Personality: The Effects of Excessive Alcohol

It’s often said that a drunken person reveals their true character. Actually, the opposite is true. Personality is the central organizing quality of an individual. It provides the character and flavor to thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Whenever an individual becomes drunk the ability to organize is lost. Behavior and thoughts become loose, disheveled and primitive. The organizing quality of personality requires control and excessive alcohol reduces or eliminates self-control.


The question remains as to exactly what is revealed about a person when they are drunk, besides secrets and indiscretions. The answer may be found in the brain effect of prolonged alcohol ingestion. Chronic alcohol abuse changes the chemistry of the brain. Since the brain functions primarily as a bio-electric-chemical system any change to the structure alters our minds. Dark, inexplicable moods occur from alcohol abuse and shame replaces pride. There may be periods of black outs and individuals create false stories of their behavior during these lost times. Prolonged alcohol abuse produces destructive changes and covers up the true personality. If a person is motivated to stop drinking and finds the necessary help, there is some hope. After 48 hours without alcohol the acute poisoning of the brain is relieved. After 30-60 days without alcohol the brain starts to function close to normal, and after 1-3 years most of the brain functions and normal personality are restored.

Personality: The Narcissist and the Pain of Competition

Of course, few of us ever wish to lose at competitive events.  Loss of a contest understandably results in disappointment and dejected feelings.  After a brief while most people will move on to other activities and place the loss into the back of their minds.  As successful athletes say “You need to have a short memory”.

For the narcissist competitive losses are a different matter.  Remember, lurking beneath the mental surface of the narcissist is fear of an unspecified flaw.  The inner haunting about a vague personal defect that others might discover yields a wide array of self-centered behavior designed as a cover up.

Part of the cover up after a loss is deflection of blame.  The narcissist can rarely admit personal faults.  Instead losses are attributed to luck rather than skill of the opponent, or cheating, or illness or other external events.  For the excessively self-centered individual losses occur only because of uncontrollable actions located outside of them.   To think otherwise would be an admission of an intolerable shortcoming.  For the narcissist this would result in a festering mental wound with lasting pain.

Personality: Happiness

Western society links happiness with physical pleasures or material attainment, especially wealth. In reality though, happiness is a state of mind based on beliefs, values and achievement. While owning sufficient possessions for comfort may be part of a happy life, there are other ingredients as well. At the very least please consider family, friendship, knowledge, values, and health as key components of a happy life.


Psychologists have long studied people who have reached high levels of personal attainment. Inside these peak experience achievers it has been noticed they also possess high levels of contentment, love, self-satisfaction and happiness. Happy people have a mental version of an ideal self that includes virtue. They strive constantly to reach the best level of their life, always considering the balance between their own needs and empathy towards others. Their achievements are rarely selfish, but rather provide benefits that include others. A realistic and proud caring self along with a striving for betterment seems to bring happiness.

The Wounded Narcissist

Within most of our souls lurks a self-centered nature. If kept in balance it serves our interests, protects us from harm and guides us toward satisfaction. Combined with a genuine empathy for others, the self focus can be healthy.


When it gets out of line and behavior become overtly selfish, with an enhanced sense of entitlement, we have narcissism. Narcissism is a serious personality problem. A clue to whether self interest is going to far may be our reaction to disappointment, criticism or insults. For the narcissist, any form of criticism, open or implied, becomes a wound. The emotional wound festers and never seems to heal. The only solution is more conceit and false superiority in vain attempts to appear faultless. Examine your response to disappointment. Are you too angry? Are you having problems letting go of the hurt? Is it healthy to feel so wounded for so long? Is it worth it?

The Shy Personality

A tendency toward solitary life coupled with reluctance to speak usually indicates shyness. Persons with shyness feel insecure about their relationships and may be sensitive to the remarks of others. They feel others will find fault with their ideas and judge them unfavorably.

In fact shyness may be described as a fear of self expression. Within the psyche of the shy person lurks an interpersonal inadequacy that borders on social phobia. The shy person sees almost everyone as painfully judgmental about anything verbally expressed. As a result it’s better to keep things inside, away from the punishing judgments of “the other”.

The strength of shyness comes from the inner center where ideas and concepts are fundamentally personal and expressed internally. Shy people possess analytical ability and migrate toward jobs and situations that require plodding productivity but little social interaction. Shyness can be overcome through gentle therapy that leads toward a realization that a shy, fragile person is fundamentally no different than others

Personality Therapy

Given that problems with personality express themselves primarily through difficult personal relationships, it’s not uncommon for persons with personality disorders to seek help about relationships. Usually these relationship problems, like the personality itself, are long standing in nature. We could argue the personality functions something like the guardian of the psyche and aggressively counters any outside actions that attempt forced change. Psychotherapy then requires time and optimism.


The lifetime nature of personality requires motivation on the part of a patient to alter because of growing unhappiness. Change comes to personality malfunctions slowly and in small chunks. If therapy proceeds too quickly in an attempt to bring fast results the patient will usually become dissatisfied and quit. Gradual, structured therapies aimed on improving relationships tend to work better than therapies designed specifically to alter a lifetime personality. Most people appreciate harmony in their close partnerships and positive improvements to quality of life can bring positive changes to maladaptive personality traits.

The Hostile Personality

Bitter complaining marks the hostile personality.  This is particulalry true when it comes to people in authority.  The hostile personality seems to possess a deadly envy against anyone with real or perceived pwer over them.  In general these brooding people display a pervasive unfriendliness.  Hostile people are likely to quickly censor others for their behaviors or opinions.  Most likely they will cite continuous dangers and fears in their conversation with an invective that is over the top.  They may be particularly bitter about politicians and express extreme opinions, pessimistic forecasts and unrealistic solutions.  Deep underlying envy drives them towards constantly expressing and plotting malevolence.