Cheers ! The Narcissist And Alcohol
Alcohol is a pervasive drug. A Bloody Mary prior to lunch, a liquid lunch to conduct business, afternoon drinks because it feels like skipping school, drinks straight from work which turn into a session, celebratory drinks for a birthday, a deal done well, an anniversary or just because it is Friday. Drinks at the golf club, prior to the big game, at the BBQ, at the funeral wake, a night cap, a toast, a cheeky snifter before heading home, one for the road, a hair of the dog to shift the hangover. Drink is everywhere and is deemed socially acceptable despite the misery that its excessive consumption causes.
What part does alcohol play in the narcissist dynamic? I do not mean the occasional drink with an excellent meal or the social beers in a bar with friends, the regulated and moderate drinking which does not bring with it problems. I am referring to alcoholism, where there is a reliance and a dependence on alcohol. How does that factor into the narcissistic dynamic?
At the outset it is necessary to distinguish between the alcoholic who is a not a narcissist and the narcissist who is an alcoholic. This is important because narcissism and alcoholism actually share similar traits.
– There is the deceit that is involved in engaging in excessive drinking and engaging in narcissistic behaviour;
– Both have sufferers who lack any insight that they have a problem;
– Both require the manipulation of other people to achieve their aim. The narcissist manipulates to gain fuel, the alcoholic manipulates to drink.
– Both engage in telling lies on a repeated basis about what they have been doing, where they have been, how much they have had to drink, whether they have had a drink;
– Both result in selfish behaviour;
– Other people find themselves being put second on a repeated basis to the needs of either the narcissist or the alcoholic;
– Both engage in switching behaviour, being pleasant and likeable one moment and then suddenly abusive; and
– The pursuit of the end game (fuel/drink) becomes the sole concern of the relevant individual
Accordingly, the behaviours of the narcissist and the alcoholic appear most similar. The alcoholic may present with narcissistic traits (as described above) but a sober alcoholic will see those narcissistic traits fall away to reveal that he or she is an alcoholic but not a narcissist. The addition of alcohol to this individual causes them to become narcissistic but they are not a narcissist.
The narcissist however who is also an alcoholic may stop drinking but the narcissism will remain. Indeed, there are many occasions where a victim will realise that they are involved with an alcoholic but they will not realise that this person is actually a narcissist who is also an alcoholic since alcoholism is far more readily identifiable than narcissism.
Narcissism leads to alcoholism. Not in every instance. I am not an alcoholic. I like to drink, in fact I enjoy it very much and I can consume significant amounts but I do not become blind drunk because I do not want to lose control. I have seen the narcissist who is an alcoholic and that is my Uncle Robert. His aged frame and bitterness are a clear testament to the aging that comes with a lifetime of downing his first gin and tonic at 11am and not stopping until the stupor arrives sometime after 9pm. Watching him as I was younger, observing his behaviours arising from his drinking (and later understanding that this was a layer upon his rampant narcissism) this served as a useful warning to me to ensure that I used drink for my purposes and did not allow it to consume me. I am fortunate I have that self-control and discipline, since many of our kind do not.
Alcoholism is a symptom of a certain mind set and narcissism is a mindset which lends itself to alcoholism occurring. Narcissists are creatures of addiction. We are addicted primarily to fuel. This is our drug, but being this way also means that we have a susceptibility to other addictive behaviours. This is why we engage in taking recreational drugs, shop with complete disregard for the financial repercussions, engage in workaholism, gamble and drive like maniacs. Not all will be present but there is a propensity for our kind to engage in these kind of behaviour because of our vulnerability to addiction.
The traits of our narcissism lend themselves to fostering alcoholism. Not only are we prone to addictive behaviour per se, the existence of these traits means that we become even more vulnerable to alcoholism occurring.
- Our magical thinking, our sense of superiority and omnipotence means that we believe that we can deal with alcohol better than the “little people”. We can drink more, we can handle that drink better and we can drink all manner of different types.
- The broad range of types of alcohol, the rich and varied culture that accompanies appeals to us as we show off our knowledge about it. The Cerebral Narcissist can boast about his extensive knowledge about particular wines or whiskies. The Somatic can brag about how much he has spent on a magnum of champagne and the Elite will do both.
- Our hunting grounds for our victims invariably involve the consumption of alcohol. The Somatic Narcissist who find his prey in the night club and amidst the chrome and neon lights of upmarket bars is going to be exposed to alcohol repeatedly.
- Our lack of accountability means that we can drink when we want, with who we want, where we want and we do not suffer the consequences. We can drink at lunchtime before making a presentation and believe we are immune to any such repercussion. We will take the wheel of a car having consumed alcohol because the laws are not applicable to us. We will not suffer any downside from drinking, we are a super man and able to cope with the toxins we are pouring into our throats.
- The desire to be centre stage. The provision of alcohol acts (at first) as an accelerant to our grandiose behaviour, our sense of showing off and performance and therefore slugging it down as we hold court in a bar, show off with our dancing and engage in our flirtations all assist ensuring that we are at centre stage and remain there.
- Blame-Shifting One. You make us drink. If you did as we wanted you to, then we would not be forced to have to drink to numb ourselves from the tedium that you cause. If you loved us properly we would not embrace the bottle. It is your fault that we drink so much.
- Blame-Shifting Two. The repercussions and consequences of drinking are your fault as well. If you had not made me leave the car after I had been drinking, it would not have a got a ticket. The final warning, I received because I was drunk on the job was down to you making me go into work because we need the money (even though you begged me to stay at home). Our abusive behaviour to people when drunk is down to you making us that way. You should have stopped us.
- Refuge. The consumption of alcohol by our kind allows us to take refuge. The Mid-Ranger who is innocuous turns into a raging Elvis impersonator as his grandiosity soars through the repeated application of drink. Drinking allows our kind to become ebullient, impressive and charismatic as it bridges the gap between what we really are and what we want the world to see. Alcohol removes the shackles which this cruel world seeks to impose on us and allows us to be who we want to be and who we want the world to see. We are freed of the terror of rejection since nobody can resist us when we are buoyed by this alcoholic uplift. The whisperings of the Creature are silenced by the pouring of another glass. How marvellous alcohol is to allow us to be what we want to be and to take away all the other concerns, limitations and problems that plague us.
- Removal of the mask. The lower functioning of our kind find a sense of relief in no longing needing to adopt a mask but rather allow the mask of alcohol and drunkenness to enable them to show what they are really like without fearing for the repercussions of rejection and criticism.
- Alcohol is a fuel enabler. It allows our kind to become better and more brilliant and in turn gather the fuel with greater ease, whether this is through impressing someone with confident conversation, sparkling wit and repartee orthe descent into abusive behaviour as time wears on and the drink mounts up.
The fact that so many traits of ours are geared towards the consumption of alcohol and the fact that this consumption enables us to achieve our goals with greater apparent ease added to the fact that we have an inherent susceptibility towards addiction for the reason explained above, means that this cocktail increases considerably the risk that a narcissist will be an alcoholic.
60 thoughts on “Cheers ! The Narcissist And Alcohol”
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In fact, different schools attend. The one who had a tantrum usually burns with cold fury, and due to occupation and health measures, I believe he was a somatic lesser
The self admitted one is defin a mid ranger but I’d say elite.
There are a lot of intelligent, employed, witty introspective ppl at AA , the ones who manage to stay sober that is. Ripe pickings for various schools
AA IS RAMPANT with narcs. I pegged one right away, and within days of my joining he was after me. A few weeks later he had a tantrum and hasn’t been back since, said the group didn’t “care” about him.
One seemingly nice fellow admitted to the group he’s a diagnosed narcissist. He has the grandiose characteristics and even talks about how he’s working on them. I can’t quite figure him out. I suspect he uses the diagnosis for attention, although he rarely mentions it. He’s still very grandiose. Now that I understand narcs, I hate it when he shows any emotion, knowing its conjured up. Bleah. Worse is seeing ppl fall for it . I keep.my thoughts to myself.
I often wonder if victim narcs who aren’t even alchies join just to prey. Bet they do, huh.
W
AA is starting to inform people that they may be pathological narcissists. That is how one of my ULNs found out he was one. It is about time!
K
I imagine when told they just respond with: Lets drink to that!
Maybe hes a greater and is using the diagnosis/admission as a ploy to ensnare.
My grandmother was a midrange narc. Im thinking lower midrange. She was in AA and was sober for 30 years. She helped many by being a sponsor but i do wonder now if she mightve been helping to gain fuel from controlling. She liked to take over.
Holy Hell! My husband was an active alcoholic for the first 10 years of our marriage, he’s been in recovery for almost 8 years now, and his narcissistic personality came out in full force!! Like the alcohol hid it, and now he has nothing to hide behind! The sober years have been the worst! And yes, I do to Alan on and therapy! We are currently separated and quickly moving towards divorce, I see so much of his manipulations, deflections, blame shifts now! And couple counseling was a disaster, no accountability, acknowledgement, etc!!
I’m right there with ya girl! I always blamed the drugs, but now that he’s sober I know the truth.
(Sorry I had said , he was thrilled I was sober.
I erased it)
OH MY GODDDDD
ok. Ok. I’m getting this.
I was letting my narcissistic trait of selfishness arise ,and my other empathic traits dim , whie I was drinking, I’m an alcoholic, As I had figured out , and as soon I figured out I was , I sought help immediately and I am now sober. My narcissistic traits of selfishness has dwindled significantly and I can see it clearly. My other empathic traits are coming alive again no longer numbed. And, accordingly I am able to have clarity and the relationship is no longer attractive for various reasons .thank god I figured it out after only a few years of drinking .
HE smokes weed quite regularly and drinks, but is not an alcoholic .
His IPPS however used to be an alcoholic , and then got sober , got with him, and is now drinking heavily every night. No wonder. He does not respect that bcuz her full attention is not like him any longer
but I don’t think he’s going to be thrilled for long !!! LOL oh LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
Oh well I’m sure he can go find another little drunk empath to play with!
Or pull one out of the reserves and put her in my place as dirty little secret
What a mindf**k
My ex husband is both a narcissist and an alcoholic.
I was so confused, devastated and gaslighted that i realized he was an alcoholic only after ten years of active drinking and awful and aggressive behaviours against our children and me.
Of course i felt responsible for his over-drinking. He told me he did that because i made him feel angry!
When i understood that he was an addicted to alcohol i decided to enter Al-Anon that is the correlated association of Alcoholics Anonimous for families and friends that have to deal with an alcoholic.
As AA, you can find the association all over the world.
It helped me to understand that i needed help, to heal myself from the effects of another person’s alcoholism on me.
Thank you HG for having explained the difference between a NARC and an alcoholic.
Unfortunately my husband is a narcissist with an addiction to alcohol.
Three years ago he stopped drinking.
But it was thanks to observing his dynamics in our relationship, having left me in just two weeks and finding a new supply so soon, that o understood there must be something more (meaning NARCISSISM) inside of him.
It is very difficult for me because he was able to stop drinking. So he declared to his family, friends, even our children that he doesn’t have any problem.
Intending all his past irreasonnable and horrible behaviours were my fault.
I know that he is so manipulative that he also declared his new IPPS that i accused him of alcoholism (and also NARCISSISM?), di that he can pretend to be a victim of an abuser ex wife.
I think he is also convinced that by declaring that with no fear, he can show her that this is not true.
Of course he is both NARC and alcoholic.
Unfortunately she will discover in time.
I decided to stop fighting to show i’m right.
I know I’M RIGHT!
And That’s all i need to heal myself.
I know because i observed him for 23 years. I think it’s quite enough to say i know him well.
Dandelion
You got it. Youre right and thats all you need to know. There is no prize in knowing any more. The rest of them can all think what they like and carry on as they will. They will see in time, and what they see now or in future is not your concern and in your rear view mirror. You gave enough. Give no more.
At least the drunken ones pass out once in a while!
Excellent point. Then you could call it a “passed-out-drunk respite hoover”.
I was watching a fav utubers vid a few yrs ago and it surprised me bc she said her narcs narcissism got worse when he was sober vs when he drank. She found the alcohol actually masked the narcissism to some extent. Not what i wouldve expected.
Thanks for the input
Thanks k for your valuable input. You will never know how grateful I am for your contribution on my road to recovery. I am a work in progress.
God bless you Mona.
My pleasure, Ramona I. I am catching up today and I have been reading all your comments. Please, keep posting until you feel better. The contributions from you, and everyone here, has been a tremendous help in my road to recovery, as well.
I dealt with a N with alcoholism. He was 5 star blame shifter. A real A hole. I know understand why he drunk so much to mask the massive evil things he did to people not just me. How do these monsters face each day with confidence is beyond me. Happy New Year fam
Happy New Year, Ramona I!
And I hear ya, if a bird shit on my ULN’s car, it was my fault.
Happy New Year K!
Your “bird shit” comment really covers it all under one big umbrella. Well said!
Happy New Year, MLA! Sometimes it was just easier to keep my mouth shut with my ULN. I couldn’t win for losing. Thank you, your comment made me laugh.
All true and recognisable. My nex is a workaholic and an alcoholic. I used to rack my brain trying to figure out what was wrong with him and I always ended up thinking it must be the alcoholism wreaking havoc in our lives. He hid it in plain sight beneath liquid business dinners, drinks at the golf club, a few glasses of wine and whisky to relax every evening and he even lost his drivers license for a whole year from driving still really drunk the day after he’d been drinking. He got his license back though on the condition that he had an alcohol meter installed in the car and then instead he started missing flights and work appointments from not being able to leave his car parked where it was and not being able to remove it having been drinking. It’s such a sad story. The more he worked the more drank. And I used to think the mind games and the abuse were symptoms of his excessive drinking. He could always hold his drink well; if you didn’t know him you wouldn’t really know he had a drinking problem though. But there were periods when he stopped altogether and he was still the narcissist beneath. Abusive, playing games, manipulating, a real bully.
If my narc got locked up it would always be my fault somehow never taking responsibility for putting that liquor to his lips. Love to hop in my car with out a license but some how it would always be my fault. His new supply is unable to shoffer him around like I did I was dadadaaa Super Fuel Super fool. Happy New Year family
Ramona, I recognise that kind of blame shifting. When mine lost his license he’d been out the night before drinking heavily at some dinner party with his golf buddies and I’d stayed at home. He came back in the middle of the night so drunk I had to help undress him and the morning after there he is; skipping happily to his car. I told him that he shouldn’t drive; I begged him not to drive; but he’s entitled and beyond responsibility for anything so he got into that car anyway. Of course when the police stopped him it was my fault. Why didn’t I say something?
Actually I cheered when he got caught. He’d done the same on numerous occasions before risking other people’s lives that way.
Catherine
Hes a grown man who manages to go out and get drunk all on his own while doing god knows what and you feel the need or responsibility to help him undress when returns?
Really?
Narc Angel,
Yes, I know. Horrible isn’t it? I enabled him to go on doing what he did to me. That’s my responsibility; the rest is his. I should’ve ended that relationship a long time ago, even before it started. I guess I just couldn’t see straight when in the middle of that mess. I regret that so much now.
Catherine
I know everyone thinks Im always breathing fire in my comments lol but in this case I was not. I just pictured you assisting him to undress when most would either be indifferent and let him fall on his drunken face or be angry (with same result) but you actually assisted him. Then I wondered if it was out of love or fear if you did not.
Your comments are perfectly fine, NarcAngel. I always thought I was warm and fuzzy until I found out that I was nicknamed Spit Fire and Wrath of Khan.
Narc Angel,
I rather think you’re really strong and truthful in your comments and I admire that in you. You seem to be the kind of person that has healthy boundaries and accepts no bullshit; I wish I was more like you to be honest. To answer your question though I don’t think this occasion was out of either love or fear. We were visiting another city and were at a hotel; he was making a lot of noise in the middle of the night slamming doors and talking very loudly and he couldn’t even untie his shoes so I just wanted to get him into bed before people around started complaining. Usually he didn’t drink to the extent that he couldn’t undress, or maybe I wasn’t around then because there was an element of secrecy surrounding his drinking. But a few times I did undress him; and I think it was out of love, not fear then. I just couldn’t let him be; I’m a hopeless helper. And I did enable horribly. In every way.
“And I used to think the mind games and the abuse were symptoms of his excessive drinking”
I’ve thought so too, Catherine. And then I tried to find reasons always, why he would drink so excessively. Thinking that maybe he was unhappy with me, that he was a closeted homosexual, that he had a trauma from being a war veteran (which he always denied) and so on.
I knew he was very pleased with himself and I knew things were really wrong between us, but I always thought that maybe I was the one with a disorder (being so depressed and all).
Me too Blank, I blamed myself and thought in the end that I was the one with the problem, that there was something seriously wrong with me and that I was responsible for all the drama he cruelly created and masterminded behind the scenes. I will never forgive him for that. I’m amazed though at how alike our stories are, all our stories here with childhood abuse and getting into destructive relationships that almost extinguish our innermost souls; and to me right all this is now starting to become a wonderful adventure of finally getting to know the real ME. For that I’m thankful.
Self reflection doesn’t harm anyone. But too much of it and living with a narc, that doesn’t help at all.
“Finally getting to know the real ME”
Yes, because I have no idea. I was trying to make a dating profile and were as I always write letters and such easily, I could not make this profile. I thought “who am I really? Wat would I like to do when the situation were different, when I could be like I want to be?” And in the end I just didn’t know and cancelled the subscription.
Good luck Catherine, I hope you discover your real YOU soon! x
Thank you Blank, I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be still having your divorced narc around. It’s a situation where the past haunts you every day. I’m so sorry you have to go through that.
I actually tried to envision my future dating profile now when you mention it and I have no clue either as to what I would write. I only have lots of “don’t’s” right now concerning what I’m not looking for. It will have to wait for me. I guess I would end up telling any poor guy venturing on a date with me the complete story of my narcissist and my self discoveries. I don’t think I would ever get a second date;)
Can’t even tell you how unsafe I’ve felt, and still feel, having an alcoholic narcissist in the other part of the house. He is not violent, but all the stupid things he does because he is completely drunk: locking the cat in the house (the cat lives outside usually, there is no cat-box), not locking the front door at night, forgetting to close the fridge (so all the food goes wasted, but he’ll still eat it), not knowing where he should pee in the middle of the night… and I could go on and on.There’s a constant feeling of anxiety and the need to check up on him.
Last night it was storming and raining real hard and I hear the dripping in the loft. Our house falls apart everywhere, but he doesn’t give a shit. All problems are my problems. Due to all his addictions there is no money to get a carpenter. I am trying so hard to get a job, but once you’re my age you’re considered ‘too old’ in my country, which is rediculous. I am lying awake at night trying to find a solution for all the problems, but I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just getting divorced didn’t help, I have to leave and get out of this mess, but I don’t know how. I have to take care of my sons needs first and he is happy here.
Before I knew I was dealing with a alcoholism and n. I would feel unsafe when he was really drunk. I had a hot mess going on Bipolar manic depression on my behalf. A real Rolla coster ride my body didn’t know what to do. Major health issues with all the pulling and tugging. God bless anyone having to deal with these people
Blank, I’m so sorry for your situation. Alcoholism destroys lives; it’s a harmful and frightening disease and combined with narcissism it’s pure hell. Mine had the same problem even though he insisted on it being purely socially accepted drinking. Instead he so charmingly labelled all his friends, and me, as alcoholics; projecting as usual. He never could face himself in any way.
So you’re divorced but still live together? I do hope there’s some way out for you; you shouldn’t have to live like that. There must be some way out of that tunnel? You deserve so much better!
Thanks Catherine. Yes, we still live together, but in separate parts of our house (it’s a former farmhouse, with the main house and an apartment made in the former barn). It’s a very nice place and quiet environment… Outside that is :(.
“Mine had the same problem even though he insisted on it being purely socially accepted drinking”.
Yes, that’s what my nex always says to me. ‘This is normal, this is what people do, this is life. You don’t know how to live it, because of your religion’ (which is crap, because I am not religious at all – my parents are). And he tells me this when he can’t even stand up straight, having black teeth from all the red wine, the vague smile because of the drugs.. and I always feel a mixture of disgust and pity. Sometimes I even wanna hug him because I know he needs love, but I don’t do that anymore.
We need to forget about them Catherine and move on and try to find happyness within ourselves. I read in another post that you feel better now, after contacting him. I am glad you do and I really hope you manage to move on. I will try to find a way to get out of here. But most of all I guess I need to control my thinking. I do not understand why I felt happy in November (finally being divorced) and since Christmas I’m all down in the dumps again, when nothing actually changed. It’s just the way my mind wanders back and forth between hope and despair.
You’re right Blank, we need to move on. I recognise the hopelessness you’re describing when together with an alcoholic. Mine always told me a few drinks enabled him to live his hectic and driven life, that drinking was a requirement with his clients and that he was, like your ex, living life to the fullest; and I early on realised that the most dangerous times with him were when he was stressed out and was drinking; then he lost all control of his aggressiveness and the jealousy erupted easily. I tiptoed around; but of course that didn’t help either.
I did contact him and it turned out to be the best thing for me. He sounded like he’d moved on and it hurt really bad, but then just from one day to the next I suddenly felt this kind of sadness and elation of finally starting the process of letting go. He told me our relationship was too much drama and that’s in the end the truth. It’s a kind of closure for me. I don’t want to be the person I was when with him anymore. I was terrified of myself when he could make into something I’m not, and never were before him, in a matter of seconds. That’s not how I want to live my life. Not you either. I do hope it works out for us and I realise there will be good and bad times ahead in the future, but we will heal. We tend to accept responsibility for their problems; their drinking; their evil minds. In the end it has nothing to do whatsoever with us and we can’t save them from themselves because we need to save ourselves and love ourselves instead. Do you think the spirit of Christmas is maybe behind feeling worse now? All the emotions of the holidays?
Catherine, yes, they tend to change you into someone you do not recognize. Good to read that you feel you have some kind of closure now. You are right, all this sh*t we had to deal with, has nothing to do with us, we just put up with it. Yes, I guess Christmas time had a lot to do with my mood. The lonely feeling of not being in a position to celebrate it and have a good time with relatives. Also, maybe I was feeling kind of euforious after my lawyer told me the divorce was final. Finally the end of this lousy, lonely marriage. But nothing really changed of course. And since I am an HSP I am very sensitive to the weather also. I need sunshine on my face. I wanna go somewhere were it is nice and warm and meet this kind, sensitive and handsome guy and have sex all day and party all night.
Oh sorry, I was dreaming out loud 🙂
That sounds great Blank; you’ll get to that sunny spot with that handsome, sexy guy someday because you deserve it. Nothing was about us. Now I’m going on and on again with my eternal need for justice; but there has to be some justice in this world! And it’s been raining for months here; I think Noah’s Ark would be desperately needed now. I’d gladly go. I love animals and it would be a challenge;) XX
Noah
Has to have the biggest boat.
Claims God spoke to him directly to effect this.
Cons his family into doing all the manual labour (and free) under an impossible timeline of 7 days with the promise of saving their lives.
Triangulates them all with God.
Has to have not one but two of every animal because one of anything is never enough.
Puts his feet up smug with himself on selling his 150 day world cruise as the work of God.
Wrecks the vessel on a mountain and blames it on a flood.
Claims to have saved the world single handedly.
Noaks Ark
N Ark
It was there all along……
Spot on Narc Angel! Ha ha, considering this I’m afraid Noah the narc will have to do without me. I’d rather stay here in the rain than being involved with another narcissist. Besides the scenario of a boat with smelly goats on it makes me seasick;)
Blank
I am sorry that you have to put up with that. Narcissists don’t give a shit about you, the children or the house. They leave all the responsibility up to you, including house/car repairs with NO money to fix a damn thing. You are in a pickle and I understand why you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Do what you can and let the rest go for now. Take care of your son and yourself. This is no consolation, but I live in a fucking DUMP and I cannot afford the repairs either, so we share that. Right now I am living with a “No Fucks Given” attitude and I have found it quite helpful. You may want to try it and see if it works for you. Keep reading and posting. Don’t stop.
Thanks K. and thanks for sharing a dump ;). You know, I do not care about material stuff and I could live in a dump myself, as long as I have clean water and food and a good bed. It’s just that our house was so nice when we bought it and it devaluates so much now. Well, I guess I need to bury my head in the sand, just like mr. Narc does.
Good luck in your dump K, glad you found a helpful attitude! x
Blank
If you care to answer, these are the thoughts that came to my mind when reading your posts.
How old is your son? I would think it would be difficult to be happy in that environment despite what he may say.
It seems likely your happiness turning to depression is tied to the hope things would somehow be different but remain unchanged since the divorce. What were your expectations with obtaining the divorce?
How would it change things for you if he told you he was unhappy with you, or it were found that he is indeed a closet homosexual or has trauma from service?
Hi NA, my son is 17 and he truly is happy. I know when my children are happy :). You know, boys that age have different things on their mind than their parents do. It’s just me and him in the house and we laugh and joke together. After school he’s in his room gaming with his friends. We eat together, he has his supermarket job and he does his homework. We have a guesthouse on our property that he uses for sleap-overs with his friends. There’s TV, game devices, a frying pan 😉 etc. He has a good time with his friends always. He does not know about the leakage or any other problem. Of course he’ll notice things, but I don’t do drama and certainly not when he is around, so he doesn’t care either. He is not lying awake because of the cracks in the bathroom tiles.
The divorce, I had no expectations really. I just wanted our marriage to be over with, because after understanding all about narcissism, I knew there was never love involved and it made me clearly see what kind of a man my husband was. I did no longer want to be married to him. And I wanted to be free (to live my life any way the wind blows).
How would it change things for me? It would not. Not anymore, because I now know he is a narc. At the time when I was wondering about all these things I didn’t know this, I was only trying to find a reason why our marriage didn’t work, why he was not with me in it, why we didn’t have sex, why he had to do excessive alcohol and drugs, if there maybe was something I could do to make a change. But he would never talk to me, just stare and walk away.
Yep. Sobering. Literally.
Took me awhile to tease it out.
Very important distinctions there.
HG, thanks for this great post and happy 2018! I hope this year your cracking a good joke about your kind is as satisfactory as painting a scary picture of sociopathic genius. ))
Consider:
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Familiar traits present: magical thinking, sense of superiority and omnipotence. Lack of accountability. The desire to be centre stage. The broad range of types of alcohol is likely to appeal.
The consumption of alcohol allows to take refuge. A sense of relief in no longing needing to adopt a mask but rather allow the mask of alcohol and drunkenness to enable them to show what they are really like without fearing for the repercussions of rejection and criticism.
Likely to be at play if outlook is negative Blame-Shifting One: “You make us drink,” Blame-Shifting Two: The repercussions and consequences of drinking are your fault as well.
My nex is a raging alcoholic. I had determined that was the problem behind his behavior. Of course this was before I learned about narcissism. They are very similar indeed!
That I think is what helps them cope with all the evil stuff they do not have a conscious no sorrow no scrupples nothing. Just evil unconscionable monsters
The alcohol helps them cope with all the evil stuff they do to others. My n use to drink like a fish. Has no boundaries
Ramona I
From the narcissist’s perspective his behavior is not evil or bad; he has no conscience or remorse. Most of what they do (consuming copious amounts of alcohol) is shaped for the purposes of achieving what they require, which is fuel. My MMRN loved magical thinking, center stage, flirting, taking refuge and # 10: Fuel enabler, sums it all up nicely.
Yes I have a lesser (I thought he was UMR but I’m not too sure…) who’s a somatic and a raging alchie. I thought it was a life time of alcoholism at first.
I had a friend who was a (lower/Lesser) alcoholic, but took on the Mid Range characteristic of holding an extremely large amount of charisma when drinking. When he sobered up, though, he had no personality. He was only “alive” when he was drunk.
HG – do a lot of narcs suffer from cocaine addiction?
I will tell you after I have tackled this Bolivian banana.
I was just reading that Paul Newman’s second marriage lasted 50 years (until his death) because he daily made his wife laugh. If that’s all one needs to have a happy marriage, with your sense of humor (when you want the positive fuel) you could make a marriage work for a hundred years! But you also need the negative to keep the balance at 0 attachment…
The more of these posts I read the more I think you are actually in the room with me when I go to see my boyfriend.
You speak the exact words he speaks.
Play the mind games he plays. The “she is just a friend” so why does she arrive at midnight sleep in your bed when you are both drunk as skunks and is the age of your daughter? And why does she now say she is in love with you and want your baby? Some friend!!!
The silences for days or weeks. The tantrums throwing it all back in my face because I am sick in the head and he will give me the number of a good psychiatrist. I am in lo e with a monster but he can’t love anyone not even himself.
Just my luck eh? It’s true a somatic narcissist is a charmer, manipulates, controls everything and everyone but when he’s loving in the golden days he is so irrestible and I will do anything for him.
When he says I am his dog people are shocked.
When he pushes me across the room so I get a concussion I am shocked.
When he is asked politely not to get drunk, sleep around or to give me back my money he is shocked. 😲
Maria-Louise Warne
Your narcissist owns you and all your assets belong to him. He can push you across the room and give you a concussion because you are an appliance and he won’t recognize or validate your pain or shock. He is shocked by your impertinence for demanding (asking him politely) that he shouldn’t get drunk, cheat or give back his money (it really is your money but not from his perspective). In his mind, you are the abuser.
If you are able and ready, you may want to consider going no contact. You deserve better.
Im starting to think Tudor is holed up in rehab somewhere while the staff scours the dark web for his Sponsor.