She’s a he but yeah your average bottle of Jack D.
You describe him as someone who was loving, decent, and considerate, yet also say he was prone to mood swings, and feared he would be furious at times because he was drunk. Doesn’t sound considerate, and that is a pretty off definition of “functioning” to me, but of course, I will concede that you know your old man better than I do.
He never got arrested or fired or divorced or beaten up or lost his job or got a ticket or killed a man in Reno just to watch him die. People could meet him and have no idea he was drunk or that he ever drank. He had money and wore clean clothes and went to church of a Sunday and loved his momma and loved Jesus and America too. He was the archetypal functioning alcoholic.
What was the problem, then.
ETA: That was glib. Let me try again. If he had issues with communication with you, or you had to ‘guess what mood he may be in’ or something like that…that sounds like the kind of thing that could happen involving the personalities of anybody. Just something you learn to live with. Not something that he should have to stop drinking for.
I agree. I posted in a similar thread just a few weeks ago that I am an alcoholic by definition but:
I’ve held my current job for 17years. Been a top rated employee. And since that last thread, I just got a promotion. I start my new position next week as a matter of fact.
I have a healthy 401K.
My kinds want for nothing.
I’m a home owner.
So I’m curious as to what part of my life is dysfunctional?
jsgoddess, I think I misunderstood your post earlier. When you said this:
I thought you said “it isn’t something about effect on work, relationships, etc” and that confused me a bit. Now that I’m clear on that, I’m still unclear on how you’re defining alcoholism this way:
and still say your father functioned well. In some ways he did; he maintained a steady job, kept the family fed and housed, never beat his wife, never got arrested or any of that. In other ways, as in at least of his children feared that he would come home drunk and infuriated, not so much.
I have a question. I have a friend. This is an actual person I know whose name I am changing to Amy for the purpose of this conversation. Amy is a healthy woman who is smart, funny, charming and well-liked, has awesome friends and a good relationship with her family. She has a good career with a stable company, owns a home, [insert All-American bullshit that makes person normal and healthy here]. Sometimes when Amy drinks she has bizarre mood swings, frequently she blacks out, and her drunkenness almost always led to rather unpredictable behavior. Never missed work because of it and wore clean clothes and all of that. Is Amy functional?
The thing about describing some alcoholics as functioning is that it is intended to distinguish them from non-functioning alcoholics. It is a given that in both cases we are talking about someone with a dependency on alcohol. At least in the past, people’s idea of an alcoholic was someone who was homeless due to alcoholism–unable to provide himself with the basics of adequate food, clothing, and shelter. There was a need for a term to describe those people who can take care of the basics and function in society while still being dependent on alcohol. The term isn’t meant to imply fully functioning, just a basic level of functioning. It’s like asking if a car runs.
Do you have the right to destroy your liver if that is the only consequence? If you have cash in the bank for a transplant, and to support yourself while you’re disabled, go for it. Other than that, society will not be real thrilled about bearing the cost through public or private insurance. Deciding to destroy your health is choosing to diminish your productive capacity and increase the communal resources you consume. It may be your legal right, but other people don’t have to like it. This is not to deny that behaviors like drinking, smoking, and overeating can be hard to control, but if you know you can control it but choose not to? Why should other people like that?
Hear, hear!
It seems some people are skeptical about the idea of a boozehound being a functional person. js says her father was a functional alcoholic, but describes him as someone prone to bouts of drunken anger. It’s near-impossible for me, as an outsider, to say whether or not he was just prone to anger (as people are) because he’s a human being, of it it was because of his drinking. If the former, good for him and his drinking doesn’t seem like a problem to me. Hell, I can never predict what mood my mother is going to be in, and the woman has had precisely one drink in the last 20 years, which was a glass of wine on vacation, at that! I suppose if she drank, I could blame it on that. But if her father’s angry mood swings were due to excessive drinking, I might call that a dysfunction.
How are you an alcoholic by definition?
The problem with these threads is the great big grey area in between stone cold sober and alcohol poisoning. There is no line between functional and non-functional, but there sure are a lot of people willing to condemn anything more than “light, occasional, drinking”.
Where am I in the spectrum? I dunno. I can drink a 6 oz martini and feel good. There have been times where I’ll do that 7 days a week. It takes two of those to get “drunk”. It’s rare I’ll have three.
A week or so ago, I decided to lose some weight. I stopped drinking and don’t otherwise miss it.
I’m also 270 lbs, and after 20 years of drinking, beer won’t do it anymore. It just makes me bloated and sober. Man, tha sounds bad, huh?
Except I have a drink when I get home around 4pm and am sober again by 8 or so. I can’t possibly be alone in drinking those quantites.
Winston Churchill did OK-his day began with a tumbler full of brandy-lunch included 3-4 glasses of claret. Dinner began with several whiskey and sodas, and perhaps a martini or two. Dinner also included red wine (3-4 glasses). After dinner was brandy and cigars, and champagne. Bedtime included a “nightcap” a large glass of whiskey or brandy.
He lived to 90, and seemed to do OK.
Perhaps, then, we need to try to define what a “functional” person is? I’m not skeptical about an alcholic being ‘functional’ if you’re talking about someone who operates as jsgoddess describes her Dad as doing. It’s just that, even while being ‘functional’, one does damage to personal relationship as well as your own health. Perhaps that’s not functional after all?
BTW I understood js to be saying that the drinking caused this unpredicatbility in her father.
ETA: Jeez, post #48 was the one I was responding to.
This has become in interesting and highly informative thread! Thanks, everyone! Let’s keep it going.
I normally only drink about once a week. (some times two) When I do drink, it’s usually a 12pack or more even.
For honesty’s sake, I guess I should mention about twice a week, I’ll stop by my local neighborhood bar. For legal reasons I won’t drink more than one beer followed by a glass of water. (I am guilty of a DWI I got about 16 years ago. It was a humiliating expirience that I NEVER want to relive again. Hence my paranoya about drinking and driving.)
But I don’t go to the bar for the beer. I’m a single man and that bar is pretty much my only social outlet. So I basically only go there for the company. (It’s a “Cheers” type bar. I usually know about 90% of the patrons there at any given time.)
There’s part of the problem Shakes. You don’t fit neatly into some category (as Unintentionally Blank noted about the gray area). You don’t sound like an alcholic to me, but then again, I don’t know you personally.
Good answer. I think this address the OP really well. If you believe that choosing to lead an unhealthy lifestyle is generally a bad thing, that is what’s wrong with being a functioning alcoholic. Otherwise, have at it.
With all of that you have said (and I am NOT trying to be snide) WHY do you care if someone on a messageboard thinks you are an alcoholic?
You don’t seem to have any problems because of drinking (of course health issues are possible, but not just for excessive drinkers) so why let a strangers opinion bother you?
PS—I dont know how much you drink, but with all the criteria you have listed in your post, you obviously must have a pretty good handle on your life and your responsibilities.
A lot of Americans have a different view of drinking than many other world cultures, and too many are too quick to label someone who does not fit into the their ideas of “normal” or “moderate” alcohol consumption. If these same people could spend some time in Sydney, Prague, Buenos Aires or Berlin then they might realise that the US Surgeon General is not taken too seriously in many perfectly lovely places, where in fact they may have better overall life skills, more functional, thriving economies and often fewer social problems than many places right here in the good ol’ USA…
How many functional acoholics would have some of the same issues with respect to personal relationships sober as they do under the influence?
Many times, alcoholism goes hand in hand with other personality disorders and becomes the whipping boy for any mood swings, relationship issues, etc . Go to an AA or AlAnon meeting sometime and listen to the stories of before and after. They’re not always that much different.
This isn’t to say that alcohol doesn’t ever intensify an existing negative personality trait, but that trait generally has to be there to begin with.
My sister was a heavy drinker for a number of years. She maintained good relationships, held jobs, got good grades in college, and was healthy (very athletic, in great shape)
She was a functional alcoholic for a number of years. She had blackouts, her health suffered, her relationships suffered - but she held good jobs (and did well at them), had friends who were willing to put up with her, and was never so ill that she was disabled.
She was a non-functional alcoholic for about two years. She couldn’t hold a job. Her health problems were serious enough to make her suffer (nerve and liver damage) and make it difficult for her to hold a job even months after she sobered up and she seemed to go out of her way to make relationships impossible.
She has been in recovery for the past two years. She doesn’t drink at all, holds a job, has repaired her relationships. Her health is much better, but some of the damage is permanent.
Not all drinkers become heavy drinkers. Not all heavy drinkers are or become alcoholics. Not all alcoholics eventually become non-functional.