Really tough but interesting topic for me.
I never thought of my dad as an alcoholic and it's only now that I know I am one myself I think he's one, too.
He has quite a history with addiction (he was addicted to weed before and even heroin when he was in his twenties) and he's always been drinking a lot for my whole life. There's not a day he doesn't drink. He's lost his drivers license because of driving drunk some years ago but now has it back. He drinks about 2 bottles of wine a day. But he's extremely successful, running his own company. That's why I never thought of him as an alcoholic. Also cause he keeps it to the evenings. But I guess he's your typical highly functioning alcoholic.
This week I discussed with my therapist how I started drinking. I started when I was 12/13 years old to have a sneaky glass of my dad's wine after he went to bed. Soon I'd start to have a couple of glasses during the evening, mixed with my coke so he wouldn't notice. So basically I was copying him.
I did drink daily for about a year before stopping and I always compared my drinking to my dads drinking and justified my daily drinking by the fact that he does it too and still is successful. Well I wasn't. For the longest time I thought I was doing it wrong and had to change my drinking, get better at it. I just had to stop though but I didn't realise that it was as simple as that.