I will weigh in on this one as it is a question I have pondered for decades … the mystery of this disease and how it affects different people and those they love.
How is it my dad and my brother were "high functioning" alcoholics who could drink themselves to insanity but get up each day and go to work all of their lives?
Does going to work somehow make someone a "better alcoholic"? The chaos, the cruelty, the arrests and crisis management by the attending codependents is always in play to some level - but we feel better because they earn the money for their alcohol. Usually the bills and the rest of their world is crazy insanity but they are elevated from the homeless alcoholic that is unemployable.
Both of my high-functioning family members died in their addiction just the same and my brother's death caused my codependent mother to go into an immediate grieving spiral that led to her death 9 months later.
Now my ex-fiancé was not high functioning - he would have a drink and within 48 hours he was blacked out and completely crazy - he would end up in a hospital handcuffed to the bed, in a jail cell or be on a plane to Las Vegas. But when he was sober which would be for 6 to 12 months at a time he was the sweetest most loving intelligent man on the planet... I adored him. … until he drank. I rode that roller coaster for 4 years - my old posts were so Pollyanna and ridiculous looking back on them now.
He's not dead yet... but he has almost died at least 10 times that I know of. I hadn't spoke to him in over 4 years when his mom called me and told me he was in a hospital in Los Angeles dying in August. I was at a conference out there and went to visit him and the handsome was wearing off after he has been in the streets for years. He had started injecting meth and was septic and he was literally dying … it was touch and go. He survived and after weeks of antibiotics they did extensive heart surgery and he got all new valves.
He was NEVER going to drink or use drugs again and the offer was there to fly him to a rehab he had done so well in many years before.
So he calls me and wants me to send him money and it is NO NO NO… flight only. I get these weird texts from him that say he is at LAX but he won't send me flight information... he's drunk and has gotten doctors to give him meds. He is strung out on opioids now....
This man was looking death in the face and was told if you use you die... quickly and he is using... it's only a matter of time.
Thank God I broke up with him all those years ago but this morning it is so sad... the vast majority of the alcoholics we have loved will keep drinking, break our hearts over and over again until we finally have to let them go and create healthy boundaries.
I now work in advocacy and the social justice movement for those with substance use disorders … I work for the families of those who struggle with their loved ones who are on destructive paths of untreated addiction.
Don't elevate your alcoholic on a pedestal because he is sweet when sober or works every day... the disease is progressive so his "success" is only a matter of time before the next crisis happens....
I do believe that the true heart of my loved ones was the "sober good person" and not the evil Hyde's they became drunk. I do think that God wants to return each person to who they were when created but it takes complete and absolute surrender and willingness to do whatever it takes to remain sober. .. for most this is long term residential recovery which almost all are unwilling to do. It takes really hard, hard work to retrain the brain which is plastic and growing new neural pathways does not happen overnight. It takes committed dedication and daily application of the principles of AA and living the steps and seeking your Higher Power which in my case is Jesus C.
I am surrounded by amazing men and women of recovery who have made those choices and are living proof that recovery is possible... but only if they choose to do the work every minute and with every breath they take.
Few are. very few. sadly many... many... will die in their addiction and will continue to break our hearts.
Take care of yourselves... learn all you can... don't be fooled. If they are not focused like a laser on their recovery then don't get all mushy because they are sooooo sweet when sober. Draw a line in the sand around your heart and your family and create healthy boundaries and give your A to God....
Love to you all in the struggle....