Living With A Functioning Alcoholic

Oftentimes, the person living with a high functioning alcoholic is one of the only ones, if not the only one, who actually recognizes that there is a problem going on, which is part of why it's 10 times more frustrating, because you really second guess yourself and you say, is it really me? Is it that bad? Do they have a problem? So if that's you and you've been questioning yourself and you want to know 100% for sure, if. If you're actually dealing with someone who has a real alcohol problem, this video is for you. We're going to cover exactly what a high functioning alcoholic looks like. We'll cover all the signs and symptoms so you won't have to guess anymore. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and your family back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. So back to our topic. First, let's take a look at what this word means, this high functioning alcoholic or the functional alcoholic you hear people talk about. What that means is this is a person who's generally still either working or has a family or they're going to school. It seems like they're still getting things done in their life. They're not the kind of person who may have a substance abuse problem who lives, like, under a bridge. Their life hadn't completely fallen apart just yet. And because so many people have this real, like, stereotypical image in their head about what an alcoholic looks like, they usually miss this. Really what it is is like a stage of alcoholism, like an earlier stage of alcoholism. And they think, oh, this person doesn't have a problem. Or if this person is you, you think, oh, I don't have a problem because I don't drink in the morning, or because I can go days without drinking, or because I don't even want to drink most days, or because I still go to work, I'm really successful. These are all thoughts that you or your loved one could be having that's keeping you stuck and preventing you or your loved one from solving this problem. You know, most of the time when people use this term, functional alcoholic, it's kind of like they're saying, like, well, yeah, they drink too much sometimes, but they're not like a real alcoholic. But honestly, in my own thinking about it, it's more like there are stages of alcoholism, there are stages of addiction, just like there are st of other kinds of illnesses that you have. And instead of thinking, oh, this person's not a real alcoholic, this person's in a slightly earlier stage. So maybe they don't need to drink every single day. Maybe they're not really physically dependent on alcohol, or maybe they are physically dependent on alcohol, but they're still working, they're still somewhat functioning, and so therefore less motivated to actually do something about it. Many high functioning alcoholics can go days at a time without drinking. And not only can they, but a lot of them do. And part of the reason that they do well, I guess there's a couple of reasons is because one, their family gets upset with them from time to time about their drinking. So they take these little breaks to either get their family off their back or to prove to themselves that they don't need to drink every day, or as part of what I usually call like a bargain, where they're trying to only allow themselves to drink so much, or on certain periods of day, trying to kind of manage their alcohol use. It's the whole roller coaster of the situation, which is so frustrating if you're the person living with this, because other people may not see it. And if you have concerns or frustrations and you mention those concerns or frustrations to anyone else, maybe like in the family, they may look at you like you're crazy or you're overly harsh, or you don't know what you're talking about or why would you say that? You know, she works so hard on the family, you know, why would you say something about this person? So it makes you feel like, is it really happening? And other things that are confusing is because you do see that they can go days without drinking and that most of the time things are okay. The problem is, is that sometimes when they drink, it really gets out of hand. It gets unmanageable. That could mean dui. That could mean that they come home every night after work and they just start drinking, and then they pass out or fall asleep, or they come home after work, they start drinking and they get mean and rude and you start a fight. And so a lot of times these behaviors are really only seen in the house. And to make it 50 times more frustrating, when you're dealing with alcohol, particularly as opposed to some of the other substances, the person very often doesn't actually even remember what happened. Or if they do remember what happened, they don't remember it like it really was, or they don't remember how bad it was or the severity of it. So when you're Talking to them about it. A lot of times they're looking at you like you're crazy. Why are you overreacting? Why are you always on my cage? You're so uptight. You won't even let me relax at the end of the day. What's wrong with you? And again, it's more of these messages that you're not seeing what you're seeing. And so when that happens, you start trying to catch it and find it because you're trying to prove that there's more drinking going on than this person will admit out loud. So you may be trying to find it in their hiding spaces, which means that they're only going to get that much better at hiding or they're going to stay out more, they're going to stay out in the garage or the barn or the workhouse working more, or they're going to spend more time with their friends. Because when you start looking for it, they start getting better at hiding it. And even when you think things are going well and they're doing something nice, those times can also end badly. Because let's say you're having some family over and your loved one, the one with the alcohol problem says, oh, don't worry, you call the food in, I'll go pick it up. Well, part of the reason why they're probably doing that is because they're either going to stop and get something along the way or, or on the way back, or they're going to sit there at the bar and drink while they wait for the food to be prepared, if it's a certain kind of restaurant or something like that. And so it puts you in this constant cat and mouse kind of game. Now there will be moments when you're dealing with someone who's a high functioning alcoholic when they say, like, okay, I know it's too much, I let it get out of control last night. And they'll admit that things got out of hand or it got overboard. And occasionally they'll even say, you know what, I do think that this is a problem, I need to stop. And so they'll go through these periods of trial and error, trying to cut it back, trying to rein it in, promising not to drink at all anymore, or promising to only drink on the weekends, or only beer, not liquor, or only wine. All these different things that I call the bargaining. If you haven't seen my videos on the stages of change as related to addiction, make sure you check those out because it really details this whole process. Now if you're listening to this you're probably thinking, well, there's really just not any hope because they're just never going to get it. No one else sees it. They won't admit that it's a problem. And I can see why you feel that way because probably for a long time before watching this video, you felt like you're beating your head against the wall. Sometimes they'll acknowledge it, they'll do better for a little while, but then they'll fall right back into old behaviors and it's like, around the merry go, round we go. And you probably feel like, is it ever going to stop? Well, here's the truth of the situation. Most likely, if you're dealing with a high functioning alcoholic, you're dealing with someone who has enough things going together, or they can stop for periods of time to the degree that it really keeps them from really recognizing either that they have a problem or at least recognizing that they have a pretty big problem, which is important for them to feel motivated to actually do something about it or stay motivated to do something about it. And so you may even be asking yourself, what am I going to do? Stick around until the wheels fall off here, until we get to full fledged, like drinking every day, drinking in the morning, like lost the job, all the bad things. No, you really don't have to do that. You can't make someone skip the bargaining phase. But what you can do is speed it up. Then you may even want to consider taking part in our invisible intervention process. Now, there are two ways to do that. One, you can schedule a expert consultation with one of our family recovery specialists and they'll walk you through what to do to sort of expedite this bargaining process. And the second thing you can do is you can take our online invisible intervention process, which will give you the actual step by step instructions on how to get someone motivated to actually make big changes that stay. It'll show you how to have the conversations, what to do when you hit roadblocks, what to positively reinforce and what to. The online course really is our sort of laid out step by step proven method. We have done this hundreds of thousands of times. This process really does expedite things. Like I said, you can't make people skip it, but you can speed it up. And it's kind of like, you know what, if we're going to get through this, let's get this done. Because you know what, if you're going to try to salvage your relationship with this person and you're going to try to make this work, then something needs to change. You definitely don't want to stay in this sort of slow death kind of situation that you're in. It either needs to get better or you need to do something else, because this is like watching a slow motion train wreck and this train is headed straight for your family. I'll make sure and put the links to how to schedule a consult if you want to do that or be a part of our online course in the description below. But up next, here is the link to the playlist all about motivating somebody, someone to take steps toward recovery.