Just an anecdote, so feel free to ignore. I have a family member who is a drug addict. It seems obvious to me that the same part of their brain which is responsible for their addiction is also responsible for them being a pretty amazing athlete. They would practice sports obsessively, chasing those tiny little hits each time they made a basket or caught a ball, in a way that was categorically unlike every other kid I ever knew. I'm not saying the addiction mechanism works like that for everybody else, but it's pretty clear to me that this person would do extremely well in an environment without modern drugs.
If anyone is unfamiliar with the work of Gabor Mate, he basically says childhood trauma is the source of our addictions. Listen to his talk on Tim Ferris's podcast.
How does sensation seeking and novelty have to do with addiction? Isnt addiction the opposite? Addiction is the seeking of the same experience over and over again.
When it comes to addiction itself. There are people who can take heroin once and not be addicted while others who are addicted on the first try. The article is unclear about whether "addiction" correlates with novelty or whether novelty is actually correlating with trying out new drugs.
