I'm a recovering alcoholic. And to be honest, it was really only in recovery that I started to research alcohol's effect on the brain, how and why the alcoholic's drinking patterns are different and what protracted withdrawal syndrome is. While I was drinking every night I was ... just driven to drink every night. Until I hit my own bottom and decided to work a program. I didn't ever lose a job and most of my friends had no idea that I had a problem. Seriously. I was pretty good at drinking at home, alone.
There are some great stickies at the top of the alcoholism section of the boards that explain alcohol's effect on memory and brain function - best book I ever read on the subject is "Under the Influence" and there are excerpted sections right here on SR:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html
But the bottom line is that an active A is highly unlikely to have any more of an idea than you do about what drives them to do the things they do. Looking for answers from the alcoholic is like asking someone under anaesthesia how they're doing during an appendectomy. or trying to have a conversation with someone who's sleepwalking.
And there are people who have been sober for years who are working a good program and thriving who don't understand the biochemistry behind the disease - it's not a prerequisite for getting and staying sober. I'm a nerd for understanding things and at a certain point in my recovery I wanted to get into the chemical nuts and bolts of how alcohol affects the alcoholic.
The bottom line is that the alcoholic brain is wired to process alcohol differently than the nonalcoholic brain. Finally in the later stages the alcoholic needs to maintain a certain level of alcohol to keep functioning. Without it, withdrawal starts. And withdrawal - when the alcoholic doesn't have alcohol in their system- can lead to behavioral and physical symptoms that are worse for the alcoholic than the effects of maintenance drinking. Your short term memory can be profoundly affected. My first year sober my brain was soup. One morning I took out a pair of socks to put on and sat down only to realize that I was already wearing both socks and sneakers