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Soooo.... functional alcoholics are just that until something happens like getting a D.W.I, loss of job, loss of relationship etc., then they're called alcoholics.
Soooo.... functional alcoholics are just that until something happens like getting a D.W.I, loss of job, loss of relationship etc., then they're called alcoholics.
If someone is actually an alcoholic, then by definition, they aren't functioning.
Thanks for posting this helpful info- but, even more important, for bringing up the point that there is too much misinformation on this topic. One thing I've noticed is individuals who have drinking problems (past or present) often cannot grasp that most people do not. (It reminds me of something I heard on tv: "when you're a drug addict, you want to believe everybody else is, too.") In the locale, I even read this on a popular lawyer's law firm web page- that if you drink, you probably have a problem.
I hope I'm not hijacking this thread- but is there any way to educate people about the facts?
A friend of mine who was in recovery for seven years (unfortunately, she had a relapse some time ago) once told me that people at AA meetings have discussed how they cannot understand how other people keep liquor in the house or have liquor cabinets. Why have liquor if you aren't going to drink it right away is the general thought. Similarly, she said they can't understand why people go out and have one or two drinks.
Soooo.... functional alcoholics are just that until something happens like getting a D.W.I, loss of job, loss of relationship etc., then they're called alcoholics.
Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw once. It said, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings."
A friend of mine who was in recovery for seven years (unfortunately, she had a relapse some time ago) once told me that people at AA meetings have discussed how they cannot understand how other people keep liquor in the house or have liquor cabinets. Why have liquor if you aren't going to drink it right away is the general thought. Similarly, she said they can't understand why people go out and have one or two drinks.
Well, at least it's good that your friend's AA people were able to be honest. I've known quite a few who were unable to do that.
A friend of mine who was in recovery for seven years (unfortunately, she had a relapse some time ago) once told me that people at AA meetings have discussed how they cannot understand how other people keep liquor in the house or have liquor cabinets. Why have liquor if you aren't going to drink it right away is the general thought. Similarly, she said they can't understand why people go out and have one or two drinks.
Yep. I kept no liquor in the house when DH was alive. It would be gone in a day. Sometimes, he'd bring home a few bottles. Gone in a day or 2. After he died, I found bottles hidden in the garage, in his filing cabinets at work, in his desk drawers, in his jacket pockets. Awful. Just awful. The worst were the bottles hidden in the car, tucked down beside the driver seat. My son who was 18 actually found that one when he went to drive the vehicle somewhere. There were more in the back of the car.
Now, I will pour a glass of wine, or crack a beer, and realize after an hour or 2 that I've had maybe a sip or 2. Luckily, my of age sons are the same way. After Christmas, one bought a 6 pack of beer and opened one for his brother and one for himself. They started watching a movie together and I went to bed. In the morning, the 4 unopened ones were still in the fridge, and 2 half consumed bottles of beer were on the end tables. Three of those 4 are still in the fridge. I used one bottle to make beer bread a few weeks ago!
Function means that I have seen ;they can get by but never progress to level possible. I have many friends who decided to quite drinking when off and they in two years start functioning at a higher level. Drugs;alcohol they all change the chemical balance of the brain.
My mother might be what you would call a functional alcoholic. Over the last few months, she has managed to take classes and an internship in order to get employed again after being unemployed for over a year.
But many nights I know for a fact she is drinking. And drinking fairly heavily. But somehow she is able to perform OK during the day.
She has been an alcoholic for probably 30 years. She would go to work during the day and come home at night and just drink on the back porch. She didn't, and still doesn't know what to do with her free time other than basically drink.
She may be "functional". But she is a sick person.
And it has affected my life since childhood negatively in a number of ways. I missed out on a lot because my mother wanted to isolate and drink. I was afraid to bring friends over. I have pretty bad anxiety that I know is connected to having alcoholic parents. My parents were physically present, but not emotionally.
So if you think you are not hurting your children, think again. When they become an adult, that's when it hits. It is incredibly selfish to believe you are not hurting someone when you drink.
WOW! Interestingly, that hits close to home with my family. Mom had 3 of us in 3 yrs (back in the 50s) and then had my sister 10 yrs later (1962). The 3-pak of us all recall childhoods of beatings and punishments by a Mom who was depressed and stuck at home with us 24/7 while Dad worked 2 and sometimes 3 jobs. She had all the finer things in life but that evidently wasn't enough for her. We ALSO remember weekends spent on camping trips to the FL Keys and fishing, sports as a family, going out to the Everglades as a family and learning to shoot guns at tin cans, Boy & Girls Scouts, neighborhoods with close friends and families, etc.
My sister's memories are of our Mom isolating in her bedroom, reading thousands upon thousands of romance novels, and our Dad watching TV in his chair and drinking beer. Now that we are all grown and she & I have kids of our own, she cannot fathom a Mom who beat anyone or anything and thinks the 3-pak of us are just mean and crazy! That fact alone, has a whole family split, tho I continue to keep her at arms length, but must watch how our conversations go at all times or she goes back into her shell.
In REALITY, all it is was, that by the time my sister got to be about 8 or 9 where she could recall her life, the rest of us were gone on our own and my parents WERE different...as in too damn happy we were all grown and gone to care what my sister did. My sis had no recall of us being teens when she was a toddler or of our parents dealing with us through drugs and alcohol use, police bringing the boys home on several occasions, chasing me in the middle of the night at the University football dorms.
My sister missed out on the camping, the sports, Scouts, pretty much all the traveling, too, but she never had a hand raised on her or had to go out in the yard and cut her own switch to get beaten with.
It absolutely DOES effect kids when parents drink OR are unhappy, which are one in the same to me. Otherwise, why would one choose to drink alcohol nightly and not juice or tea or plain water? The chemicals change brain cells, regardless of one drink, or 1 bottle or 1 6-pak. Incidentally, I waited until I was 39 yrs old to be a Mom...as I had been one a lifetime ago.
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