EndGameNYC

Someone who hasn't yet lost their job, their reputation, their soul, physical and emotional health, net worth, friends and family, and anything else that they may value in their lives with an unmoving conviction that they can pull everything together right up until the moment they lose everything.

dwtbd

A distinction without a difference ?

Any distinction/descriptor with an '-ic ' applied to a someone is a someone who would be better off just never touching the stuff again. Yeah?

Obladi

Thanks, Grymt. Now I'll have to actually put in the work and try to think/meditate on it.

Getting back to Suki' s point, I don't disagree that we can be classified as to the level of dysfunction. That's a thing for sure.

And...

1. I don't see any therapeutic value in separating the sheep from the goats. Conversely, I see a lot of value in finding our similarities.

2. The only 'types' I hear mention of are these HFAs and those other 'low bottom drunks.' I resent the distinction because, clinically, I think we might be just the same. With the exception of the most desperate of cases...

Maybe it was intended as a sort of "Scared Straight" exercise? Does that work for alcoholics?

faith823

Hello,
I consider any alcoholic to have a deadly disease that wants our souls/body and minds ruined if we continue to drink. Circumstances and time spans may play a part in how one is labelled. The more power you have (HF) could also help aide and conceal the active alcoholism. I empathize with the inescapable pain of any active alcoholic. It really is like being pregnant you either are or your not. Your brain chemistry changes with consumption of alcohol and you crave more.
My brain becomes damaged maybe somebody with HFA brain only becomes challenged?

Obladi

Here's my thoughts on why it bothered me so much:
I think HFA stands for High Falutin Alcoholic

It conjures images of whatever those Housewives tv shows are (only ever watched part of one once), or those mommy play date things I've heard about where wine is a component, or this work facebook 'friend' I have who posts her wine and cheese board every Friday night, or the other work guy who posts his 'funny' fireball pictures. All very normal and humorous, right? No, I don't think so. I think it's actually pretty dysfunctional that society celebrates a drug in all of these ways. And of course it's literally dangerous for those alcoholics-in-training out there. But that's soapbox O. She's merely irritated and socially outraged about this. It's a detached disgusted sort of feeling that I surely can get worked up about, but can and do put a lid on in fairly short order, what with being old and all.

I think the part of this HFA concept that really upset me yesterday was (a) I completely reject this identity for myself at any point in my alcoholic career and (b) that puts me squarely outside of the 'in' crowd, just where I've always been. ('In crowd' because who doesn't want to be 'high functioning?' It sounds good, doesn't it? I mean, if you're gonna be screwed up, high functioning is the way to go.) Always a loner as a kid, always bullied, never understanding why I was a loser but accepting that's 'what' I was. It was excruciatingly painful. So in the end, I think my little 10-year old brain was reacting to once again being excluded from the cool kid club. And that 10-year old brain was in dissonance with my adult brain that was calling BS on the whole concept of a distinction that even warranted a club. (For Seuss fans, sort of like the 'stars on thars' thing.)

Obladi

Yeah

ScottFromWI

Or maybe there was no alterior motive at all and it was just meant as a simple discussion and he did just grab the article from the internet? Sometimes even IOP counselors struggle to come up with material for discussion, just like we all have busy days on our jobs.

There are a boatload of terms and concepts like this that can be fodder for endless debate/discussion/pontificating: "High Functioning Alcoholic" - "Dry Drunk" - "Triggers" - "Disease vs Condition vs Chemistry" to name just a few.

I think the bottom line is that it's important to acknowledge that these terms do exist, but you'll drown in the rabbit-hole if you try to figure out what other people are thinking or why. Mainly because it's one of those things that fit into the " you can't control " category.

I personally try to define my relationship with alcohol without using any of the terminology/lingo. Basically I know that if i drink alcohol, bad things will happen. Maybe not right away, but within a short period of time things will always deteriorate. And that fact is not something I can ever change - it's just an inherent trait I need to accept and live with for the rest of my life.

RecklessDrunk

Keep in mind functioning can go to non functioning in one night!

I would loosely define it as able to take care of yourself. Like that show intervention, people stop enabling the drunk or addict and they're forced to get sober. Hard to do to a functioning alcoholic.

You're not in legal trouble. You cant get thrown out of your home you pay the rent or mortgage. You have your own transportation. You pay for your own food, clothes, drink, what not. Nobody can intervention you, not exactly. Maybe a lover can threaten to leave you but you can continue to support yourself and your drinking.

In reality you may be on the ropes awaiting a knock out punch anytime but at the moment from the outside looking in your life gives off the illusion of nothing unusual.

Ken33xx

1. Probably right about the counselor. HAF was likely grabbed off the internet as a discussion topic because it hadn't been used before.

2. Re: AA: When should you get a sponsor? Do you have to get a sponsor? Meeting makers make it... yea or nay? Organized religion, dry drunk, any of the 12 steps.

Nothing like watching two AA old timers "cross-talk" during a meeting regarding such topics.

But when the meeting is over it's all good. Because there are no right or wrong answers.

A topic like HFA helps make for a spirited discussion

Re: alcoholism: Is it an obsession of the mind? An allergy? Am I weak-willed? Or do I have a disease?

I really don't care. I'll copped to them all.

What is important is I do not pick up a drink today.

Obladi

If that's the case (which I did consider), then I demand a refund. His one task for the evening was to run IOP. I expect him to come prepared if he is going to do a structured activity. He could've always let us come up with a topic to discuss instead of throwing a random article at us from the internet. Ranting aside, this does add fuel to the little flame I've got going that wonders if IOP is really the right thing for me at this point in my journey. But I digress.

I know. You know I know, and you know I can get lost in the intellectual debate of all of this stuff. Have done so. This time was different because I realized my gut was reacting to something I needed to figure out. So I do need to use my intellect to get to that, then go the extra mile to understand why it feels wrong. This is one of the many lessons I learned coming out of that last relapse. You and many many other very smart people told me I was thinking too much. In the end, that wasn't the problem, really. Well, thinking while drinking is useless for sure. But thinking while not drinking is necessary for me, at least at this time - I just needed to get to the point where I understood there was something more underneath that thinking.

Yeah, I get that. And I know that, too. Accept it, even. That's really never been the problem for me. Basically, I would get to the point where I simply did not care. But that is not at all germane to the discussion here, I don't think? I just wanted to respond to your point.

Kaneda8888

You are right to focus on the similarities as it will provide both support and a way to figure out a recovery plan.

Sudz No More

Aren't most of us? The definition for me was just what I was, a major drunk who showed almost no signs of it to anyone else. I mostly just drank at home by myself and I drank so much that my tolerance skyrocketed. Even when I was out with friends because of my huge tolerance I could still drink a lot and look for the most part sober. When I was out I would drink less than at home. just enough to take the edge off but not enough to look strange to others. This went on for years, getting up for work everyday buzzed but still make it on time and perform just fine. By lunch I would sneak out and drink two somewhere. Then I would stay away from everyone the rest of the day to avoid the possibility of being smelled. That's what high functioning is to me, drinking 12 or more alcoholic beverages per day and barely anyone around me noticed and my job or life never suffered from it.

faith823

This post is great! all is true . Great soul searching , I love how you put into words how the glamorization of alcohol can make ME feel.
Great insight .

August252015

Good discussion.

Also, something that can keep us wrapped around the axle in "defining" our problem.


In a nutshell, I've come to think of this (misleading) phrase as someone who perceives only hard costs (ie, jobs, money, houses) and not soft costs - ie, costs of attrition or non-gain. So you're high functioning if you still practice law successfully, are married, have kids in college, etc - bc you haven't "lost" concrete things. However, it took you longer to make partner and you were on a less certain track than your peers [because of performance impacted by increasing drinking?], you didn't spend a lot of time with your kids while teens [other priorities related to drinking?], you and your wife don't have emotional connection like you used to [etc]?

Kind of like lies of omission, when we shade and qualify a behavior - here, either lying or drinking - we are only kidding ourselves and prolonging the acceptance of the bottom line.

Callas

It is/was all of us who still worked, socialised, played sport and thought we were getting away with just being hard drinkers. The work hard play hard thing. It will inevitable end in total collapse.

fini

what picture it conjures up for me?
nothing to do with where we live, work, race, ...i think of it in terms of being able to function seemingly okay, “normally”: keeping the job, the kids, some friends, family, the pretense to everyone that things are fine when the wreck is mostly internal.

Obladi

So I think the consensus is that a "high functioning alcoholic," looks to the outside world like they've got it together when in actuality they are quite dysfunctional on the inside.

This was a good discussion; thanks!

I spoke with a friend this evening who helped me put a period on this sentence. She pointed out that there was something valuable in that IOP session - it made me angry, which made me think, and with your help I pushed myself to figure out what the feelings were behind all of that thinking. I was feeling remorseful for having argued with the counselor, but now I just wish he had the presence of mind to instead of arguing back have stopped and said, "You're clearly very upset by this - let's figure out why that might be." My friend said, "Well sure, but counselors are human too." (She oughta know - she is one. )

I'll talk this over with him when I see him next...

Grymt

That's good in-sight. Particularly if it's an objective recognition and feeling of an underlying feeling and not just an intellectual understanding of an unfelt feeling. A purely intellectual understanding can be a convenient way to habituate denial. Imo when these realisations are reached, which can be at any and all times, it's often important to be gentle with oneself. The point is to simply acknowledge, for oneself, the underlying feelings and come to letting go of them. That may be a private thing. One may need to be momentarily vulnerable, so gently does it.

Dropsie

I have a friend who always points out the fact that she still does her stuff, no DUI, etc in her kitchen with a constant glass of wine in her hand while her son has just gotten home from alcohol rehab. That to me is the height of not functioning in her most important role on the planet as his mother.

My gut tells me that it is a manner of being "better than" - glamorizing that we are still high functioning or were. When I hear someone say it, my reflex is that it is a way of justifying that is not healthy or conducive to the kind of acceptance that one needs to recover, truly recover. A way of focusing on the positive rather than what its cost us and will going forward if we drink.

I also really hate all these terms, dry drunk, HFA etc. I do like teetotaller though ...

Obladi

Yes!

That's what I've been needing. To know in the first place that there is a feeling beyond the intellect. Then to find that feeling. Next to follow that feeling to it's origin or basis. (I'm thinking I'll be able to let go of this last step with time - I'm just figuring it all out right now, like a jigsaw puzzle.)

I hadn't yet reached the "so easy does it" conclusion, so thanks for that suggestion.

Thanks, Grymt!!