timetohealguy

Hi everyone,

I watched this video today and found it pretty interesting ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDwYskwHdDw

The section at 13m30s about some narcissists not being able to get to Step One is very interesting.

Maudcat

It was interesting, TTHG. Thanks for posting it.

DoubleDragons

Thank you for the video. It is spot on. About twenty years ago, I went to therapy because of issues with my family of origin. At the time, my parents were regular heavy drinkers, but no one would have ever called them alcoholics. My therapist strongly felt that my parents were narcissists and my mom was likely borderline, as well. Only about 5-8 years ago, would I say it was apparent that my mom was a full-fledged alcoholic. I definitely believe that she self-medicates. Any attempts to try for her to get help for her alcoholism, is met with a rage that you would not believe. I am always in awe of people who have successful interventions with their alcoholics. Everyone who knows my parents, knows this would be "Mission Impossible". They believe that they are never wrong. My mom's alcoholism has actually in some ways been a relief because it now shows "the world" how sick she really is and has always been. My guess is that most alcoholics behave narcissistically during the height of their addictions, but the true narcissist shows their colors way before the addiction sets in. At least that has been the case in my experience. I belonged to Adult Children of Narcissists groups, long before I joined ACOA.

timetohealguy

Hi Doubledragons, parts of your reply are so familiar to me.

I know exactly what you are talking about where you wrote "Any attempts to try for her to get help for her alcoholism, is met with a rage that you would not believe".

Initially, any suggestion by me that my ex had any kind of problem with alcohol was met with complete rage.


Before my ex started drinking regularly, she had no more narcissistic traits than an average person, but when her drinking was at it's worst, those traits became grossly exaggerated. The alcohol was clearly making her act in a more narcissistic way.

Alcohol can really make narcissistic traits much much worse.

I posted an article about that here a couple of weeks back ...

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ic-family.html

I can only imagine what hell it must be like if someone has NPD when they are sober then gets into a period of drinking

olow

My ex-husband was classic NPD and a very abusive man. There was no drinking, or I should say very, very rarely (at least not around me, he traveled a lot).
Living with him was 10 years of pure hell. The one time that he did drink liquor at a friends house it just intensified the hellish behavior as he drove us home. The things that he did to torture me were filled with more anger than his usual haughty sarcasm.

One of his famous quotes "You always take it out on the one closest to you".

I also honestly do not recall much empathy in him at all.

timetohealguy

For anyone dealing with a narcissist, yesterday I found one of the best narcissism videos I've ever seen - it's quite long, but packed with useful insights. As it is not about alcoholism, didn't want to put it in it's own thread, but it is relevant to this thread ...

The video is titled ... "Narcissism and the Systems It Breeds - Diane Langberg" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BU3pwBa0qU

Refiner

TTHG my sister is a classic NPD who went into the deep depths of alcoholism. I always wondered what was wrong with her even as a child to treat ppl so badly and be so deceitful and conniving. I finally figured it out 40+ years later and went full blown No Contact. It's the ONLY way with a N who is especially an A. In my mind, those never get "better".