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Red Flag of a Narcissist #40: Addictions
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My ex was also a member of a swinger sex club, and had multiple profiles on sex hookup sites. Thanks for these videos.
I've seen the addictions to alcohol, drugs, comic books, board games, clothing or just shopping in general, playing video games or online games to the point they ignore responsibilities, food… The thing I realize now as red flags on this is they don't do or spend money on things like normal people. When they get an obsession over something they can't stop. They have to have the best to make themselves the best at it, but they quickly lose interest in it once they've bought all they can. It's like they jump from the high of living in fairytale land then once they've done all they can, the fairytale dies down and they get bored. Which is also why I think they tend to be cheaters too. They get addicted to the rush of a "new" relationship. Even if they recycle similar people time and time again.
I think to be bored means they have to deal with themselves and since deep down they hate themselves they really can't ever be bored and not obsess over something or be addicted to something that distracts them from the reality of hating themselves…
I always thought the problems with my marriage were because my husband was/is an alcoholic. Sometimes he would leave for work in the morning and not return until 4:00am. No phone call, nothing. He had multiple impaired charges. One time he had two in as many months.The second one six days after we were married. After we split, he would disappear when he was supposed to have visitation on the weekend. He would always reappear in time to go to work on Monday morning. This happened about every six months, Just often enough to keep you off balance. A few months ago he was gone for a week. His brother reported him missing. The police let him know he was holed up in a hotel with drug users and prostitutes. Our daughter and his parents were worried sick. He comes home the next day and explains he was being held against his will. Of course he refuses to report the incident to the police. Don't pay the ransom I escaped. After watching your videos, and realizing he has many of the red flags you speak of, I realize alcoholism isn't his main problem. He has, without a doubt cluster B. I am no contact, have been for over 3 years. It was the best decision I have ever made. It is hard watching my grown children having to deal with him though. My son, who is 24 is moving to the states though so he will be free from most of it.
After 13 years of dealing with him as an alcoholic abuser, he stopped drinking (because I threw him in jail and demanded that we go to AA) And, as far as I know he has not had a drink in over 18 years. However, he did use other substances, and he was verbally abusive, plus all the mind games instead during the past 18 years. He left 3 years ago, (so relieved) but I still hoped that we could work things out.
I gave up when he stood me up on our youngest son's 18th birthday basketball game. (Boundary push) and I said ENOUGH and went No Contact. It''s been over 90 days now, and know I made the right decision. Every time I weaken and think about seeing him or talking to him again, another bad memory comes, or a nightmare, to remind me that my self respect and dignity are worth more then this. And so I strengthen my resolve and press on.
So many bad memories, so many ruined days, I consider myself fortunate that I survived.
Our culture, maybe even the global culture seems to want to sell women this fantasy that marriage and children is our highest calling, and we, as women are encouraged to put up with just about anything to have a man.
After all these years of hell, I wish I'd thought about that more. I probably read every self-help book to improve, strengthen and repair your marriage then you could shake a stick at.
Flying solo with my fur family is a breeze compared to the chaos I endured with him.Thanks so much for your informative videos. Knowing what really happened all those years is a great comfort to me.
One MAJOR red flag I missed with my narc was how she casually mentioned she had taken several months off drinking the year before. I forget her exact wording, but it was something about having gone through a bad breakup and she had been drinking too much, AKA she wasn't in control. But she started drinking again before I met her, and I realized she might be drinking every night right now based on things she posted on social media. And I heard recently she was kicked out of a bar because she blacked out. Now I like to party on weekends, but I could never see myself being with an alcoholic. And whether or not she's an alcoholic is irrelevant, this behavior of hers pertaining to alcohol is probably just going to get worse.
Mark my word an addict can be and a lot of time ends up being just as destructive as this person with a false since of self. That being said, there is a difference.
As addicts we do have remorse which perpetuates us to use. Lack of remorse between an addict and a narc is different. Which I think you explained a bit more but I think that should be made clear. Being a narc causes addictive behavior and being an addict causes narc behavior and in a lot of cases, removing the addictive component will change an addicts behavior.
You're bang on. My narc was a recovering addict. Unfortunately, without a program. The older he got the higher he got on the narc spectrum. Before I was discarded, he sucked the life out of me.
to themselves
Watching this video again. I'm still trying to figure out how addicted my narc was to alcohol, food, and porn. He seemed to have addictions to these things and now that we have divorced he has gone from being in shape to gaining 50 pounds. He was fat when we met but then went through this healthy transformation but I always had to keep my stash of M and M s away from him because he would eat a whole bag in a couple days. He also had a porn addiction when we met but he claimed when we got married his addiction went away. Now I think he was probably talking to other women online having sex online or watching porn when his office door was locked and he was supposedly in a meeting on the phone with work. The more I peel back the layers the worse it gets.
i watch porn you fucking cuntttttttttttttttttttttt so i am one now isit well charmin you sound like a narcissist to me
my narc ex husband was hiding hard alcohol in the house when he prided himself on the fact that he didn't drink. I was shocked to find this side of himself because he hid it so well.
We are married for 4 yrs n in total we are with each other for 8 years now…my husband is still a drug addict n that's the first reason I recently search Internet for answers, then I came across with the term naccissit
I always believed that whatever horrible problems we had is only because of his addiction but I'm a lot clear now..Sometimes I feel that I'm a naccissit too n not the victim
Dana hi..plz put some light on this
ty dana
There are all kinds of addictions. Tobacco in any form is an addiction. The Narcissist can also choose what addiction they want if they so choose.
Codependency confuses me. Happy to hear you'll be concentrating on this. Not sure I agree with that term at all. Thoughts?
Lots of transfer addiction too. My ex-narc went from gambling, to rock climbing without ropes, to alcohol and drugs, to cheating, to lying and now he's addicted to yoga. Multiple classes a day. It's insane.
Hi Dana,
Great videos
I have recently split but how can I tell if I'm the Narcissist or she is?
I believe that I'm codependent however, I'm very confused and I'm becoming very withdrawn and depressed
Another form of addictive behavior I see among narcs is religious addiction. I lived near a Catholic community and never had I seen so many in the Cluster B category – NPD, ASPD, etc. They appeared holy and loving on the surface but this was a cover for their true toxic selves. I witnessed a lot of compulsive devotional behavior like that described in the book Toxic Faith. Some of them were outright sociopath con artists who ripped off other Catholics. This included the therapist who worked for the parish church.
THEY ARE NOT WHO YOU HOPE THEY WILL BE. NEVER GOING TO BE EITHER. LET IT GO. WALK AWAY! DO NOT BREAK YOUR OWN HEART.
Great video, from the 6 min mark on I feel like you are talking directly to me. 'See the problematic person for what they are', Man I wish I had ran at the first red flag instead of being mentally beaten by the many flags it took. Just fantastic Dana, tyvm for doing this series, I am not alone! Love and Light to you and everyone.
Celiac people have addictions Narcissists and codependents maybe Celiac. Benfotiamihe may help obsessing…is Vit B1 and helps give energy so the thought moves on. No gluten/dairy/soy/sugar/GMO…vitamins/good oils/minerals…probiotic…LDN…detoxing may help…HCl and enzymes with meals, Vit B12 methylcobalamin shot/under the tongue kind, MTHF folate, rhodiola, coenzyme Q10, fish oil, zinc, Vit C, Mg and more may help.
Addictions…can switch to other addictions due to untreated Celiac. Treatment center would need to give Celiac help and change their diet/life style long range to help. It can't just be short term treatment and then go back to eating gluten etc.
Enablers…keep the addiction going. They may feel sorry for the other person, but they keep the addiction going. If the codependent gets healthy…then it would model it for the N and others. Trying to change the other person may keep them locked into this behavior. They don't want to be controlled.
Addictions distract from pain/loneliness/sickness/depression etc, but the high from the addiction doesn't last. The front of the brain helps judgement and maybe impaired due to gluten and alcohol. Alcoholics….may crave the gluten in the alcohol. Gluten maybe like Heroin to the brain and sugar like cocaine to the brain.
A newish book worth checking out (2011), original and intriguing thoughts/theories about roots of addiction from a holistic perspective: "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" by Gabor Mate, MD. Dr. Mate is also the author of one of my favorite books on mind/body connection relating stressors to disease/illness, definitely worth a read if you are a survivor in this community who suffers from chronic illness &/or multiple debilitating emotional/physical health issues (that may seem unrelated to the untrained eye…). That book is titled "When the Body Says NO: Exploring the Stress Disease Connection". Happy reading! :-)
Brilliant video. I had to learn my lesson with my N ex the hard way. I am pretty sure she is a pathological narc with marijuana addiction, harder substance abuse, high risk behavior and so on. I thought she would see the light someday, but it became clear she wanted to continue her path. After almost two years together, she discarded me in part because I made it clear I was not going to continue to finance her medical marijuana "needs." Thinking I could continue to stay with her and hope for the best seems like madness to me now. 8 months after the BU and I feel much better now. Dana, your videos, the videos of other counselors, no contact, learning about the truth of Narc abuse have helped me enormously. Thank you.
Aha!!! View this video together with Red Flag #41 to see how the pieces fit together (both sides of the manipulationship: narcissist & selected targets). TOTALLY makes sense to me now; explains why they use the idealize-devalue-discard cycle as their modus operandi, and why they are such masters at their game (excel at what you're well-practiced at, right?). High marks to you, Dana (no pun intended), for getting this spot-on. Well-done!!!!
Dana, I absolutely believe that NPD behaviors may be congenital. I suffered so much from migraines. Long, long ago, in the diagnosis phase, I finally was referred up the specialty chain to a neurologist who said: If migraines were just headaches, we'd all have them. My dad suffered from migraines until he was in his 70's. Those were the days when doctors told him in so many words to 'man up' because there was nothing physically wrong with him. Poor dad! Anyway, my sibling is a sociopath and she was adopted. Where did her sociopathy come from? Why did she exhibit it as early as grade school?
Two decades ago I became aware that alcohol addiction is a problem in my family, and that my mother, and her brother have it. Just a few months ago I pieced together that they are both narcissists. It explains why when my mother drinks she gets even more selfish than usual. It's the mask getting thinner as she becomes that much more dysfunctional from being intoxicated. It's a pretty ugly sight.
do you think we should perform a background check on these people before we date them?? i mean, i am lucky currently i know i have a fiance who loves me who doesnt have all these problems but if someone admits to u they used to have a gambeling problem or an alcoholic addition and u decide to stay away from them, how do you know that by leaving then they arent going to flip into destructive mode its like the little things can set them off and is there any hope finding someone normal who doesnt have these problems because i think it is normal to have a bit of emotional baggage… right? and u accept certain things but if their behaviour continues like they put you down and ur mad about it at the time but it keeps happening you wont tolerate it etc i think its a little different if uve got kids because uve gotta think of them but i think as u say its okay to have deal breaking behaviour and not putting the fires out continually in the relationship but sometimes i wonder if there is any hope to find a nice normal person, i mean i know i have but it was a miricle we found each other i think and i thank an old friend for playing cupid but there are these other people out there with these problems and not think you have to run for the hills if a few red flags we think we see in them. i mean, i like to think of myself as lovely but i know if im unhealthy i know i can have some of these traits.. and thats an awful thing to admit but it keeping urself ballenced and with different things u go through whether its a break up, death in the family, divorce, we either get very depressed and or some turn to an addiction and for me it was shopping, nothing so self destructive but i would be spending money i didnt have just to make me feel better again. i think i probably needed a life coach when i was young and help but all i wanted was for someone to say they understood and would say you have had a very sad time over things and maybe suggesting ways to help or giving me motivation that you can fight loniness or whatever else it was, however getting people to understand me was working i thought but my mom said ages ago that i put on this poor me attitude and try and gain sympathy and that hurt because that wasnt entirly true and then i didnt know what to do if i couldnt talk to any body so my other habbit was smoking… sometimes ten or mord a day they booked me to see a counciler and i was glad she listened… but with having a narsistic ex and other things on top of that i was reaching a breaking point. i used to faint so much i got myself hospitalized and i turned to self harm…. so when i knew or could see someone the same as me, getting bullied my heart would go out to them because id want to help them and i would put up with so many things because of thinking ur all by yourself and having to deal. id try and be their strength…. but these days i have a peaceful life and if a friend of mine is struggling with something id help them but id get too drawn in before…. its knowing what i can do and carnt without it becoming intrusive and because i go with my heart usually and not my head id get drawn into the drama of their life
Hi Dana ~ I have felt confused on the addiction topic somewhat (in the vein of "oh well maybe I'm the narcissist and he wasn't the one with the problem") in that I was heavily medicating myself with alchohol throughout our relationship so that I wouldn't have to look at some of the things he was doing and because I felt I couldn't bear to face so much of what was really going on….he had many addictions via porn drugs and past issues with alchohol…..but I was guilty of the alchohol thing and he used that as the reason we had to break up. (Along with an announcement that he was no longer sure how he felt about " monogamy"). So part of me has felt at fault because of MY addictions, although I have not touched a drop since we broke up 8 months ago – but part of me still gets confused that it WAS because of my drinking, even though I know the discard would have happened anyway. Or I would have had to end it myself not being able to go along with the stuff he was doing anymore…. Anyway. Any insight on this quandary?
how do you respond to being constantly told you have "trust issues"? He did break trust at one point, so yes the trust was broken.
Ugh and talk about pattern of instability!!!!! His friends and family told me how unstable and crazy he was until I came into the picture. This made me feel so good. It made me feel so important, and I was fooled into thinking that he simply needed to meet the right person. He never showed me his unstable crazy side until I ended the relationship after I found out he cheated on me. He started to harass me, then I got a restraining order against him. I looked onto the county website to see our restraining order, and low and behold, this guy has a record of tens of thousands of dollars of past due child support and court fines. Next time I meet a guy, I'm looking up his record. Jeez!
Thank you so much for connecting addiction and narcissism. I've been in recovery for 13 years and I can honestly say that many addicts and alcoholics feel so much remorse and shame that it keeps them oppressed and in their addictive lifestyle.
My narc-ex completely stopped drinking while we were together for two years! He wasn't a true alcoholic, because true alcoholics don't stop drinking for anybody (unless they're ready). My narc ex knew that I wouldn't tolerate his drinking so he stopped, until I wasn't physically in his presence! Four months ago I found out that my ex-fiance was living a double life throughout our entire two-year relationship and engagement. As I researched, I came to the terms with the fact that he has narcissistic personality disorder who has no shame or remorse for any of his actions or caused hurts.
Thank God I have enough recovery to keep my standards and remove anybody from my life who is a threat to my well being! He fooled me so well, and so beautifully. He is a beautiful deceiver, and I am heartbroken. But I will heal from this!
Hello Dana, what can I call someone who care about other but not me, even though I have been very kind loving and supporting to him in several years? he cared about sometimes and that makes me confused. do I keep support and like him without more expectations, like asking him and waiting answers etc. I would keep him in some way in my life What do you recommend?thanks
Thank you for sharing this info. I watched a couple of your videos in mid July, just under a month after breaking up with my ex girlfriend. I found out she was cheating. I recently began going through your red flags playlist finishing it with this latest entry.
I was so confused and left wondering what I could do better (hindsight) even though I ended things. What I'll say is that, after doing extensive research from various authors, and through the guidance of a couple life coaches and talking to friends and family, she did indeed have narcissistic traits and at least 5/9 of the qualities in my opinion that would indicated she may have a disorder. I enabled bad behavior. I also lacked the self respect to call her on her bull shit due to me trying to be a nice and loving man. bad move. Women resent that. But it's definitely not my fault she cheated.
I was always faithful, and I'm aware I may sound like a fool attempting to save face, but I get hit on daily by attractive women. I never entertained the thought of stepping outside of my relationship and always made it a point to tell other women how happy I was with the woman I loved, even when I was ready to end it and knew for sure what she did I didn't cheat. It's not who I am. At least I thought I loved her. maybe I was in love with who I hoped she would be. Anyway, when I found out what she had been doing it did a real number on me. she denied it of course, because I never showed her concrete evidence. (I had proof, but decided to leave it alone. It wasn't worth it since the damage had been done).She sent a long text stating how sorry she was for disrespecting me and several other reasons why she understood why I ended it and wouldn't talk to her, but vehemently denied cheating, not knowing I knew the truth. that was 3 months ago.
I have no desire to have any contact with her ever again, though she asked for closure and to meet and converse with her. But yet she wants to play me as a fool. I won't allow her back in my life even for a minute of my time.
Now I am doing great. there were so many red flags, and she was very manipulative. I know you say those kinds of people don't care about you, but I do look back and think she really did care. though that's still not entirely clear. You know the dynamic of how good times are great and bad are horrible. That's how we were. What I do know is most people who know us mutually, almost all of them think I'm a Jack ass, her family, friends, some of my old co-workers, our mutual friends. I'm not trying to convince them of who she really is.
I'm in the process of completely moving on. But I wrote a song (I make hip hop music) about her. she asked me to write one when we were dating (we were in a relationship for 9 months) I kept my word and finished it in Sept. I'd love to share it once I get it mixed and mastered. it's not what you think. No negativity. I'm sure she'll hear it one day. I just hope she doesn't think I still want her back. there is no future with her.
I specifically want guys to know, don't allow your woman to disrespect you. don't put up with it. communicate lovingly like an adult. and have self respect. If you feel she may be destructive, don't ignore it hoping she'll get better. she likely won't, cause it probably won't benefit her agenda. vote with your feet and never look back.