Snowydelrico

Just plastering a room in today, got the job on a recommendation.

The job I did before ( the guy who recommended me) was a couple of years ago.
I had a key to the house and was left to my own devices(or vices in this case)
I would take cans of beer on to the job and drink them while i was plastering then drive home drunk. Do my parent duties for my 1 year old while having a few more cans of beer.
I’d repeat this to till the job was complete.
Everyone is was and still are impressed with my plastering.

I dearnt tell them I did it drunk.

I thought I was a functioning alcoholic at the time
I view it very differently now

Nonsensical

You're on the right road then.

I've never met a "gratefully recovering functioning alcoholic"

If you qualify your drinking problem with the word functioning it just means you're still drinking.

Snowydelrico

:



If you qualify your drinking problem with the word functioning it just means you're still drinking. [/QUOTE]

I’m recovering, almost 13 months now.
Just reflecting on my past logic and how the functioning alcoholic is viewed.
In my case I view the functioning alcoholic as an out of control person.
Thinking about the consequences but then ignoring them.
Not a person you would want to be around.

Thanks for your support

Dustitoffman

Ahhh
I have a few walls in my house that appear to have been plastered by a plastered plasterer!

Unfortunately that is the nature of the beast it's a creative disease that is desceptive by nature.

Whilst you are feeding the habit your mind is convincing you that you are able.

Able to function is all a functioning alcoholic is Able to excel is what that person is not and we would not even recognise our decline untill we reach the point of being unable to function the slap in the face the undignified awakening the shame the waste!

DontRemember

I've done some sketchy repair/build jobs while drunk. They don't know,but when I'm in one these days I notice small imperfections that shouldn't be there and wouldn't be had I been sober.

orderfororder

Imo, even a "functioning" alcoholic is still not functioning. Maybe you get to work and do your job on time, but you're not doing the best job you can, you're probably missing out on opportunities, you're not shining like you would while sober.

tealily

One time when I was still drinking, a man came to do some work outside my house early in the morning. I met with him, and even from a few feet away, I could smell the alcohol on him. It was probably seeping out of his pores, from the night before.

I remember it being a jolt to me... One, because someone could just as well some mornings have smelled that coming off me. Two, because it was this personal, unintentional window into his private life, a glimpse of what I perceived as misery, him struggling to get up and drag himself to a job he didn't really want to do. Of course it wasn't enough to make me change for quite a few years to come. But it stuck with me.

We think we are hiding it. But we most likely are not. Even if we are somehow "functioning", there's no way this is our best life, excelling, contributing, living the life of the person we were created to be.

Buckley3

Personally, I believe the concept of "functioning alcoholic" is a myth and simply reveals ignorance of what alcoholism really is. I should note that for a long time I thought differently.

-B

Arpeggioh

I always used "functional alcoholic" to differentiate myself from "rolling around in the gutter alcoholic." In real life, most of us weren't lying in the streets very often, but we certainly weren't functioning as well as we thought! I swore once to a counselor in rehab that I never drank on Sunday mornings before playing at church, and I meant it. I meant I never got buzzed on Sunday mornings, just a couple of shots to stop my hands from shaking, purely medicinal...see, I'm functioning!

August252015

I now see that what I considered "functioning"- highly at first then desperately dysfunctionally- kept lowering "its" bar. In the early days of what might just (ha) be considered my heavy drinking, I did indeed fly high at my sales job, and do all kinds of other stuff from exercise to volunteer work to....but as my drinking crossed that line to alcoholism, my functioning went straight to what anyone in their sane (sober) mind would consider barely hanging on.

Some people, like my husband, never experienced job loss or a DUI or any of the other countless OVERT consequences of heavy drinking or alcoholism. However, he has also realized that his standards for functioning kept lowering and he didn't do his high profile job to nearly his potential, and "got by" as far as things like attention to his kids, and lots more, went.

Neither of us can rightly say that a highly functioning alcoholic is a truism, in our experience.

dcg

There are plenty of functioning lazy people, functioning depressed people, functioning autistics, functioning assholes etc., and all are going to not be their best or miss out on good opportunities etc., just as a drunk would.

A non-functioning depressed person, non-functioning lazy person, non-functioning alcoholic etc., can't hold down a job or take care of themselves properly (i.e., function in society). There needs to be a label to delineate the differences because they certainly are different. Just my 2c

oldmate

I used to drink till the early hours of the morning,get an hour or two
sleep and go do 8 hours of physcial work. Rarely did i miss any days
or have any bad marks against my name. My whole adult working life
was virtually done intoxicated.

I could run circles around most sober people in the workshop.
I was a jet.

Now i sit at home in the backyard with the dog making bows and arrows and
eating soup on an unemloyment income. More often then not crying to myself.

I think saying "youre not as good as you could have been" isnt right for
everyone. I was as good as i could have been regarldess. I made it like
that because of my work ethic. Unfortunatly it's almost killed me
and now i have nothing.

That is why you are better off being sober.

A couple of years ago i had a well paying job in a supervisory role
in a big workshop fixing mining equipment. i had money and every
toy i wanted and thought i was set.

Now i have had to sell everything,and as mentioned sit out the back
with the dog eating budget sausages.

Snowydelrico

Thanks everyone, these replies are very interesting.
They help to give me a bigger picture on how alcohol is perceived and how it effects us in the short&long term.

Dee74

I accomplished some pretty amazing things despite me being drunk, not because of it.

What I've accomplished since has made me see I could have done a lot better.

it may not be everyone's story but it's certainly mine.

Vandermast

ive lost jobs cause of my drinking

yet also held management roles in high pressure environments, and had commendations on my work from numerous sources...

yet the drink brought me to my knees.

if you are a drunk it catches up with you, period.

so for me functional alcoholic is always prefaced with DYS.

just my two cents worth.

V