KAD65

A lot of people have expressed surprise at how I was able to hide my drinking for the better part of 30 years. One might be tempted to think that people knew but just didn't bring it up. But I asked many of them years later if they ever suspected and not a single one of them said yes. I was a hider and never had a goal to drink to oblivion. I just wanted to plateau at a nice, comfy buzz and spend the entire day there, everyday. Hence, I was able to maintain all the appearances of a responsible husband, father, employee, church member, etc. I guess some call that a "functioning alcoholic." It was only toward the end of my drinking that things got out of control and people did start noticing. Things got really, really out of control!

Just wondering if others had the same experience(s)?

Hodd

My friends were surprised when I told them I was dependent on alcohol, but I’m quite sure my work colleagues who witnessed me rolling in at 10am every morning knew full well.

In the U.K., there have been top flight football/soccer players who were alcoholics. We’re a clever bunch to hide our problem, at least we think we are.

Mummyto2

I could never hide it, i was a wanderer and liked to talk (mainly about absolute rubbish) i would think oh i will go and visit such and such, or phone someone, seemed like a good idea at the time, omg the morning after i would be mortified, so so grateful to be sober.

wildchild69

Wow! That is quite a story and I am also surprised that you were able to hide it so well so long. How was this affecting you, though? Were you hungover every morning or had somehow found your magic amount? Just curious....I'm surprised also that it took 30 years before it got out of control. Anyways, good for you for being here! My drinking history is very different than that....As I've explained in several posts on here, I've had a lot more sober days than not in the last 7 or 8 years. I've also had way more controlled "normal" drinking experiences than I have excessive in those years. However, mine started growing out of control recently which is why I'm here (again). Been coming here off and on since 2014. This time, I am ready to give up drinking forever. I've truly realized it's an addiction for me....I'm not truly satisfied with having a couple beers...and if I let myself get totally smashed, I'm not happy with that either....plus the wicked hangover, which I cannot tolerate in my 30's lol
Glad you are here....

KAD65

Many times I felt like absolute hell. In the early years, if I awoke feeling sick enough, I would quit for a few weeks or months, but always went back to it. When I switched to liquor, things got decidedly worse. I was drinking first thing in the morning long before I "needed" to, but once I became physically addicted, that was the only way I could manage. The last 10 years or so of my drinking, most days I wondered how I was going to make it through another day. To say it was a miserable existence is a gross understatement. Within a matter of weeks, all the things I boasted had never happened to me, happened in rapid succession - fired from my job, totalled my car in a blackout, broke my neck, got a DWI, my kids wanted nothing to do with me, friends and family shocked, angry, and disappointed, etc...

Dotting those 30 years were countless attempts (delusions) at being a "normal" drinker. I finally learned if you have to invest that much time and energy trying to drink normally, you probably can't.

Dee74

For the first decade no one knew exactly how much I drank ( or smoked weed).
My addictions got worse and by the second decade everyone knew.

D

AndraMan

30 years is a long time to hold it down! I have definitely been quite a stealth drinker too. Only to a minor degree at work but mainly more just out and about or around family/friends. Often had random bottles of wine stashed in bags that I could take periodic slugs from or just find an opportune moment to down a can of beer in one. Never got much of a taste for spirits which I am really grateful for. I always found vaporising weed to be quite easy to hide too as it doesn't seem to cause the red-eye like smoking it does, plus doesn't really come out on your breath/skin like alcohol either.

KAD65

Lest it be misunderstood, I don't look back on any of this with anything even closely resembling pride. I became arrogant and defiant over all those years of getting away with what I was doing, but I was also deeply ashamed, which is why I hid it. I knew it wasn't "normal," I knew I had a problem, and that all those around me who cared would see it as such. I wouldn't want to go back to that horrible existence for anything, which is why I only lasted 8 days when I relapsed almost a year ago. I got close enough to it again to come running back to safety.

Hevyn

I drank nearly that long too, KAD. I had a similar experience, including going off the rails in the end.

At my worst, I took it to work with me - drank 'round the clock, got a dui. I know people must have been able to smell it coming out of my pores . (It's not true that vodka has no odor). My personality changed in the end, too. I kept the secret for many years though - all the while building up a scary tolerance.

I'm so thankful we are free of it.

Steely

No, I've pretty much always blitzed it.

My son tells me that when I drink it's like rocket fuel. 🚀 Not funny, I know. I just like that picture of a rocket.

I'm so grateful to be sober.

KAD65

I always thought so, too, because I could surely smell myself! But no one said anything, until around the last year or so of it when I got more careless and people started noticing my behavior. I was drinking on the job for many, many years, but I am in a line of work (IT) that allowed lots of time alone and unsupervised. What I heard the most when I finally confessed everything was, "How did I not know?!" I am a very quiet, introverted kinda guy, prone to isolating and blending into the background. I kept a very low profile. Still do.

Evoo

Great story. I can relate in some ways.

I doubled as a workaholic and generally kept drinking to evenings and weekends, white-knuckling into the mornings and work days. Seventy+ hour weeks, but often drinking when I wasn’t working. Some years were better than others as far as moderation was concerned. People knew I was a problem drinker through many of those years, but my social life consisted of other binge-drinking workaholic/alcoholics (same with dating life), so it didn’t really matter (and when you’re single and live alone, nobody sees what’s it like when you get home and keep drinking until you pass out). In that world, as long as you put work first, you were fine. An “alcoholic” was someone who couldn’t “handle it.”

Eventually I drank mostly to ward off anxiety and withdrawal and to feel “normal.” I stopped enjoying alcohol; I felt imprisoned by it.

Now my prioritizes are family, marriage. work, school — and working to give back. I’m lucky my drinking years didn’t end up much worse — they could’ve. I made it out. I was able to escape the hell of addiction. What a blessing. I have so many here to thank for it, too.

Glad you found your way here, too.

Zebra1275

I managed to hide my alcohol consumption for over 20 years. And until the end I even managed to fool my wife who was with me everyday. I had a successful career and advanced up the career ladder to level I never anticipated when I left college.

But drinking most every night, and also spending considerable time and effort to conceal my drinking, was like wearing ankle weights as I went through life. It made everything so much harder.

KAD65

Ain't that the truth! I used to describe it has slogging through knee-deep mud. If I had invested as much time and effort into bettering myself as I did procuring and hiding booze, I could've been a millionaire by now.

Outonthetiles

I was a super secret squirrel stealth drinker, but I'm sure people knew, especially toward the end.

Nonsensical

I enjoyed feeling clever about drinking and not getting caught. Coming up with creative ways to get alcohol when I wasn't supposed to have any. Drinking more than others without them knowing.

Feeling clever increased the buzz. My AV still uses that against me.

MLD51

"I finally learned if you have to invest that much time and energy trying to drink normally, you probably can't."

^^^ THIS. Oh, I tried. I tried for YEARS. And I almost had myself fooled that I could do it. I'd manage to go good periods of time only drinking a lot on the weekends with maybe one or two drinks during the week, or I'd go weeks "only" having 2 drinks a day. EVERYONE I knew drank a lot. I look back and realize that wasn't normal at all, I had just gradually surrounded myself with other drinkers. I do live in Wisconsin, and we are known for drinking a lot up here, so drinking the way I did was pretty much par for the course. I grew up that way. I was not a stealth drinker, there was no reason to hide the fact that I drank. What I DID hide was how miserable I was, all day every day, even when I pretended to be having fun. I'd go out to the bar and have a "grand time," and then go home and fall apart. Then get up the next day, suffer through the hangover, vow to cut back, and be right back at it a day or two later. Toward the end I WAS drinking a little less, but still too much and still miserable. I got my 3rd DUI (the second in 3 years) and that was it. I realized that no matter how hard I worked to be a "normal" drinker, I never would be. And that I was done working that hard trying to do something that didn't even give me anything good anymore. Took those ankle weights off and I have never been happier in my life.

Gcesp

No, it didn't cause any issues for me, but given the slow but steady increase over time in my situation it didn't take a math major to plot out that curve and know exactly where the chart was headed. You could say I got off the train in time. I am very grateful for that. Just like people say I WILL NEVER SHOOT UP or NEVER SELL MY BODY or NEVER STEAL or NEVER WIND UP IN THE GUTTER it just means their disease hasn't raged on long enough to get to that point. But given enough time in 100% of our cases, it always ends with, how is that saying, "Jails institutions or death, not always in that order".

After the fact people did say on more than one occasion that I liked to consume my fair share and then some, but everyone else who said this in our circle was just as guilty, and am very glad that upon seeing our experiences being alcohol free, almost all of them quit too.