Dr. Cali Estes - The Addiction Coach ®

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Narcissism in Addiction

 

Well today’s blog is going to be educational in many different aspects. We are going to dive headfirst into the narcissist and narcissism and try to wrap our heads around the true meaning of a narcissist and why narcissism is running rampant in the addictions industry amongst its professionals and its recovering drug addicts. We will also make it painfully obvious as to why narcissism hinders one’s ability to fully recover from addiction. We are even going to touch base on a true story about a real life narcissist who prays on business owners and company owners willing to give him their hard earned money for marketing ideas, only to steal their money and then use narcissistic ways to try to keep the stolen money.

narcissism

But let’s start this educational blog with narcissism and it’s true definition from the Webster’s dictionary. So narcissism true meaning in the noun sense is “excessive admiration in oneself or in ones own actions”. In the psychology sense the meaning of narcissism is “selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy and a need for admiration”. And the psychoanalysis of narcissism is “ A SELF-CENTEREDNESS ARISING FROM FAILURE”.

So now that we have discussed the true meaning of narcissism and what fuels a true narcissist, let’s go over a few narcissistic tactics that a true narcissist will use.

1. GASLIGHTING- a narcissist will lie to prove you are wrong.
2. PROJECTION- a narcissist will project their true feelings onto you.
3. BAITING- a narcissist will bait you into an argument to try to show that you are out of control, not them.
4. LEVELING- a narcissist will always bring up everything bad that you have ever done when in a disagreement to try to “level” the playing field.
5. FEAR MANIPULATION- a narcissist will try to manipulate the outcome of a situation with the fear of consequences.
6. DEVALUING YOU- a narcissist will devalue in every way once you try to expose them.
7. PLAYING THE VICTIM- a narcissist will always play the victim to gain undeserving sympathy and empathy.
8. BLACKMAILING- a narcissist can and will revert to blackmail if he or she feels threatened in any way.
9. PITTING- a narcissist will put others against you to keep the attention away from their own mess.
So now that we have discovered the true meaning of narcissism and we have gone over the many different ways in which a narcissist will influence the situation in their favor, we are now going to discuss a true story and I want you to see how many of the nine narcissistic characteristics you can pick out of this true story that recently happened to an innocent hard-working business owner.
This true story begins a few months ago when a hard working and honest business owner felt that she needed to increase her online marketability and she began to research experts in online marketing. She was introduced to what appeared to be a very successful online marketer. She scheduled an initial phone conversation to see if this is someone that she wanted to hire and this person seemed to be the perfect fit for who and what she wanted to hire to improve her online marketability. She scheduled a flight to central California to meet the supposed online marketing guru. She was told that this first initial meeting would be to discuss the fact that the marketing guru had dissected her company and had a list of all the things she was doing wrong and that needed to be corrected. He was also going to give her a play-by-play listing of ways to correct her online marketing. The fee for this process, which was to on go for a few months, was $15,000 in which our company owner gladly paid. The meeting was set to take place at an undisclosed public place set forth by the marketing guru that we will call, “Bob”.
The meeting was instantly set into an uncomfortable position when the marketing guru made disturbing comments about the company owner’s attractive physical appearance and he let it be known that he enjoyed working with attractive clients. The meeting then became all about the marketing guru personally and nothing to do with what he could offer the client professionally to improve her online marketing.
After the uncomfortable meeting was over, our company owner returned to her hotel room only to feel cheated and let down over the $15,000 she had spent and the hopes that her marketing issues were going to be corrected. When she brought this to the marketing guru’s attention, he exploded emotionally and started telling our company owner everything she did wrong at the meeting (LEVELING). He then began telling her all of the things that he was not going to do now because she questioned his methods and his lack of knowledge and attention of her company and her marketing issues (FEAR MANIPULATION).  He used the fear of not giving her what she paid for because she questioned his methods and intentions. He then continued to lie about all of the time and resources he spent dissecting her company but couldn’t tell her anything about her company and the marketing methods that she was doing wrong (GASLIGHTING). He sent her many emails following their meeting telling the company owner how little she and her company were and how he wasn’t going to waste anymore of his time dealing with her issues (DEVALUING). He threatened to tell anybody who would listen in the company owner’s line of work that she was crazy and that it was her fault that the business expedition had gone so horribly wrong (PITTING). He then told the company owner, who had invested her hard earned money into basically nothing, that it was his time that was wasted and that he had tried so very hard to make it work only to be disrupted by the company owner and her behavior (PLAYING THE VICTIM).
So, just from the story alone, you can see why narcissism can ripple any situation, especially those recovering from addiction, because it is full of manipulation and lies for one’s self-gain and self-gratification.
It takes someone that is full of self-worth and self-confidence to be able to overcome a narcissist and their narcissism.
That’s why we here at The Addictions Coach take narcissism very serious when breaking an addict down to rebuild them in recovery. We have the addiction industries top nationally certified professional recovery coaches to identify narcissism and to correct it in our industry leading recovery-based programs. You can contact us through our company website at Top Recovery Coaches and Life Coaching for Drug and Alcohol Addiction or by calling 1-800-706-0318
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