liquidfireangel

i'm only 18 and ive been drinking pretty much every day for at least 2 years, although i started drinking even before that (and i take certain kinds of drugs), and my life is pretty ****** up, but i'm still more responsible than lots of other people i know... i just finished highschool a few months ago with pretty good grades, and i have a job (even though i used to drink in school and i drink on the job), last spring i applied for and was accepted into university (i'm supposed to start next month but i dont think im gonna go)... i've kinda lost a few friends over my drinking, probably cause i can get mean sometimes, but i can be a bit of a weird loner sometimes anyway so i dont really care... ive also grown up around alcohol and alcoholics, but ive never really seen anything too horrible... so basically what im thinking is; why should i quit? cant i drink all the time and still have a relatively productive life?

Sikkisirus

Sooner or later alcohol abuse will catch up with you. Ascites, ulcers, varices, the list of destruction goes on and on. Being in my work I picked up people in terrible states. You can function for so long but it won't last. I was lucky to get through my twenties, I was spewing blood and in a mess. Granted im in my 30's now and still drink but its a dangerous path. I really wouldn't advise it. If you can have a good time drinking and walk away then hey wonderful. But for constant abusers the only thing they head for is the grave if they don't quit.

Dee74

I wasn't able to keep that up either - gradually the odd day called in sick, the odd family occasion missed, the odd band rehearsal missed...they got more and more frequent.


My life shrank to my bedroom - literally - and anything that interfered with my drinking? I didn't do.

You've already said in another thread you need a shot to get out of bed - at 18.

How do you think you might be at 28? 38? 48?

I dunno if you'll believe any of us without experiencing it first hand, but alcoholism is progressive, Sara - it can and will own you.

D

penny74

l tried for 30 years..but had the same experience as Dee74.. It catches up with you..Call in sick more often, miss things (like your children growing up) , one day you realise your not functioning anymore but living from drink to drink.
Don't let it come to that.. it's a waste of life..
good luck.

Now don't say you can't swear off drinking; it's easy. I've done it a thousand times.
W. C. Fields

yeahgr8

Yeah sure there is such a thing as a functioning alcoholic, i was one!

Last year i decided to try and get help for my drinking in October, i was referred to a psychiatrist for a chat...his words were 'how on earth do you hold down a job whilst drinking this amount every night?'...my job is a very senior role responsible for substantial budgets and still did it ok?!

If you are prepared to forego any decent relationship with another human being, be it friend or partner...live in constant fear and misery at the very edge of insanity, then yes you can drink as an alcoholic and still have a good career up to a point. I decided to get help at the point where i was thinking who would look after my cat, how do i make a will and deciding on how to end my life...

It's common for my new sober friends and i to make comments like being caught up in the insanity and not seeing the woods for the trees whilst drinking/using...but honestly i went down a path that had huge warning signs with flashing lights that a normal person would avoid...it will get harder to see hope and love as you get older and eventually as another poster said you will start on the health consequences, maybe you will be lucky and drink for 20 years like me and not have to live with a serious medical condition for the rest of your life...maybe you will be one of the many that die along the way...

I always was a bit of a loner, used to hang with the goths and punks...always wanted to be different...i got my wish but not in the way that i thought it would be lol

Get some help...fast as you can:-)

Tosh

I remember thinking I was a 'functioning alcoholic' before it really got a grip of me, but even then I was messed up in the head.

Pilgrim

Life can be so much better! I had no idea. I still get really amazed seeing how people live when they are not chained to alcohol like I was. They go for runs, walk their dogs, take an interest in each other and generally live the life they were given.

I went to AA and found out why I drank differently. There are lots of young people in AA in my town. Maybe you could check it out?

notofeudalism

I was for a long time. I still am. But to be very honest it is catching up to me. I am 34. At 18 I could drink all night and be fine

For me it started catching up about 26 y.o. One thing I did learn is you dont have to hit a "bottom" to want to stop. For many, the bottom is the stop, which includes prison and death. I lost all of my friends. Not due to drinking. Due to my anti-social behavior, which included my drinking, isolating and mental health. But thta is just me. Everyone is different. Im 34 and still a functioning alcoholic. Time and pressure is what does everyone in. Regardless of whether you are an addict or not. Drugs and alcohol merely add to that equation. In most cases.

findingout

One of the things that alcohol (and other drugs at certain points) caused me to do was settle for less. As long as I had the alcohol, I had a high tolerance for second best and I could not see that I was settling for second best. And sometimes, not even second best.

It's hard to admit and not pleasant to face, but just about every important decision I made after I started using was made on some level to enable or protect my drinking. This was not something I could see while I was in the middle of enabling and protecting my drinking. Some of these decisions had long term consequences that I could not have foreseen at the time I made them. Five or ten years down the road, it was too late to unmake them.

I was a functional alcoholic for 25 years as long as I used a definition of functional that matched my life at the point in time I asked the question.

liquidfireangel

that actually makes a lot of sense.... thank you

Bananaman

I'm 40 and have been in full time employment since I was 19. During that time I was a functioning alcoholic for about 18 years. My daily routine was shattering. I would wake up every day feeling like a piece of used toilet paper, have a shower, bicycle 9 miles to work, do a day's work, cycle 9 miles home, drink between 12 and 25 stand units, fall asleep.

I thought I could keep that routine up indefinitely. I couldn't. About 3 years ago alcohol, which had been slowly strangling me, finally brought me to my knees. I've limped on ever more desperately and hopelessly since, but now just can't function any more. I've seen the doctor and she told me that physically I'm a wreck, and mentally need counselling for addiction, depression and anxiety.

LiquidFireAngel, I'll repeat what others have said, "do something now. Get help, see your doctor. Start addressing the problem so that you don't go down a road that ends in tears".

Bananaman.

ChameleonBoy

This is such good stuff I love it. Thank you so much for the wonderful insight and the ability to express it so well. I'm grateful and impressed you recognized the truth in this at your age.

I recently read a quote. "Good is often the worst enemy of best". Assuming of course you call being a functional alcoholic good. You will not find, truth, love, inner peace and joy in a bottle (those are some of the things I consider "best").

Thank you so much for coming here and asking questions at such a young age. I wish you all the "best" for you.

NEOMARXIST

Everyone is different and some people manage to be able to maintain their frequent drinking and still 'appear' to others to be functioning in a normal way.
However for me once I take a drink I don't want to do anything else and to be honest I am totally incapable of doing anything else. When I'm drinking and on a bender I start to see the life of a street drinker/vagrant as being a life that I wouldn't mind choosing. Utter Insanity but thats how much the alcohol Takes over my mind, I just don't want to stop and can't see a life without drink whils't I am under the influence. As soon as the booze is wearing off then relativiely rational thought comes back but during the intoxication my thought is merely about how/where/when I can get more. So for me I cannot function and drink in anyway, all I can do is drink.

BTW I was thinking along similar lines to you when I was 18, I never drank everyday but I would binge-drink religiously at every oppurtunity. I was still functioning then and progressing relatively normally through school/University, however it was not long untill my mental health became shattered (depression) and the binges were becoming longer and all I was living for was my binges and I started questioning what the point of my existance was and couldn't see a future without booze/drugs. Consequently I am clearing up the mess that I have made for myself over the last 5 years 18-23.

My advice to you and something I always say is look at the faces of the street alcoholics or the drug addicts and look into their eyes and ask yourself if you see happiness in their eyes...

bananagrrrl

I have to wonder if 'functioning alcoholics' are just fooling themselves.

I thought I was one. It is pretty hard to cover the smell of alcohol though. I know I reeked. And that was from the night before.

liquidfireangel

showering and brushing your teeth work wonders...

DrunkBull

A functioning alcoholic is usually supported by people in their life who will enable them to keep it up.they will make excuses,cover up ,cover for and generally smooth the path for the alcoholic to keep drinking.
As young as you are I would explore all of my options to find out what life is all about before worrying if I could function as an alcoholic.
Because by the time you figure it out it may be to late.

NEOMARXIST

I used to think that... I'm amazed no one ever said anything to me when I worked at my weeked job from 16-18 prior to University. It just shows how in England the binge-drinking culture is soooo prevalant that no one bats an eyelid when you roll in totally hungover and stinking of booze. Infact if anything it used to be a good topic of conversation between my and my peers/managers about how utterly wasted I got last night and how I can't remeber jack-all about it...ahh England, what a great country. I never worked one weekend for 2 years solid where I didn't come in after not getting smashed the night prior, of-course back then drinking the next morning had never crossed my mind and I hadn't mixed with any characters who did that. Oce I started that then I could kiss goodbye to going to work after a drinking session.

But yes, you will be surprised at how it is obvious to others that you have a drinking problem but you are totally oblivious to it... Thats my experince since I have gotten sober.

Tazman53

It took me 40 years of being functional before reality hit me square in the face, I found myself standing on the edge of a cliff, a very tall cliff, I could step off into oblivion not knowing when I would actually hit the REAL bottom and die or I could turn around and live!

For almost 40 years I had been what I considered at the time successful and functional, but in reality I had been making poor decisions, I had not applied myself to the degree I could have, instead I did just enough to get by.

Why? Because if I applied myself I could not drink the way I wanted to drink!

Instead of going to college I got a decent paying job that allowed me to make enough money to have a decent place to live and the ability to drink the way I wanted to drink. I had so many opportunities of the years that I decided against because it would cut into my drinking, partying, and chasing the ladies (Even though I was married).

Yes I managed to stay employed and keep a roof over my head and food and booze, but thing were catching up with me! I reached the point where alcohol OWNED me, I no longer lived my life the way I wanted to, the last 5 years I drank my life was not mine, it was my alcoholisms life. For 5 years I woke up every morning, went into the garage and loaded up the cooler with beer and ice and drove to work, got off work and already had the jitters and popped my first top before I even got out of the parking lot. I drank all the way home, stopping at 7-11 to buy more beer to make sure I could drink that night until I went to bed. That was my life! On the weekends I simply drank!

Wow!!! Where did the party go? Where did the ladies go? Alcohol did not care about them!

Stay sober long enough and your nose will tell you that showers do not work, an active alcoholic sweats the smell of what they drink.

Looking back on all those years of drinking I was just functional enough to feed my alcoholism and in the end that was all I was going to be left with, no family, no job, no home, no truck, just that bottle which was going to take me losing any and all pride I had left. Then a lonely death.

smacked

Try it. If it doesn't work out, we'll be here. Hopefully you will be too.

And I'll say it again, stop drinking and driving... drink yourself into oblivion if you choose, but please take no one with you.

This is serious ****. A lot of our lives were/are ****** up. I hope you find a reason to sober up and stop playing games with your and other peoples' lives.

Til then.. I hope you're safe.

I was 'functional' until I took a few too many sips off my morning drink and ended up in the ER with 2x a typically FATAL blood alcohol level. I didn't even feel buzzed. I should have died. Horrible thing is, I kept drinking..

You don't have to hit a bottom to sober up. Every drink you take is a choice. You're young.. you're going to have much harder decisions than drinking every day.. how will you make them when you're ****** up all the time and can't remember the past 10 years of life?

Sad.. I hope you get help. But since you don't want it.. I hope you kill no one on your drive with your stash of liquor.

Be well.

Boleo

You can drink all the time and still have a relatively productive life for a short time. However, it would be the same as burning a candle at both ends.

Sooner or later (most likely sooner) you will see the damage that your devil-may-care attitude has caused and you will begin to regret it. At that point the fear, guilt and shame in your life will make it even harder to stop.