DoubleDragons

It is funny (and probably a tad sad) to me that it has taken me to my mid-forties to really spend any time seriously considering how drinking has affected my life and the lives of other drinkers in my life.

I think I spent a lot of my life trying to prove I could do it all and, do it all, well. I think some of being a perfectionist in other aspects of my life (wife, mother, daughter, sister, looks, job, etc.) was to keep my license to drink open. Hey, look at her, she is great mom and wife and does well at her job, so who cares if she lets loose like a wild cannon every once in a while? I think I had a "work hard/play hard" kind of an attitude. I think I had a perverse kind of pride that I could drink so many people under the table; that I could "hang." I remember liking the shock on people's faces from my earliest days of drinking that such "a good girl/good student" could party like a rockstar. I liked being a juxtaposition. Now I feel sad for that "good girl/good student" that she felt like she had something to prove.

I feel happy for the midlife girl who is feeling more comfortable in her own skin every day, who is not taking her body and her life for granted anymore, and who has nothing to prove, but who is just full of more and more gratitude and peace every day.

doggonecarl

I read here on SR that "high functioning" isn't a type of alcoholic, it's a stage.

Glad you were able to quit at that stage. Musing about low-bottom, chronic alcoholism isn't fun.

ejackson

DD, your story reads like mine. How many times I justified my drinking and its associated behavior with how well the rest of my life was going... I work hard, am raising a wonderful family, managing projects and juggling all the responsibilities in my life. I felt like I deserved my bottle or two of wine every night. I had earned it!

Now that I'm a week sober, I regularly find myself noting how I feel, mentally and physically, and think, "Now, this is what I deserve."

functionalmess

I also found myself in this group. Multiple degrees, great professional reputation, community volunteer. Then I started to hear little quips from my wife or others about being the "go-to guy" for friends and acquaintances when they wanted to go for a beer. I decided to dry out for a bit, but when I started drinking again it was far worse than I can ever recall. Up till then I always thought I had a handle on the alcohol, but now? Not at all. My alcohol intake was twice what it was before, I was slurring my speech at night and I had little or no control. Functional is tenuous control at best and, at least for me, maybe simply the illusion of control. I went to my first AA meeting last night because I can't do it on my own...I know that now.

wakko

high functioning alcoholic is a contradiction in terms

Nuudawn

I too am coming to many mid-life realizations. Lately, I feel like I was in some sort of quarter-century alcohol induced coma that I just woke up from. The coping and lifestyle mechanism I picked up in my late teens just kinda stuck. I gave it all such little thought. I just did what I always did, finding others still doing what they always did. Apparently others were building lives, maturity and wisdom whilst I was groovin' to Nelly or Nickleback looking for the endless "good time". Argh.

DoubleDragons

EJ, it got to be that everything was a justification for drinking, right? - Doing well, not doing well, middle age, juggling everything, etc. etc.

hypochondriac

That was me all over too DD. Not functioning was not an option when I was drinking because it would give someone the opportunity to criticise. So much so that when I stopped drinking I collapsed in a heap practically unable to function. I realise now that part of that was my addict thinking that I had quit drinking and everything should be automatically perfect or else!

DoubleDragons

Thanks, hypochondriac. I came down with the intestinal bug (real one this time - not a hangover ) Anyway, I have been so annoyed about it because I rarely get sick and I am especially frustrated because I feel like my body should be responding positively to the changes I have made. (how is that for spoiled, instant gratification thinking?? Body, you have been beat up by alcohol for decades, but since I quit for two weeks, I expect you to be in peak performance!!! - Ewwww on me!)

Erratic

To me high fuctioning alocholic is a person who can work or do what is needed and carry on.

To me i work, but have had days i dont. to me on anything else is not fuctoing.

Other is u drink, u do housework, work,get on to things that needs to be done.

basicaly u drink and can carry on life regardless of social,homelife,life.

alphaomega

Hey hey. I wanna be a ROCKSTAR.

DoubleDragons

Belinda Carlisle is a rockstar and she quit . . . . We can still be rockstars!

Correy

I (seriously) quit drinking two times. All my life I believed I was a "highly functioning alcoholic" (HFA) for I've been quite well-known in one country, working and never missing any deadlines and / or meetings etc., and well-off in another where I made a lot of money.

I lost all while I was sober

So I kept thinking how drinking - aside a little issue of feeling like crap for so many times - had nothing to do with my "success" and / or me being a HFA for, hell yes, I was functioning well above average.

Than the other day I found several notes I wrote 10 years ago, when I had all the money in the world but was drinking, as a "successful" HFA.

I still don't know how I did not kill myself then - those several notes (and that wasn't written while drunk, or hungover, it was over several months) were a scathing condemnation of the way I lived my "highly functional" life.

Alone. Depressed. Drunk. Pathetic...

hypochondriac

Haha, me too. I actually thought for a bit that it was impossible to get sick sober. I was genuinely confused when the first cold hit! Now I like being ill, actually trying to make myself better rather some half arsed whiskey cure which never worked anyway.