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Alcoholism and mental problems

Cainkane1

Philosopher
Cainkane1
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
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Location
The great American southeast
I was living in the same apartment complex with a man who was an alcoholic who had not had a drink in one year. He was also a coworker. One day he fell off the wagon and came to work drunk. I had been visiting him at his apartment and I left after he had started drinking. Ok he of course got in trouble. He insulted several fellow employees who had been working there many more years than he had. They sent him home to sober up. The manager was a dried out alcoholic himself and he wanted to give this man another chance. The man came back to work drunker than ever and was sent home two more times. He came back the third time drunk and this time they fired him.

Ok heres where I come in. I had been avoiding this man ever since he started drinking. I had not drank with him nor had I been around when he bought the wine he was drinking. He blamed me for the loss of his job. He went around telling everybody how mean I had been to him and eventually he was on the verge of being kicked out of the apartment complex due to compalints concerning his drunken behaviour. He actually returned back to his former place of employment drunk as ever and he told him what a horrible person I was.

I stress I had done nothing to make him drink. What seemed to distress him was my abandoning him when he started drinking. My reaction to this was that he was not actually a friend but merely a work acquaintance and I was not responsible for him. I told him he was a grown man and he needed to take responsibility. His reaction was violent and loud. Had I not been considerably larger than him he would have attacked me. He was kicked out of the complex that day.

Ok does alcohol always cause this type of absurd reaction to an innocent bystander? He even blamed me when he got out of a hospital after not having anything to drink for several days. You couldn't tell him anything.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Ok does alcohol always cause this type of absurd reaction to an innocent bystander? He even blamed me when he got out of a hospital after not having anything to drink for several days. You couldn't tell him anything.
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Not necessarily. I've met many alcoholics who are well aware of their problems are embarrassed and apolegetic for their own behavior. However some prefer to blame others for their own problems because they can't handle their own failings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
 
I doubt that it's just alcohol addicts that display this type of behaviour.

Over- & under-eaters / narcotic addicts / sex addicts / shopping addicts / whatever addicts are all caught up in the same cloud of blame, entitlement, shame and guilt.

The blame allows the addict to feel one-down, and entitled to act out.
 
No, it doesn't always cause that type of behavior, but it is not unusual to encounter that behavior. An alcoholic in his cups can act as if he or she is better than everyone else or as if he or she is the most worthless member of the human race. Throw in a bit of cognitive dissonance and one can end up with a person who experiences both extremes at once.
 
It's far easier for someone to blame others for his/her problems than himself. My sister is an alcoholic who's been sober for a little over a year. She blames her alcoholism on a family friend who gave her a sip of wine when she was 13. Nothing is her fault, she's just a victim. She uses the blaming as a way of never looking into herself and accepting responsibility, because she definitely wouldn't like what she sees.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I was living in the same apartment complex with a man who was an alcoholic who had not had a drink in one year. He was also a coworker. One day he fell off the wagon and came to work drunk. I had been visiting him at his apartment and I left after he had started drinking. Ok he of course got in trouble. He insulted several fellow employees who had been working there many more years than he had. They sent him home to sober up. The manager was a dried out alcoholic himself and he wanted to give this man another chance. The man came back to work drunker than ever and was sent home two more times. He came back the third time drunk and this time they fired him.

Ok heres where I come in. I had been avoiding this man ever since he started drinking. I had not drank with him nor had I been around when he bought the wine he was drinking. He blamed me for the loss of his job. He went around telling everybody how mean I had been to him and eventually he was on the verge of being kicked out of the apartment complex due to compalints concerning his drunken behaviour. He actually returned back to his former place of employment drunk as ever and he told him what a horrible person I was.

I stress I had done nothing to make him drink. What seemed to distress him was my abandoning him when he started drinking. My reaction to this was that he was not actually a friend but merely a work acquaintance and I was not responsible for him. I told him he was a grown man and he needed to take responsibility. His reaction was violent and loud. Had I not been considerably larger than him he would have attacked me. He was kicked out of the complex that day.

Ok does alcohol always cause this type of absurd reaction to an innocent bystander? He even blamed me when he got out of a hospital after not having anything to drink for several days. You couldn't tell him anything.
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No, not in my opinion. Many people shift ersponsibility and take comfort in the fact that nothing is ever their fault.
 
The Mutha said:
It's far easier for someone to blame others for his/her problems than himself. My sister is an alcoholic who's been sober for a little over a year. She blames her alcoholism on a family friend who gave her a sip of wine when she was 13. Nothing is her fault, she's just a victim. She uses the blaming as a way of never looking into herself and accepting responsibility, because she definitely wouldn't like what she sees.
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There is a story they say in AA, for every years you spend drinking, it takes a month of sobriety to beging to deal with the denial. And that is not accept the denial and change it, just to begin to understand it is there. So the theory goes, if you drank heavily and in addiction for twenty four years , it takes two years of sobriety just to aknowledge the depth of denial.

Never tested, just a story.
 
It could be that this individual was unstable to begin with and the drinking was a way to cope with his mental problems… in many cases alcoholics/drug addicts use these things to self medicate and when it gets to the point of out of control addiction they could blame the drugs and alcohol for their bad behavior. And then they turn to religion to self medicate. In all cases it’s a “not my fault” way of thinking.
 
skip said:
It could be that this individual was unstable to begin with and the drinking was a way to cope with his mental problems… in many cases alcoholics/drug addicts use these things to self medicate and when it gets to the point of out of control addiction they could blame the drugs and alcohol for their bad behavior. And then they turn to religion to self medicate. In all cases it’s a “not my fault” way of thinking.
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Specifically, this is very common behavior for people with [borderline personality disorder].

Not so much self-medicating as impulsive.
 
The first place I'd start to understanding this person would be to take everything he says at face value. Which leads me to believe this person suffered from relationship psychosis.
 
I think you'll find it's a pretty common trait among alcoholics/drug addicts but also it's certainly not restricted to just those.

Many upon many people blame others for their bad decisions/actions and their status in their life sadly.

However with alcoholics and drug addicts it's magnified because of the mind altering substances IMO.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Ok does alcohol always cause this type of absurd reaction to an innocent bystander? He even blamed me when he got out of a hospital after not having anything to drink for several days. You couldn't tell him anything.
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How can you be surprised he blames you given your history?

What!? Are you going to sit there and now deny those thoughtful posts of mine last week that were sent to the AHH reciprocal weren't your fault.

Who is in denial now?
 
In my experience, lots of folks with addictions are 'dual diagnosis' which is shorthand for saying that they ALSO have some mental health issues going on that complicate their treatment. I see folks without a concurrent mental illness have lots of success with the classic 12 step approach, but the ones I get to work with need counseling, medications, group therapy, etc. in addition, and even so some of them still can't process what they need to.

I think it's already been said, but the level of blaming others for his relapse, and the level of drama really does sound like someone with some borderline personality issues. My experience with borderline personality clients is that they're only going to process in black and white. When you were his friend, he saw you as an idealized storybook friend, but when you showed anything he thought of as a defect in that friendship, i.e. not being willing to follow him down into his addiction, in his mind you went entirely to the opposite, and became the most evil betrayer ex-friend possible. No shades of grey there.

What I see in my borderline clients is that as long as I'm providing them with exactly what they expect from me, I'm the greatest guy they've ever met (and of course, they let me know that I'm SO MUCH BETTER than all the other staff), but when I have to enforce a rule, or point out something they need to change, it's literally an instant change in their mind and now I'm the worst, nastiest, most authoritarian person they've ever met, and I'm conspiring against them to get them into trouble. This is from people who will use right in front of me, knowing that it's my job to enforce the rules against using, and still think that it's somehow my fault and a conspiracy against them that I don't somehow make it not so.

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My experience with addicts in recovery is that it's NEVER their fault when they relapse. Some will blame the drug or the booze, but never themselves.
 
You can't asses or diagnose boderline in the precense of substance dependance.

ETA: I have to withdrawl that until I look at the DSM-IV, my wife's copy is at work.
 
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