Wow, a ton of great responses! I'm glad I brought this up.
Most of the alcoholics I know have been 'mean drunk/nice dry' or 'mean dry/'nice drunk'
I think I would have fit into the latter category. But I am also aware that some people are just mean all the time, or nice all the time.
It took me a long time to admit that I was an alcoholic because I was nice when I drank, unlike the main drunk in my life who was mean and abusive when drunk. So because the mean drunk was my only point of reference of alcoholism for many years, I thought alcoholism meant 'mean and drunk, often'. It would take me awhile to figure out that many of my relatives were alcoholics as well, because I wasn't aware of the different types of alcoholics, and they were much more discreet, and we were also small children of whom they would be afraid to 'act out' around but probably acted out in other ways. Sorry to ramble, it's late.