What is the progression from "functioning alcoholic" to just "alcoholic"
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Nowhere, VA
Posts: 540
I guess my ABF can be considered high functioning....since he goes to work every day.
I do not know how he does it, blacking out every night. Waking up at 5 the next morning.
But that's the only functioning you'll get out of him! His dad (keep in mind, ABF is 35...10 years older than me) handles all the house bills, his bank account and even the registration for his vehicles. ABF doesn't even know when bills are paid or how to check his own bank account balance.
Is this functioning? Barely....since we have a HFA can we use BFA for "Barely Functioning Alcoholic"? (kidding....kind of.)
Thank you for posting this! I often have wondered the process, although now I don't care so much as long as I GET OUT!!!!
I do not know how he does it, blacking out every night. Waking up at 5 the next morning.
But that's the only functioning you'll get out of him! His dad (keep in mind, ABF is 35...10 years older than me) handles all the house bills, his bank account and even the registration for his vehicles. ABF doesn't even know when bills are paid or how to check his own bank account balance.
Is this functioning? Barely....since we have a HFA can we use BFA for "Barely Functioning Alcoholic"? (kidding....kind of.)
Thank you for posting this! I often have wondered the process, although now I don't care so much as long as I GET OUT!!!!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 494
He does get really "catty" when he's drunk, and he does try to pick fights. I usually take the bait, something I've stopped doing recently, and he sits there self-righteously pretending that he's not doing anything. This doesn't happen as much anymore because I don't get drunk with him, and so we're less likely to get into serious conversations when neither of us are sober.
And the sex thing...yeah. It got to me for a while, and now I'm thankful for it because it's making it easier to distance myself from him, just like he's been doing to me.
And the sex thing...yeah. It got to me for a while, and now I'm thankful for it because it's making it easier to distance myself from him, just like he's been doing to me.
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: over there
Posts: 253
Originally Posted by Seneca7 
Tansy, he actually has a good bit of those traits. I think the reason it snuck up on me is that when he quipped about being a "functioning alcoholic," his drinking was more like heavy social drinking, in an environment where that was socially acceptable. I didn't think he was an alcoholic, and by the time it progressed, I was already in the habit of ignoring it.
He does get really "catty" when he's drunk, and he does try to pick fights. I usually take the bait, something I've stopped doing recently, and he sits there self-righteously pretending that he's not doing anything. This doesn't happen as much anymore because I don't get drunk with him, and so we're less likely to get into serious conversations when neither of us are sober.
And the sex thing...yeah. It got to me for a while, and now I'm thankful for it because it's making it easier to distance myself from him, just like he's been doing to me.
He does get really "catty" when he's drunk, and he does try to pick fights. I usually take the bait, something I've stopped doing recently, and he sits there self-righteously pretending that he's not doing anything. This doesn't happen as much anymore because I don't get drunk with him, and so we're less likely to get into serious conversations when neither of us are sober.
And the sex thing...yeah. It got to me for a while, and now I'm thankful for it because it's making it easier to distance myself from him, just like he's been doing to me.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Seneca, I think that diagnosing someone as a "High Functioning Alcoholic" is a bit of a red herring. I do not believe that the ability to keep a job necessarily means that the person is a HFA.
The implication in labeling someone "HFA" is that it isn't as bad as a "real alcoholic", whatever that is. And we, as partners, don't have the right to question the alcohol consumption as much or figure out what we want and need and say that out loud. Because, of course, that word "functioning" is in the middle of HFA, and what is our problem, anyway?
What is more relevant to me is looking at how much of a normal life the person doing the drinking has. As you describe your boyfriend, most of the day, starting in the morning, he is drinking.
If he had to be present in an office from 9 to 5, he couldn't hide the amount of drinking he is doing by teleconnecting.
You haven't said the quantities he is drinking, but with the drinking schedule, he must be consuming a prodigious amount of alcohol. The body can only tolerate that for so long and it will begin to protest. A person's organs can take so much toxicity before they don't function well, then don't function much at all.
You mention that he had some of the health problems before he started drinking, but there is another way to look at that. It could be that he was drinking much longer ago, and hid it really well.
I saw a more subtle side of progressing alcoholism, too. When my husband of 20 years and I were married, he was very connected to me, emotionally and intellectually. He wanted to know what I thought, he was interested in my ideas. He wanted me to be happy, and recognized it when I was, and did lots of different things to make me happy. He was affectionate, and noticed when I came into a room. He smiled at me. He made me laugh just because. He had a sense of my history, and that was present in how he treated me. I was a real, living, breathing, friend partner and lover to him. He reveled in my differences. He was mostly happy with me, and able to talk with me if something I did bothered him, and we worked it out.
After 20 years, when I ran away from him quite literally and never went back, life was dark, despondent, terribly lonely and I had been emotionally battered so badly that my soul hardly survived. He avoided me, or demanded that I be exactly where he wanted me to be, doing exactly what he required of me. He criticized me constantly. I could do nothing right. There was no way to talk to him or resolve anything. I was accused of taunting him, blaming him, hurting him, yelling at him for no reason, if I tried to talk about an issue.
There was no affection. He looked bothered when I came into his office, and often told me I was interrupting him and to just go away and not bother him because he was doing something important. Often it was looking at porn on his computer. I was a nuisance, a burden who always wanted something from him, a demanding shrill self-centered person who always made his life more difficult.
As time went by, he made sure we were more and more geographically isolated by moving us to the top of a lonely mountain in a strange community of anti-social neighbors. He drove away friends, new and old, because he was an arrogant drunk who felt obligated to point out the error of other people's ways. He ranted at people who didn't come back and called them inferior useless wastes of time. And much worse.
He wanted me to be home all the time where he knew where I was. If I went dress shopping, he would call me 3 or 4 times asking when I'd be home.
All of this escalated, his anger became rage, his self-involvement became total self-absorption, then it became the inability to connect to anyone else's ideas or needs. And I became the butt of it all, the scapegoat.
His drinking made his health worse and worse although he blamed other diagnoses for that, and I believed him. His rages and memory loss and black outs and falls made me afraid to leave him and go to bed. He threatened to hang himself where I would find him in the morning, and blamed me for his need to do so.
So, whether or not someone holds a job is just the tip of the iceberg. What is really to be looked at is whether they can function as a true friend, partner, lover, in the give and take of a good relationship. Whether they still have the capacity for empathy. Then whether they care or not if they have the capacity for empathy. Whether they can understand that other people have feelings, and plans and hopes. Then whether they care.
A true alcoholic focuses only on alcohol. That is the center of their life, and it is a demanding shrill mistress who will brook no interference from anyone or anything else.
It is a slippery slope from "HFA" to full blown alcoholic, and part of the worst of it is that it is an insidious slide, like getting on a roller coaster and going up and down on two or three baby slides, not knowing that the granddaddy of them all is coming, faster than you can imagine, steeper and scarier and more compelling in its terror and dysfunction that is possible to comprehend. And once you're on that ride, you can't get off easily, or, maybe at all.
We become locked in that roller coast seat with our beloved alcoholic, bar down, ready to take an ineffably powerful, sad, demanding, and destructive ride on the tracks of their addiction.
It is easier to get off sooner rather than later.
You don't need to stay with him to prove he is truly an alcoholic and justify to yourself your leaving. You can turn that around if you set your boundaries of how you will and will not live, leaving him if you find it necessary, and then let him prove to you that he is worth staying for.
Ball's in his court; you're living your life as it is meant to be whether or not he chooses to join you.
ShootingStar1
The implication in labeling someone "HFA" is that it isn't as bad as a "real alcoholic", whatever that is. And we, as partners, don't have the right to question the alcohol consumption as much or figure out what we want and need and say that out loud. Because, of course, that word "functioning" is in the middle of HFA, and what is our problem, anyway?
What is more relevant to me is looking at how much of a normal life the person doing the drinking has. As you describe your boyfriend, most of the day, starting in the morning, he is drinking.
If he had to be present in an office from 9 to 5, he couldn't hide the amount of drinking he is doing by teleconnecting.
You haven't said the quantities he is drinking, but with the drinking schedule, he must be consuming a prodigious amount of alcohol. The body can only tolerate that for so long and it will begin to protest. A person's organs can take so much toxicity before they don't function well, then don't function much at all.
You mention that he had some of the health problems before he started drinking, but there is another way to look at that. It could be that he was drinking much longer ago, and hid it really well.
I saw a more subtle side of progressing alcoholism, too. When my husband of 20 years and I were married, he was very connected to me, emotionally and intellectually. He wanted to know what I thought, he was interested in my ideas. He wanted me to be happy, and recognized it when I was, and did lots of different things to make me happy. He was affectionate, and noticed when I came into a room. He smiled at me. He made me laugh just because. He had a sense of my history, and that was present in how he treated me. I was a real, living, breathing, friend partner and lover to him. He reveled in my differences. He was mostly happy with me, and able to talk with me if something I did bothered him, and we worked it out.
After 20 years, when I ran away from him quite literally and never went back, life was dark, despondent, terribly lonely and I had been emotionally battered so badly that my soul hardly survived. He avoided me, or demanded that I be exactly where he wanted me to be, doing exactly what he required of me. He criticized me constantly. I could do nothing right. There was no way to talk to him or resolve anything. I was accused of taunting him, blaming him, hurting him, yelling at him for no reason, if I tried to talk about an issue.
There was no affection. He looked bothered when I came into his office, and often told me I was interrupting him and to just go away and not bother him because he was doing something important. Often it was looking at porn on his computer. I was a nuisance, a burden who always wanted something from him, a demanding shrill self-centered person who always made his life more difficult.
As time went by, he made sure we were more and more geographically isolated by moving us to the top of a lonely mountain in a strange community of anti-social neighbors. He drove away friends, new and old, because he was an arrogant drunk who felt obligated to point out the error of other people's ways. He ranted at people who didn't come back and called them inferior useless wastes of time. And much worse.
He wanted me to be home all the time where he knew where I was. If I went dress shopping, he would call me 3 or 4 times asking when I'd be home.
All of this escalated, his anger became rage, his self-involvement became total self-absorption, then it became the inability to connect to anyone else's ideas or needs. And I became the butt of it all, the scapegoat.
His drinking made his health worse and worse although he blamed other diagnoses for that, and I believed him. His rages and memory loss and black outs and falls made me afraid to leave him and go to bed. He threatened to hang himself where I would find him in the morning, and blamed me for his need to do so.
So, whether or not someone holds a job is just the tip of the iceberg. What is really to be looked at is whether they can function as a true friend, partner, lover, in the give and take of a good relationship. Whether they still have the capacity for empathy. Then whether they care or not if they have the capacity for empathy. Whether they can understand that other people have feelings, and plans and hopes. Then whether they care.
A true alcoholic focuses only on alcohol. That is the center of their life, and it is a demanding shrill mistress who will brook no interference from anyone or anything else.
It is a slippery slope from "HFA" to full blown alcoholic, and part of the worst of it is that it is an insidious slide, like getting on a roller coaster and going up and down on two or three baby slides, not knowing that the granddaddy of them all is coming, faster than you can imagine, steeper and scarier and more compelling in its terror and dysfunction that is possible to comprehend. And once you're on that ride, you can't get off easily, or, maybe at all.
We become locked in that roller coast seat with our beloved alcoholic, bar down, ready to take an ineffably powerful, sad, demanding, and destructive ride on the tracks of their addiction.
It is easier to get off sooner rather than later.
You don't need to stay with him to prove he is truly an alcoholic and justify to yourself your leaving. You can turn that around if you set your boundaries of how you will and will not live, leaving him if you find it necessary, and then let him prove to you that he is worth staying for.
Ball's in his court; you're living your life as it is meant to be whether or not he chooses to join you.
ShootingStar1
Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 72
As well as physical health problems, mental health problems as well. Depression, anxiety. You could say I was a HFA at first (had a job, was able to take care of daily needs) but towards the end of my drinking I had extreme anxiety and it was a struggle to go to work or even to the store, finally I was unable to work and lost my job. All due to the mental effects of alcohol. Some A's become extremely depressed, even suicidal, another side effect of excessive drinking.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 50
Originally Posted by Santa
I just have to ask...why in the world are you hoping to stay with this man?
I'm mostly here to get some perspective. It's all hitting me at once, so I want my head to be in the right place before I make any drastic decisions. Impulse and irrational thinking got me here, I don't trust it to get me out.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 154
My A is very fortunate (unfortunately for him) to have has a career that allowed him to retire at 36. Because of his financial security, bills and other monetary responsibilities are Always taken care of. He doesn't have to show up to an office. He doesn't have any of the responsibilities that High Functioning addicts pride themselves on meeting. How do I know he is not high functioning? We can't make plans at all in advance, because I never know when he will be on a bender and I can't look forward anymore to things that never materialize. He has two kids he sees sporadically (from a previous marriage)--sometimes wants custody for weeks at a time, other times barely remembers to call them once a week. He blows through money like crazy when he's drinking. Misses flights. Oh, has several DUIs and drug-related arrests. Plus all of the physical symptoms.
The definition is tricky. But when it happens, you will recognize it. It's hard to miss the drunk passed out on the couch, snoring and stinking up the room in the middle of the afternoon, ya know?
The definition is tricky. But when it happens, you will recognize it. It's hard to miss the drunk passed out on the couch, snoring and stinking up the room in the middle of the afternoon, ya know?
Bunnies!
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 1,905
Best case scenario is he magically sobers up overnight and becomes the poster child for lifelong sobriety. But since I don't think any of us are that delusional, I'd say it's that you become accepting of everything that comes with choosing to stay with an alcoholic. Right down to the complete lack of intimacy (unless that becomes forced, which I would never wish on my worst enemy) and the godawful smells that come from a person who is rotting from the inside out. There's the verbal and emotional abuse; the lies, the gaslighting, staying up all night wondering if they're dead in a ditch somewhere.
Or there's the best-best-case scenario: you put yourself first and find a healthy, loving relationship down the road with someone who deserves your time and attention.
And I'm of the "an alcoholic is an alcoholic" school of thinking. I don't believe in labels like HFA.
Or there's the best-best-case scenario: you put yourself first and find a healthy, loving relationship down the road with someone who deserves your time and attention.
And I'm of the "an alcoholic is an alcoholic" school of thinking. I don't believe in labels like HFA.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Lakeside, Ca
Posts: 10,208
being an alcoholic is no joke (although many don't know that)
Originally Posted by NWGRITS
accepting of everything that comes with choosing to stay with an alcoholic.
way back when while at work with my heavy drinking buddies
one of them said one day
"I'm just an alcoholic" with a big smile on his face
as most of the rest of us laughed out loud right along with him
then turn the pages to a few years later
he and a few of the others had been fired due to their drinking habits
as some of the rest of us had entered treatment (trying to be sober)
got divorces
lost homes
etc etc etc etc
Mountainman
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 50
Originally Posted by Mountainmanbob
this reminds me of
way back when while at work with my heavy drinking buddies
one of them said one day
"I'm just an alcoholic" with a big smile on his face
as most of the rest of us laughed out loud right along with him
then turn the pages to a few years later
he and a few of the others had been fired due to their drinking habits
as some of the rest of us had entered treatment (trying to be sober)
got divorces
lost homes
etc etc etc etc
Mountainman
way back when while at work with my heavy drinking buddies
one of them said one day
"I'm just an alcoholic" with a big smile on his face
as most of the rest of us laughed out loud right along with him
then turn the pages to a few years later
he and a few of the others had been fired due to their drinking habits
as some of the rest of us had entered treatment (trying to be sober)
got divorces
lost homes
etc etc etc etc
Mountainman
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 1,099
The sex thing or lack there of did a number on my self esteem too. So glad I'm not alone because I really thought it was me and that I was defective is some way. That's what they want us to believe I guess. The remarks he made when he was drunk were hurtful and humiliating and I will never forget them. Hammer posted a funny video on this very subject that made me feel better and laugh about it. Hope no one objects if I post it. The Bastard Fairies - Whatever - YouTube
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 1,099
Just wanted to say thank you to hammer for the above video. I was trying to find the thread he posted that on but getting ready for work. Seneca this is a great thread. I am glad you are here and hope you find the answers you are searching for. We all started where you are and found our way here. Great place to start 
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 1,038
I've been wondering the same thing, Seneca, and I've been here on SR for a good while.
Do I live my life day to day figuring, okay, xah is still hanging in there, so just worry about today? Or do I start freaking out, realizing that a hfa one day is an out of work drunk the next?
What do you do when you have the knowledge about the progression about alcoholism, you've read everything and know it is just a matter of time? Well, but how much time?
Everyone around me is just saying wait and see. Act like everything's normal. Give xah the right to these unsupervised visits with the children. Until.
Until what?
I am alone at my mother's house wondering how my children are doing with their father. Trying not to be a nervous wreck. Trying to focus and get things done in their absence.
When is the other shoe going to drop? Will it? What will happen when it does?
Thus is the life of someone tied to an alcoholic. You just don't know. There doesn't seem to be any graphs or quizzes or magic 8 balls to help with this.
I'm still on the roller coast and so are you. You, smart girl, have no children with this man of yours. You can step off any time you choose and then you don't have to wonder all the time when he is going to get worse and what will happen next.
You can just leave and take charge of Seneca.
And have a good life.
Do I live my life day to day figuring, okay, xah is still hanging in there, so just worry about today? Or do I start freaking out, realizing that a hfa one day is an out of work drunk the next?
What do you do when you have the knowledge about the progression about alcoholism, you've read everything and know it is just a matter of time? Well, but how much time?
Everyone around me is just saying wait and see. Act like everything's normal. Give xah the right to these unsupervised visits with the children. Until.
Until what?
I am alone at my mother's house wondering how my children are doing with their father. Trying not to be a nervous wreck. Trying to focus and get things done in their absence.
When is the other shoe going to drop? Will it? What will happen when it does?
Thus is the life of someone tied to an alcoholic. You just don't know. There doesn't seem to be any graphs or quizzes or magic 8 balls to help with this.
I'm still on the roller coast and so are you. You, smart girl, have no children with this man of yours. You can step off any time you choose and then you don't have to wonder all the time when he is going to get worse and what will happen next.
You can just leave and take charge of Seneca.
And have a good life.
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