Okay, this is going to be a long post with lots of answers!
Is there anyway to help an ENTP out of drug/alcohol abuse?
I don't know an answer for the specific question, but I also read the comment about him saying "I try and after a while things go back to usual". This reminds me of my permanent trying to "get the work done first" - it works for a while, then I forget about it and things are still okay, then a disaster happens and I'll vow (again) that I'll do it better next time.
It is difficult to change a habit. First thing he needs to realize (and it seems he does) is that he's struck in a habit/behaviour he doesn't like. And he also realizes he can't get out of it on his own. So he needs help.
He doesn't want help from a rehab center. Maybe he'll accept help from you. Maybe you'd need to come up with some rules and write them down. Make sure the goal is worthy enough to follow these rules.
I'll take my own prepare-lessons-first project as an example: my goal is to get my free time in huge chunks instead of a few stolen minutes here and there.
My first approach was "you don't write until your lessons are prepared" which didn't work: I did all sorts of things which weren't writing because I hadn't prepared my lessons. End result was that I was ill prepared AND didn't write.
Now I really forbid myself anything but work until lessons are prepared. If my brain hurts and I'm unable to do the mental work of lesson preparing, I do manual work. Work is allowed. End result is not so much more free time, but well prepared lessons and a (more or less) clean house. Which I prefer to the first result.
I'm not 100% good yet, but I'm still trying.
And after a while I added another rule to that: "you don't say to your ESTJ hubby that your lessons are ready if they aren't 100% ready. No 'ready but I need to print this out' things." Again, no 100% good yet, but I feel good whenever I succeed and I use that as a fuel to tell myself the next time: "you can do it and you'll be happy"
Alcohol and drugs abuse is, of course, not only a habit to break. There's also the dependence.
what were you guys like as kids?
Imaginative.
do/did you have poor impulse control? do you have a quick firey temper? what do other people/ or your parents do to make you crazy?
I had quite some impulse control problems. Things that set me off: when I perceived something as wrong or not fair.
Eg. a girl not waiting for her turn to go to the bathroom (afterwards, I heard she was sick... so I was in the wrong)
Eg. getting a more severe punishment when, in my eyes, the misdeed was less severe (I heard half of the instructions, my friend heard nothing; still I got the longer time-out. With hindsight: probably the teacher thought the friend didn't hear them because of my talking. My childish self wondered whether she should have lied about hearing half of the instructions to get a lesser punishment)
After a while, my childish self thought that the rule actually was: "whenever there is a disagreement, I am in the wrong"... and I tried so hard to "win" just once, that in most of the occasions I lost much more.
what did you wanna be when you grew up?
Fairy. Inventor. Not grow up at all and play with marbles and legoes forever. Just become more handy and more smart, in order to be able to build ever better lego structures. I wanted to become a grown-up in order that I wouldn't have to wait/nag a grown-up when I wanted to use the oven. But I didn't want to become a boring adult who doesn't want to bake cakes any more. I always had this idea that things were not right: people who were interested in baking cakes weren't allowed to use the oven, while people who were allowed to use the oven had lost their interest in baking cakes!
I never wanted to be a writer, because I thought it as impossible. Writers were born, not made. I was a normal person, so I couldn't be a writer.
did you do better with structure? clear guidelines? do you need to know the why behind the rules for them to be of any value?
Yes, depends, no.
The challenge is not in defying the rules. The challenge is in getting what you want while following the rules. I needed somebody to tell me "now make your homework".
I answered "depends" on the guidelines, because it really depends. I don't need an algorithm. I need to know what's expected from me.
Eg. "Write a story of 2 pages" is less challenging than "Write a mystery story of 2 pages and a silver key needs to play a role." I prefer the latter, but both are okay for me.
But "Put these scenes in the right order to make a fairy tale of 2 pages, follow the general rule of fairy tales, and let your imagination run riot" made me go berserk. Come on - there were two villains in your scenes, how can I make a consistent tale out of that in only 2 pages? And why do I have to use a dragon and not a living mountain as villain? And why, why, why do you mock me with that "let your imagination run riot" instruction if I'm only allowed to choose the color of the dragon's scales?
Do ENTPs tend to have more of a feeling preference than an INTP like me? I have a good friend and despite him taking the MBTI and having a fairly strong thinking preference (77% T) he tends to get angry easily with me with my blunt comments and/or constructive criticism. So whats the deal?
Maybe yes... Normally, I'm okay with criticism. But if I expect praise and I get criticism, I feel inadequate. It's like getting "you can do better" when you've done the best you could. I try to stay cool, but I've experienced that I have to vent about it somewhere. If not, my venting can get loose at an inappropiate moment.
Eg. my mother criticized my new manuscript. While I actually wanted it, I asked her to do it; I got totally upset by it. With hindsight, I realised I hadn't gotten past previous criticism by another person yet... Which was embarrassing and not fair with respect to mother. I'm still sorry.
HEY ENTPs how do you guys feel about INTPs?
I think they're cool, I'd want to say to them, don't feel ashamed of your quirks of 'lack of friends' - you don't need to be boringly normal, and you only need real friends who don't care about popularity. (But probably you don't feel ashamed at all. Maybe it's just that you guys don't tell everybody about your strange interests like we do...)
This may have been asked before, but I didn't have time to read all 1209 posts. ENTPs are stereotyped to have short attention spans manifested by hopping from one idea to the next and never seeing things through to the end.
What is the typical time frame that an interests takes to dissolve? Are we talking hours, days, weeks, months, years?
Like [MENTION=13880]Istbkleta[/MENTION] says, it depends. Another feature is that some interests come back after a while. Recurring interests: the best way to see some of all those great projects through the end.
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you and your post, Riva. Does this mean you heart me too? 
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