Can alcohol change your personality
Fortunately it changed back after I got sober. 
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: northern AZ
Posts: 796
Simple answer... yes. Deeper one... no. LOL It releases inhibitions but what's being inhibited is/was always there. That's the beauty of sobriety... we can actually decide what we want to responsibly reveal and what we want to not just inhibit but get rid of entirely.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,444
When I was drinking I did things that were out of character. Even when I was sober during my drinking year my worldview was pretty dark...so yeah it can.
doesn't mean we can absolve ourselves of the responsibility for things we did tho.
D
doesn't mean we can absolve ourselves of the responsibility for things we did tho.
D
Member
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Ohio
Posts: 41
Makes you selfish-unhappy-angry-lonely- I think for the bad alcoholics that have been drinking for years and years it just brings out the very worse in us. We have so much more to give and the alcohol blinds us from that.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Somewhere in California
Posts: 1,136
Originally Posted by Dee74 
When I was drinking I did things that were out of character. Even when I was sober during my drinking year my worldview was pretty dark...so yeah it can. doesn't mean we can absolve ourselves of the responsibility for things we did tho. D
When drunk I also did and said things that I would never have said or done if sober. It was almost like another person was doing and saying them.
I've been surprised at how different my thought process is in sobriety. It was an unexpected but welcome gift of sobriety.
A Day at a Time
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Grand Rapids MI
Posts: 6,435
For me it warped who I was and my thinking. I was absolutely convinced I was right when in reality I was wrong. The scariest thing is my distorted thinking occurred even when I wasn't drunk.
It took a good six months of sobriety to realize how wacked my thinking had become.
It took a good six months of sobriety to realize how wacked my thinking had become.
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,539
I think many of us would sometimes like to dissociate ourselves from what we did when we were intoxicated. The fact is that we did these things, albeit while intoxicated. What we unleashed was a side of ourselves that many of us would like to believe does not exist, but it does exist, and our behavior is proof of it. That side of us is what Carl Jung called the "shadow".
The danger is not so much from the shadow itself but in our inability or unwillingness to recognize it as part of us. That's when it is most invisible and most dangerous.
"A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbor. " C.G. Jung "The Philosophical Tree"
The danger is not so much from the shadow itself but in our inability or unwillingness to recognize it as part of us. That's when it is most invisible and most dangerous.
"A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbor. " C.G. Jung "The Philosophical Tree"
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Ohio
Posts: 3,785
It was not that alcohol changed my personality, I am who I am and I didn't know who that was for a long time because alcohol changed my perception of life and the people in it.
I did not view it as a healthy adult woman would.
I viewed life as a burden, not something to he grateful for nor cherished. I drank to escape that feeling but I never understood that view came from self and my own distorted feelings. I didn't know they were distorted so I felt I was acting accordingly.
It was not until I stopped drinking and remained sober that I could start to see that life and the people were not wrong. It was the way I viewed them, felt about them, interacted with them that was the problem.
After I was sober awhile I could see and remember how I felt as a child. The carefree feeling and the things I enjoyed. I had forgotten them, they were me and my personality.
I don't think it changes the personality as much as you lose it. I became a false image. Many if not all the things I did and said while drunk or drinking I would never do or say sober.
For many, finding ourselves after sobriety is the hardest part of it. When you are lost and don't really know yourself or who you are is a tough feeling. I think that is why many think if you remove the drink the person is going to be suddenly wonderful and all past behaviors are going to fall away but that is not always the case. If someone has acted or reacted a certain way for much of their life, removing the just the drink is not going to cause the person to suddenly know how to behave as a mature adult. They are not capable of that yet.
It takes time and recovery and the person has to be willing to see and learn a new way of living. It is not a perfect way and it may not always be the right way but if they keep trying and learning it will be better then the one they had before if their perception has changed.
I did not view it as a healthy adult woman would.
I viewed life as a burden, not something to he grateful for nor cherished. I drank to escape that feeling but I never understood that view came from self and my own distorted feelings. I didn't know they were distorted so I felt I was acting accordingly.
It was not until I stopped drinking and remained sober that I could start to see that life and the people were not wrong. It was the way I viewed them, felt about them, interacted with them that was the problem.
After I was sober awhile I could see and remember how I felt as a child. The carefree feeling and the things I enjoyed. I had forgotten them, they were me and my personality.
I don't think it changes the personality as much as you lose it. I became a false image. Many if not all the things I did and said while drunk or drinking I would never do or say sober.
For many, finding ourselves after sobriety is the hardest part of it. When you are lost and don't really know yourself or who you are is a tough feeling. I think that is why many think if you remove the drink the person is going to be suddenly wonderful and all past behaviors are going to fall away but that is not always the case. If someone has acted or reacted a certain way for much of their life, removing the just the drink is not going to cause the person to suddenly know how to behave as a mature adult. They are not capable of that yet.
It takes time and recovery and the person has to be willing to see and learn a new way of living. It is not a perfect way and it may not always be the right way but if they keep trying and learning it will be better then the one they had before if their perception has changed.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 270
When I was a "normal" drinker we always used to joke that alcohol was a truth serum. That the way you behaved on the booze was who you *really* were. I still see an ounce of truth in that for "normies".
When you cross the line into alcoholism I think it changes your personality significantly for the worse. I did and said things I would never when sober, or "normie" drunk.
When you cross the line into alcoholism I think it changes your personality significantly for the worse. I did and said things I would never when sober, or "normie" drunk.
Sober since 10th April 2012
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 6,047
I used to become a sparkling conversationalist, tuneful singer of songs, vivacious joker, and athletic dancer, and all in my own mind too.
Luckily I don't have a video of what I was like to outsiders.
Luckily I don't have a video of what I was like to outsiders.
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