I definitely notice alcoholic behavior in people more than my wife does. A few examples: Thanksgiving dinner, I saw a few members of my family go into the kitchen to fill up their wine glasses, and proceed to chug half of a glass, and then refill it to carry the full glass back to the living room. I stopped to get cigars at the liquor store a few weeks ago, and I saw a gentleman, probably about my age--40ish, and wearing business clothes, who got into his car with his bag, was moving around quite a bit in his car, and then a few minutes later got out of the car to throw a paper bag full of trash into the garbage can in the lot. Then, when he pulled out of the parking lot, I sat the puddle where he poured out half of his gatorade to make room. And the last one happened this morning. I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things, and I saw an older woman having a meltdown because the line for the self checkout was not moving, and she needed to pay for her two tall cans of beer and get to her car quickly.
I recognized all of this behavior, because they are all things that I have done when drinking. I remember being in line at the liquor store with shaking hands and a racing heart, freaking out that the person in front of me was holding me up by asking the cashier how her day was going. I always took two or three big gulps of my drink, and then topped it off before going back to where other people were drinking normally. And I was always terrified that someone would pick up my juice bottle or water bottle and take a drink from it at work.
And as far as not recognizing the alcoholic looking back at me from the mirror, I always did. I just had to choose to believe my lie in order to keep drinking.