a high functioning alcoholic just means you havent gotten caught yet. n can hold a job, for now.
there is such a thing as progression,it will get worse.
ps. if you need help to quit drinking you probably are an alcoholic.
dont drink n keep going to meetings,keep it simple.

Functional alcoholics are just that. They can function in your lives and at work and no one knows their secret. Most functional alcoholics haven't gotten into serious financial, legal or marital problems because of their drinking.

If you have to drink every day and look forward to it you are probably an alcoholic. If you can't stop at just one drink you are probably an alcoholic. If you feel like you need to hide the amount you are drinking, etc.

Just don't take it lightly because I also had myself convinced that I didn't have a serious drinking problem.

I went through rehab three times before I finally got my s... together.

It is a f...... miracle that I never got a DUI or worse.

Perhaps shift the focus somewhat.

Use these as qualifiers:

Active, recovering or recovered alcoholic.

Keeps things a bit easier.

I generally just use plain old alcoholic and that's it.

If you want to stop drinking, we are here for you. I don't think it matters what funtional level your at.. Does it?

On your journal entry of 30/6/08 it states that you dont think you are an alcoholic so seems like you have been debating this for a long time.

You say here 'I have gone to many AA meetings and I don't see a resemblence'? Are you saying you haven't identififed with one single person in the rooms of AA?

This is an extrace from the Big Book:-

'Then there are the types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people'.

Sound familiar?

An alcoholic is an alcoholic no matter how well we appear to function. If you have the disease of alcoholism it will get you sooner or later and all that 'high-functioning' will be gone.

Really, I guess you need to diagnose yourself so that you can find the appropriate help.

'If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take you are probably alcoholic.'


Read the stories of Jim (page 35 of the Big Book), the jaywalker (page 37), and Fred (page 39)

Jim and Fred were 'high functioning' - they were doing well, especially Fred but he learned that he could not drink safely, even when he had made up his mind not to drink, he still did.

If you don't identify with them, then maybe you just need to quit - but if you can', then AA will be there to help you to stay sober through working the steps.

Lyn

Lyn....I love the jaywalker story. When I read the BB with my sponsor, my sponsor personalised it to me....really powerful stuff.

'Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking. SHE gets a thrill out of DRINKING ALCOHOL. SHE enjoys HERself for a few years in spite of friendly warnings. Up to this point you would label HER as a foolishGAL having queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts HER and SHE is slightly injured several times in succession. You would expect HER, if SHE were normal, to cut it out. Presently SHE is DRUNK again and this time has a fractured skull. Within a week after leaving the hospital a DRINK OF ALCOHOL breaks HER arm. SHE tells you SHE has decided to stop DRINKING for good, but in a few weeks SHE breaks both legs.

On through the years this conduct continues, accompanied by HER continual promises to be careful or to keep FROM BUYING ALCOHOL altogether. Finally,SHE can no longer work, HER HUSBAND gets a divorce and SHE is held up to ridicule. SHE tries every known means to get the ALCOHOL DRINKING idea out of HER head. SHE shuts HERself up in an asylum, hoping to mend HER ways. But the day SHE comes out SHE races in front of a fire engine DRUNK, which breaks HER back. Such a WOman would be crazy, wouldnt SHE?

You may think our illustration is too ridiculous. But is it? We, who have been through the wringer, have to admit if we substituted alcoholism for jay-walking, the illustration would fit exactly. However intelligent we may have been in other respects, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. Its strong language-but isnt it true?'

I must say your sponsor is very polite, mine told me I was a functioning drunk!! and she was right

I know there are several definitions of drinking. Imo, it's all the same. If booze changes you and your integrity and makes your life unmanagable, you are an alcoholic aka drunk.

Keep it Simple

When you are in meetings try to concentrate on what people are saying about how they felt inside rather than what was going on on the outside. Alcoholism is an internal deal and whatever our different lives, experiences, stories of external things what we all usually share is how we felt inside.

I did what Lyn suggested and diagnosed myself as an alcoholic using the big book. It wasnt about my external circumstances it was about my relationship with alcohol, my lack of control over it and how that destroyed me internally.

Feel free to PM me if I can help.

Ah the denial of the alcoholic brain.
You are young it is not surprising that you are still functioning. I was functioning just fine when i got sober at 39, but somehow i was able to see the future.
Trust me the jails, the institutions, the health problems, the lost family and friends, unemployment are all waiting for you. Less than 3% of drunks are skid row drunks.
Once you have walked into the srms of alcoholism you have boarded an elavator that only goes down.
You are free to get off on any floor or you can stay in denial and take sll the way to hell.

Alcoholic is a Alcoholic. Once an Alcoholic...Always an Alcoholic. Just keep in mind that Alcoholism is a progressive disease as long as we continue on in the disease by feeding it...we will only get worse.

Prisons, Institutions or Death...I came close to all three. YETs Your Eligible Too!We only need go on in active alcoholism until we say ENOUGH!

Only you can decide if you are an Alcoholic. If you are then there are solutions. I found mine in AA, the steps, and the fellowship.