Originally Posted by
Awal 
Does going to work somehow make someone a "better alcoholic"?
I would say yes...at least they are still contributing to society in some way.
Yes and no. It's been my experience with the workplace addict or alcoholic is that they are covered for by other employees which is enabling.
On one hand they are getting paid to pay for own their vice. But with most addictions the longer it goes on the worse it gets. I've seen workplace alcoholics who were covered for for years start having major incidents at work including accidents, getting caught lying and/or simply not doing the job the best they could/should. They also expanded their intoxicating use into hard street drugs. If it weren't for a union they would've lost their job the first time instead of the third time they caught intoxicated during an incident. Those people also wound up loosing their family, marriage, house etc.
To me the 'functional' alcoholic is literally an accident or incident waiting to happen. Functional means they haven't gotten caught or suffered the consequences yet frequently from the help of enablers.