Characteristics of High-Functioning Alcoholics

Family members may feel on edge and worried about their loved ones drinking. They may take steps to avoid the person while they are drinking, or they may experience feelings of guilt, shame, or self-blame. If you think that stress drinking has a gender divide you or someone you know may be drinking too much, ask your doctor about getting help – whether it’s from a therapist, psychiatrist, or other addiction specialist.

How to Recognize a Functional Alcoholic

An HFA is an alcoholic who is able to maintain his or her outside life, such as a job, home, family, and friendships, all while drinking alcoholically. HFAs have the same disease as the stereotypical “skid-row” alcoholic, but it manifests or progresses differently. But they may put themselves or others in danger by drinking and driving, having risky sexual encounters, or blacking out, Benton says. One sign that someone may have alcohol use disorder is that they consume excessive amounts of alcohol.

Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today. Sarah Allen Benton, primary therapist, Turning Point, New what does flakka smell like Haven, CT; author, Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic, Praeger, 2009. The most well-known support group is Alcoholics Anonymous, but there are many other 12-step programs. Get cost-effective, quality addiction care that truly works. Every person who loves someone with an addiction has to choose whether to help the person or to distance themselves from the person.

They tell themselves that because they can pay their own bills, there isn’t a problem. High-functioning alcoholics are one of five types of alcoholics. Also referred to as functional alcoholics, these people usually don’t realize that they rely on alcohol to feel normal. They don’t experience the typical consequences of alcoholism, such as drunk driving arrests, financial problems or blackout episodes. Although you may still hear people talking about “alcoholism” or “alcohol abuse,” the official term is alcohol use disorder (AUD).

High-functioning alcoholics can be moms, dads, husbands, wives, brothers or sisters. And the effects of alcoholism on families can be significant. The type of relationship you have with the person with alcoholism often affects how his or her disease affects you. Many are not viewed by society as being alcoholic, because they have functioned, succeeded and/or over-achieved throughout their lifetimes.

Support Groups

Binge drinking refers to a pattern of alcohol misuse where males consume five or more drinks in about two hours, or females ingest four or more drinks in the same period. Even if you’re not an alcoholic, binge drinking can be deadly and cause alcohol poisoning. Binge drinking doesn’t always equate to being a functioning alcoholic, but it is certainly a sign. For most of us, drinking would cause our lives to implode, leading us to seek help for our actions. However, functional alcoholics don’t have the same negative consequences for their actions. The denial runs deep for them because they don’t suffer financially and go to work every day.

Distancing yourself can seem selfish, but you have to look out for your own well-being before you can help someone else.

Both binge drinking and heavy drinking patterns increase a person’s risk of AUD and are common behaviors among people with AUD. In this article, learn more about why the term “functioning alcoholic” is outdated and the impact of living with untreated alcohol use disorder. Alcoholic parents may be physically present but emotionally distant. They may put themselves and others at risk by secretly driving under the influence with children in the car.

Some people seem to be just fine even though they misuse alcohol. You may hear them called “functional” or “high-functioning” alcoholics. But those aren’t official medical terms. “Functioning alcoholic” is an outdated term that in the past was used to describe people with alcohol use disorder who appear to meet their everyday responsibilities. However, alcohol use disorder is diagnosed based on a set of criteria that aren’t always seen by others. To cope with your stress, you may want to attend a support group for family and friends of people with alcohol use disorder (such as Al-Anon) or consider therapy.

How can something so dangerous be legal, advertised everywhere, and easily and legally accessible to anyone over the age of 21? It’s hard for anyone to comprehend, especially recovering alcoholics, but the substance has its grip on many people, even those we’d never suspect. It can lead to liver disease, pancreatitis, some forms of cancer, brain damage, serious memory loss, and high blood pressure. It also makes someone more likely to die in a car wreck or from murder or suicide. And any alcohol abuse raises the odds of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and fetal alcohol syndrome.

1. A functional alcoholic often consumes as much alcohol as someone with an alcohol use disorder.
2. These issues can be insidious and increase as a person becomes more dependent on alcohol.
3. Drinking alone or being secretive about drinking can be another sign of alcohol use disorder.
4. It also shifts for individuals throughout the course of their sobriety.

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Unfortunately, it’s no accident that functioning alcoholics hide their secrets so well. They know exactly what they’re doing, so how do you determine if someone you know or love is a functional alcoholic? They might even be high achievers or in positions of power.

Dating a Functional Alcoholic

Consider speaking to your primary care provider about your concerns or attending a support group as a first step. These therapies are available one-on-one or in small groups in an inpatient or outpatient setting. Some people with AUD may attend an inpatient recovery program, in which they stay at a facility for at least 28 days to receive concentrated treatment in a controlled environment. It can be hard to stop enabling someone you care about once you’ve recognized it.

It’s a condition that ranges from mild to moderate to severe. And it’s all still problem drinking, even if you think it’s “mild.” If AUD goes unrecognized and untreated, it’s linked to risks in many aspects of your health and life. Sometimes husbands and wives of high-functioning alcoholics are the only ones who know their spouse has alcohol problems. People addicted to alcohol may be able to function at work or in social drinking situation, but they’re unable to hide the disease from the person closest to them.

If the high-functional alcoholic you know is ready to stop drinking, they must go about it the right way by seeking professional addiction treatment. It’s challenging to see the signs of a person ruining their lives and for them to ignore them completely. Watching someone struggle with alcohol abuse can affect your life as bad as it’s affecting theirs. If you’re liberty cap lookalikes related to the person or married to them, you want to see them succeed. They’re never alone in this situation, even if they feel like it.

A night out on the town used to be one cocktail, and you’d be buzzed, but continuous drinking led to a tolerance, which then meant you needed two or three to feel that way. Now, you might have reached a point where you wake up and need a drink to get out of bed. Well, there are a lot of problems with it, and according to the statistics, you’ll soon become a statistic if you don’t change your ways. In the beginning, alcohol consumption may not seem like a big deal, especially if it’s not interfering with your personal or work life.