It's All About Drinking

A plethora of personality disorders run concurrently with addiction...NOT ALL cases, but a sizeable majority...

Mine is definately an alcho. He couldnt do anything 'normal' in life without having alcohol, even going to the shops he had to have beer. Now he is pretending to have given up drinking in order to look good ( to see his son). He is putting on a full 'mask' to look good in the eyes of the law. What a joke.

It is a drunk. Always will be.

I'm a recovering alcoholic and I go to a support group. I have also had psychodynamic therapy over the years. I think I had some narc traits (as a teenager & in my 20s) but I had a breakthrough in psychotherapy that really diminished a lot of my more narcissistic-style thinking, (grandiosity, wanting to be taken seriously etc). I would say my character is much more easily identified along co-dependent lines although this has diminished a lot as well due to therapy. I definitely don't have the lack of empathy, interpersonal exploitativeness, or superficial charm of narcissism. I am not image-oriented etc... I would not say that alcoholism or addiction is necessarily an indicator of malignant narcissism. I have met a fair number of recovering alkies who have narc traits that are fairly severe but I have also met a lot of recovering alkies who are genuine, have no difficulty with empathy, are not concerned with image and are not exploitative. I would say that alcoholism will leave a person for a period of time with a more immature, needy, self-centred style but this can be reduced through continuous sobriety, psychotherapy, spirituality etc. I don't see it as an indicator of a personality disorder. (Of course if I was a narc I would deny being a narc but I genuinely think that I have only met a few alcoholics who I believe appeared to have full blown NPD.)

My maternal grandfather was a Narc/alcoholic/partier. My former Narc boss was an alcoholic. He claimed to be sober. Sometimes he looked jaundiced from drinking. He claimed that he had given up the bottle, but I doubt it. My obese Narc coworker would go from bragging about his sobriety to bragging about how much he drank(?!) My former Narc coworker at my current job would come to work drunk. He'd talk about his girlfriend's injuries (she broke her ankle, broke her wrist, at one point she was wheelchair bound).. she made more $$ than him.. sometimes I wondered if her mysterious&frequent injuries came from drinking. The ex-Psych prof was rumored to be an alcoholic. That was the explanation for him wearing dark glasses, to hide his bloodshot eyes. He'd talk about how he wanted to get me drunk, that it would make me more relaxed. He'd reminisce about how people brought wine to class when he went to the University of Virginia (this isn't BS, it is a tradition there) During the final D&D, he was teaching an off-campus class on Shakespeare's Sonnets that consisted of drinking wine (I wasn't part of it) He still might've been hitting the bottle AFTER his girlfriend moved in. He'd say "I wish I didn't drink." Over 4 years, he went from being handsome, tanned&slender to a fat drunk. Not a pleasant sight. The D&D was difficult for me... but he was the one getting drunk. And he was a TEACHER.

Lobo....it seems like they have just an addictive part of their personality? Alcohol......drugs......sex....... .???? Mine is a work aholic. I know it doesn't share the physical parts like alcohol...... But definately the mental parts........ESpecially on my end of the relationship. Weird similarities.

Lobo, My ex narc is a raving Alkie/ Cokehead. The girl he is with now will just get the same treatment i did once the honeymoon period weres off, And she will have to hide her handbag and purse because my ex liked to stick his robbing hands into my handbag and purse and rob money or what ever he could sell to buy coke or ale from me, Do not worry it wont last the false happiness, His mask will slip and his true coulours will show!! X

Yea I think that is a common thing. My personal experience was rage times ten when someone suggested he was an alcoholic. People that truly aren't alcoholics never get accused of being one.