Glad we’re back. This is a question that’s been burning in my mind for a while, and I hope people will offer their thoughts on it.I was married to a woman who I believe has NPD and, if not an alcoholic, has a drinking and prescription drug abuse problem. She went to a substance abuse doctor after I left her, and was told she’s not an alcoholic, but was “not sensitive to {my} feelings” about her drinking/substance abuse. Small surprise, she wasn’t sensitive to my feelings about anything else, either, hence our divorce. Anyway, because of a history of alcoholism in my father, and my experiences with my now ex-wife, I started attending Al-Anon. A major part of the Al-Anon program is that we have to accept that alcoholism is a disease, the person didn’t choose to be an alcoholic, any more than they would choose to have cancer or any other disease. As such, we treat the person as separate from the disease. Another thing I’ve learned at Al-Anon is that the drinking really only comprises about 15% of the disruptive behaviour. I’ve learned through research that many narcissists are alcoholics. From listening to my peers at Al-Anon, I’ve also come to suspect that many alcoholics are also narcissists. Yet the information suggests that narcissists are not “ill”, despite efforts to classify Narcissistic and Borderline Personality Disorders as “mental illness”. They may be sociopaths, but that’s different than a mental illness. I’d appreciate if people would comment on this dichotomy. I’m honestly finding the Al-Anon program helpful in healing myself, but being told on the one hand to treat essentially identical behaviours as a disease and, on the other, not a disease is very confusing. How do I separate out (and deal with) which part is the alcoholic behaviour and which is the narcissistic behaviour (though frankly, either is enough to drive anyone nuts!).