SASA

I know I am opening a can of worms here. I just was wondering, I read up on somethings and found that alcoholics are self centered and selfish. I am really trying here, but I do not see me being selfish. I drunk, yes in the evenings to drown my feelings, but nobody was around to be hurt. I never drove drunk. I never drunk during the day, just in the evening (at 8pm. I never drunk when I had to work early, was always in time at work and fullfilled my quota and mostly also the quota of other people). I helped wherever I could to people. It just was this magic night time 2h per day where I had to open that bottle and finish it, it was my reward for the day for hard work, I could as well go to the gym and work out, go home and sleep, which is what I do nowerdays, well sometimes go out with friends too. But I was a closet drinker). So what is your opinions, do you feel you were selfish and are you still selfish now that you are recovering?

LilithCrane

I, for one, don't know if I believe that there is something such as an alcoholic personality or an addictive personality, for that matter. I think maladaptive behaviors, and developing flawed ways of coping with the realities of life breed alcoholism. I am unmarried and do not have any children, so the only person I have really been hurting is myself.

Dee74

Well I've met many alcoholics who I don't think are self centered or selfish.
Generalisations are just that - generalisations

That being said - we're our own harshest critics...and when I think back to the things I should have been doing to support friends and loved ones...and I made the conscious decision to stay home drinking instead?

That's pretty self centered and selfish in my book.

D

Dee74

Welcome to the forum Lilith

D

ACT10Npack

Everyone is selfish in some shape or form.

least

I lived a selfish life when I was drinking but not now, as I'm sober and don't put alcohol above everything else, as I used to do.

Jeb18

I believe newly sober people are probably more selfish than a person with years of recovery.

Giraffe

I didn't hurt anyone directly but there are more subtle ways to be selfish. Small things like avoiding meaningful conversations with friends and family because I didn't want to share my feelings (closet alcoholic). Not being fully there for a friend, not giving people a chance to open up.

Just a thought, I'm still trying to figure these things for myself.

Giraffe.

Snarf

I can't really speak for anyone else, but when I was drinking, my spirit was broken. I was selfish, I was a liar, I stole, I cheated, I was lazy, I was horrible with money...It's a pretty long list.

bellakeller

I can't speak for all alcoholics but I know I am a selfish, self-centered and self-seeking person. I work hard to not let this character defect run my life but it is not easy because it seems to be my natural state of being.

Toronto68

I think that's a good topic.

I have thought to myself about how I was not really hurting other people, only hurting myself by living in a nightly alcohol coccoon. I would say that is true for the most part, but I also think the alcohol in my system added fuel to some of my outbursts. It's also true that I avoided people a lot. That is again hurting myself but some of the times people would have wanted me around. So my lack of desire to disrupt my alcohol schedule and my need to hide it contributed toward somebody missing out on my requested company somewhere along the line. So even as a workaholic loner type in the later years, I can still think of examples of somehow causing somebody harm. Guilt over some of these things would follow me around sometimes.

I can think of at least one alcoholic I know who was very generous yet selfish and thoughtless in other ways (even with lots of recovery time behind him). That person might be the first example of someone who made me see how it's possible to be such a wonderful person yet also have this problem.

Because there is such a range of possibilities in just one person, it makes sense to me that when somebody has got problems with how they deal with themselves, a thinking problem, they can have extreme opposites inside them when you add addiction to that picture.

This is kind of a ramble, but I think my answer is that alcoholics are very similar to most people when it comes to selfishness, but there is a twist to it, because the addiction alters the behaviour that might not have played out that way. I see both the affirmative and negative sides to the question.

1_day@_a_time

There is a very specific detailed process outlined for us in the taking of the 12 Steps to determine just that, plus a whole lot more!!

littlefish

Selfish is a somewhat old fashioned term that has a hint of moralizing to it: I use self-absorbed.
And, you can be the sweetest person in the world, kind and caring, but still self-absorbed.
I know that sounds confusing, but self absorption is on a spectrum in my opinion.

You can be self-absorbed by standing on the top of the hill screaming to the world to pay attention to you because you are so amazing, or you can be hiding under a rock and hating yourself, hoping nobody will see you. Both behaviors are self-absorbed because they have you focusing on yourself more than others.
My self absorption is the under the rock variety.

Since recovery, I have learned to be pro-active in celebrating my birthday. The reason is that before I used to isolate from my family on my birthday, plan nothing and avoid celebrating, feeling sorry for myself. i never realized that when I behaved like that, it made my family sad and spoiled the day for them!

CarolD

I certainly wanted more of everything that made me feel good.
self centered....I call that.
Yes..I still do...but the type of More has chamged for the better.


I'm not selfish when it comes to giving materially
I'm selfish because I want to choose what to give.

CarolD

LilithCrane ....
welcome to our recovery community

LaFemme

I don't believe alcoholics are any more or less selfish then the rest of the population...and once we are sober we are more likely to make an effort to not be selfish...therefore we are the least selfish people on the planet

blackhorse

Even as an active alcoholic i was still an ok person most of the time, in other words i was a loving partner, a good mum, i would do anything to help anyone etc. Still, i could be very selfish, at times emotionally i would shut down to people including my kids, i would speak my min and say hurtful things when provoked (i couldn't see any harm i was causing) come 4pm ish i would rather be at home drinking than be anywhere else, i would happily blame the world for alot of my problems. YES I was selfish.

Supercrew

Well if you mean by selfish as in, "hey get your hand out of my cooler I only have a 12 pack left", or "nope sorry, there isn't enough vodka for me to share a shot with you", then yes I was more than selfish. As far as with my time and my responsibilities to my family, I always tried to do just a little more for fear that the wife or someone would accuse me of slacking and blame it on my boozing. But even when I went above and beyond I was always doing it for the betterment of my drinking career. So yes even when I wasn't being selfish I really was.

Peter G

I became a recluse during the last 2 years of drinking. Avoiding anyone who loved me as much as I could. Some people might say that is selfish, but my motivation was not "me", it was to stay away so as not to hurt them from my insufferable nonsense. Did it look like I was being selfish? Sure, I guess. But that wasn't how it was. And other than my last few years of being the happy hermit, I've always been someone who went out of his way to help those I could, drunk or not.

All in all, IMO alcoholics are no more or less flawed then a normal cat, unless you're talking about booze.

Stevie1

Interesting question. At a meeting Saturday morning the topic was self-sufficiency...I always thought I was extremely self-sufficient...more of a giver than a taker, self-employed most of my life, never on the dole, very rarely in my life borrowed money. But my "self suffiency" was and is sort of selfish...I have always been unwilling to cede any sort of "power" to anyone or anything else. And that is, in a way, self-absorbed/selfish. I have often not made myself available to other people in my life, emotionally. During my drinking phases, I'd definitely choose drinking over being there for people. That is selfish for sure.

Then again I know plenty of people who are not alcoholics, yet are still extremely self centered, takers rather than givers in life, stingy with their resources....so I don't think it's an addict/alkie thing necessarily.