The Daily Struggle of High-Functioning Alcoholism

I’ve been sober for a while, but I think about drinking every day.

Photo by Luke Southern on Unsplash

As I write this, I’ve been sober for 571 days. And I have thought about drinking for each one of those 571 days.

Unlike a lot of people who have problems with alcohol, I didn’t start drinking as a teenager. In fact, I don’t think I had my first drink until after I was 21. After those first few drinks, I didn’t drink again until I was in my mid-30s. I became friends with a college-age guy at my workplace who drank more than anyone I had personally known (and I had several alcoholics in my family) but who still managed to go to class and work every day and generally keep his life together. He’s now a lawyer and seems to be doing well.

My friend introduced me to what was my drink of choice for several years: Evan Williams whiskey. It doesn’t taste as good as Jack, but it gets the job done and is less than half the price. It probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that I loved the stuff. Although I did have an on-again, off-again affair with some cheap vodka.

Throughout my drinking years, I was moderately successful. It took me a while to climb the ladder of success at work, but I made it as far with the company I was working for at the time as I had any interest in going and my biggest promotion came during the period I was drinking the most. I have an awesome family that includes a wonderful wife, two great kids, and way too many pets. I own a nice big house in one of the best neighborhoods in my city and I drive a newish car.

My life was hardly perfect — my marriage, for example, suffered some major bumps and bruises along the way but I can safely say almost none of those were due to alcohol.

Photo by Alec Favale on Unsplash

I know now that I was (am) what some would call a high-functioning alcoholic. This is someone who, even though they drink excessively, appears to have most of their life under control despite their drinking.

I never drove drunk, I never got into fights, and I was never late for or skipped work due to drinking. Unless you happened to see me buying my whiskey or be at my house after 8 pm most evenings, you’d never even know I drank.

But drink I did. For the last five or six years before I stopped, I’d been tipsy or drunk more nights than not. I would meticulously measure out my whiskey most of the time, I think in an attempt to feel like I had some control over the booze. Most nights I would have between 8 and 12 ounces of Evan Williams, and there were many nights I drank as much as 16. This would all happen usually within two hours or less. Occasionally, I would drink several beers instead of whiskey, and many times I would mix beer and whiskey for a faster buzz.

I always knew this was a problem. Even if it didn’t make me screw up at work or engage in risky behavior, I knew I was harming my body. I’ve been overweight for some time, so even just considering the worthless calories from that much booze every evening I wasn’t doing my weight any favors. When you factor in the fact that I tended to snack voraciously while drinking, well… I would usually go over my daily calorie goal within that two hours of drinking alone.