So far, we have covered the genetic origins of addiction, which show that a predisposition to substance use disorders extends across generations.

We’ve also looked at a far larger component in addiction causality: stress. In particular, traumatic stress and chronic stress show twice the correlation with SUDs as genetics. Traumatic stress goes hand-in-hand with addiction, with more than half of Americans being treated for SUDs having experienced childhood sexual abuse.

Taking our investigation one level deeper, recent scientific studies have shown that childhood stress is an accelerant that turns substance use into substance abuse. Those children who reported multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) had a substantially higher incidence of SUDs.

Today we are going yet a level deeper. We’re going to examine how extreme or prolonged stress contributes to the tendency for addiction. What, exactly, does stress do to the body that greases the rails for compulsive behavior? We’re going to start in 1960 with an article in American Anthropologist by Dr. George Ilsley Charlton (G. I. C.) Ingram, a renowned British hematologist who was teaching at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, which is now part of King’s College London.

In that article, Dr. Ingram described “displacement activity in human behavior.” This is behavior that arises out of frustrated desires. Dr. Ingram says it is “automatic and irrational” behavior caused by a preceding frustration.

Many of Dr. Ingram’s observations deal with the stress of being in society with others. Stress results in a heightened attention to one’s appearance and behavior around others. The nervousness that arises in the presence of others is displaced through what look like routine activities but are also self-soothing, such as shaking hands, ritual kissing, smoothing of the hair, smiling, winking, laughing, and adjusting one’s attire.

Dr. Ingram speculates that these behaviors are signaling mechanisms about group identity and status, particularly about projecting mating potential for adults and children past the age of puberty.

Dr. Ingram goes so far as to say that “useless hobbies,” that is, activities one pursues not for material gain or out of compulsion to earn a living, are a displacement of the drive to work. Hobbies are adopted to occupy time that is not required for other activities, indicating they fulfill a drive to be busy.

Stress arises with the presence of any animal or object until it can be identified as dangerous or benign. Children in preschool are already adept at sensing danger and opportunities for friendship among their peers. Dr. Ingram’s work predates modern theories of epigenetics that influence childhood development and are highly sensitive to stress.

In an article on stress and childhood development in a journal entitled The Future of Children, Dr. Ross A. Thompson, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California Davis Department of Psychology, says that children who grow up in a chronically stressful environment develop “neurobiological changes [that] may make them wary and vigilant.”

Dr. Ingram describes us as a species always scanning for threats and deriving satisfaction when none are found or threats are successfully avoided. Every meal is the resolution of the tension of appetite and uncertainty about how it will be abated. Every encounter with another human being resolves in sensations similar to those “which accompany the satisfaction of a bodily appetite.”

Along with the drive to work, Dr. Ingram identifies a drive to understand. It comes from the need to place each new sensation into context: to identify it, describe it, and discern whether it is good or bad. The need to understand also leads to magical thinking, which itself is conducive to addiction. Chronic stress leads to the ability to convince yourself that what you’re doing to yourself to cope is not that bad.

There is good news at the end of this study of stress and human development. Dr. Thompson writes:

[T]hanks to the plasticity of the developing brain, and other biological systems, the neurobiological response to chronic stress can be buffered and even reversed.

He recommends early intervention in children’s lives to encourage “warm and nurturing relationships between children and adults,” similar to the Parent Child Interactive Therapy we wrote about a few weeks ago. This builds resilience against “the neurobiological changes that accompany stress.”

Dr. Ingram recommends the formation of “useless hobbies” such as painting, fishing, and model making as ways to displace stress later in life. Dr. Ingram himself raised orchids and became an expert on beetles in his retirement.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published June 23, 2026.

Sources:

“Displacement Activity in Human Behavior,” American Anthropologist, December 1960.

“Stress and Childhood Development,” The Future of Children, Spring 2014.

“Understanding the potency of stressful early life experiences on brain and body function,” Metabolism, October 2008.

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