Alcoholism and Narcissism

Assumptions within the alcoholic community and psychoanalytic experience both suggest that alcoholism is associated with pathological narcissism. MMPI-2 measures of overt and covert narcissism were used to test this hypothesis. Relative to a comparison group of psychiatric patients, alcoholics were expected to be higher in the arrogant grandiosity of overt narcissism and to be either similar or lower in the depressed vulnerability of covert narcissism. Group differences in overt narcissism did not appear, but male alcoholics did score slightly higher than the norms for one index of overt narcissism. Alcoholics exhibited reduced levels of covert narcissism, and females generally were lower in overt narcissism. These data argued against any simple relationship between alcoholism and narcissism.