Ego?
 

Do you think alcoholics have huge egos?
An unreasonable amount of pridefulness?

My sponsor invited me to breakfast, it's her treat.

Right away I'm like, "Oh no you don't have to do that". Like god forbid I accept breakfast from my sponsor. Oh.my.god.
So I realize I am doing this while we're still on the phone. It's a leftover from "I don't need your help"/"I can handle it" with some of "I don't deserve to be treated, look how much money I blew on alcohol" thrown into the mix.

I caught myself. I was being an idiot. I said, Wait a minute. and explained to her what was going through my twisted brain.
A combination of pride and mental self flagellation.

Anybody else have this weird kind of thinking?

I don't know about ego on most subjects i think very little of myself. I know that I have a similar issue with not wanting to accept things from other people even little things like breakfast or dinner, though I have no issue with giving. I will go through special lenghts to ensure that people aren't given the opportunity to do so. On my last birthday i wanted to go out to dinner to my favorite restaurant so I invited the only friends I had at the time. I knew that they would offer to pay at the end of the meal even though before we left I said it would be my treat, so as we walked in I gave my card to the cashier and told her not to accept any other form of payment. That kind of thing. I don't know why exactly but I have a suspicion it is that I would feel like I would "owe" them something if they had bought dinner and I did not want to be in thier debt so to speak. I know that is not the case really but that is how it makes me feel so I have issue with accepting any form of a gift or offering from someone. If they really want to give it to me they have to be pretty insistant, or I wil refuse.

My sponsor said "Show me an alcoholic and I'll show you a person with a ****** (you fill in the blank with whatever you want booze, drug, sex, work, food etc) problem.... too much or too little.

Chuck C. in his book "A new pair of glasses" described his disease as an EGO disease. An EGO that he knew and felt separated him from everything else in the universe.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3...oilguy/Ego.jpg


All the best.

Bob R

Pretty much every career field and organization that I have ever belonged to had more than their fair share of egomaniacs. IMO any group of people that feels superior, special or separate ends up generating a surplus of big egos (including church's).

If there is one trait that distinguishes us alki's, it's defiance. We defied those who told us not to start drinking. We defied those who told us to stop drinking and we defied those who told us we could not stop on our own.

Astute observation regarding your reactions, my compliments.

Read the big book, the first 164 pages.

E.G.O. = Edging God Out

Anyone who is self-centered in the extreme has a huge ego. Our motives are key. Manipulating everything so our wants are met, that is a huge ego. Shyness, that is serious self-centeredness!

I speak for me.

I find that if I view my thoughts as a non-judgmental outside observer it creates a separation of sorts. Ego seems to be a product of thought, when I come to realize that I am not my thoughts ego seems to slip away.

Sugarbear, I never thought about that, I was super shy as a kid, I mean hang on to my mother’s leg in public shy as a very small child, this caused a terrible problem in school with the other kids.

I feel bad when people buy me anything, I guess I don’t think I deserve it if I can’t get it myself, so I do avoid it.

Thing is I thought I was over being shy but this may still be a big thing, I actually own a business and talk to people like it’s nothing, but if a client asks me to do something on a personal level I freeze, I usually find a way to wiggle out of it, maybe I don’t want anyone to know the real me.

Thanks for that picture Bob,

Good thread Stairs

I agree with the observations in the BB and in the AA program that ego run riot is rather typical for the alcoholic.
I think other people have huge egos as well. But, because these other egomaniacs are not drinking themselves into oblivion, they gain a measure of self awareness that we lack.
My MIL has an ego that needs it's own landing pad. But, she is generally (generally....)able to reign in her jumbo sized ego by responding to social pressure, listening to observations from the people around her and exercising a certain measure of honesty with herself.
When I was drinking I was oblivious to social pressure, the observations of people around me and I was rarely honest with myself. So my ego ran riot while hers did not.

If you work through all of the steps and your sponsor really understands the sponsor's role, you will be amazed at what you learn about yourself. Your patterns of behavior and all the rest will help you to reach a higher level of self....then you can learn how to be useful....

No, I do not think that all alcoholics have problems with ego, selfishness, or self-centeredness, and I think in general that it is a bad idea to assume that any particular thing is categorically true of all people who suffer from addictions.

Nice ;)

Well, all I can say is any active addict who doesn't routinel display textbook selfishness by prioritizing his/her next high above others is not the kind of addict I can readily relate to. The amount of time I spent either drunk or obsessing about my next drunk could only be described as egomaniacal.

No to the first question.

As an alcoholic, I was an egomaniac with huge self-esteem issues.

That's been my experience. Its hard for me to believe, when I have seen to the contrary, that everybody with an addiction fits into one tidy category.

I had more trouble with my unchecked Id that my ego.

An egomainiac with an inferiority complex...That sums me up pretty good...

This is good. :c006: