I always used "functional alcoholic" to differentiate myself from "rolling around in the gutter alcoholic." In real life, most of us weren't lying in the streets very often, but we certainly weren't functioning as well as we thought! I swore once to a counselor in rehab that I never drank on Sunday mornings before playing at church, and I meant it. I meant I never got buzzed on Sunday mornings, just a couple of shots to stop my hands from shaking, purely medicinal...see, I'm functioning!