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This is one I hear often at meetings. “I was a functioning alcoholic – I had a job, went to work, made money,” etc. etc.
I can’t say that I find it funny that I feel differently about using the word “functional” in the same sentence with alcoholic. Well, heck yeah, you had a job – you needed to make money to drink didn’t you?
Take a look at the first step. It says “our lives had become unmanageable.” In the 12 and 12 it says “we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.” Just exactly what about unmanageable, what about obsession for destructive drinking, relates to “functional?”
In “The Doctor’s Opinion” in The Big Book on pg. xxviii it says, “once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.”
Is there anything, ANYTHING, about that statement that sounds functional?
I didn’t think so… I was taught that, by definition, alcoholic means dysfunctional. There is no such thing as a “functional, drinking, alcoholic!
Reality check…
Mark
546 days ago
[...] began writing here at A Dozen Steps one of the more controversial posts I’ve made was about a “Functional Alcoholic.” I feel I am able to speak on the topic because I was more than happy, as a newly sober person, to [...]
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732 days ago
Mark,
I offer my apologies for anything I’ve said that has slighted you.
My comment on the “former” [alcoholic stuff] was simply a response to you saying “which you cannot be doing by your last statement” (which was borne of my ‘former alcoholic’ reference). I truly believe that alcoholism, at least for some, is a simple physical addiction with no deeper psychological roots.
We’ve all got our own row to hoe and yours and mine seem to be somewhat different right now – perhaps that will change.
This is your blog and I’m not here (very seriously) to make waves. I appreciate that you’ve published and responded to my submissions. Perhaps someone will recognize themselves in them…
I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavor to abstain. I hope the same for myself.
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732 days ago
Well, okay then Matt… please, by all means, go do what you have to do. I have no problem with you doing whatever it takes to save your life.
Just stop trying to bring me down your road. Been there, done that, didn’t work for me, not wasting any more time there.
I’m recovering because it works for me. I’m not helpless or despairing. If you have a problem with that – guess who’s problem it will remain?
Love the character assassination (doubt you’ll see it that way). Brainwashing as evidenced by my writings. LMAO. To be cliche – my brain damn well needed washing (and, it was just like yours is).
BTW – why are you soooo hung up on this “former” alcoholic stuff? No one has mentioned it here – except you!
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732 days ago
Oh, and Mark, one more thing. Yes, there is such a thing as a former alcoholic. I know some of them that have been off the sauce for many years and have no desire to begin drinking again.
The term ‘recovering alcoholic’ is used to reinforce that idea of helplessness and despair I mentioned above.
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732 days ago
Mark,
I have precious little interest in the culture of helplessness promulgated by AA and the twelve steps. I am not helpless and my life is not unmanageable.
I have a physical addiction not unlike addiction to nicotine or other drugs. The reward center in my brain is screwed up after years of drinking and doesn’t function normally in the absence of alcohol.
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to hear other drunks talk about how screwed up their lives are or were. I want to break a physical addiction. After that since I know that I am prone to this addiction, I will not be able to safely drink. Just like cigarettes – I know if I smoke one, I’ll be smoking a pack a day within a week.
I believe the right treatment for me will end up being aversion therapy (by far the most effective treatment) at a place like Schick-Shadel and either naltrexone or Campral to jumpstart the rewiring of the dopamine machinery in my brain. I am making arrangements to begin all of this before the end of the year.
I don’t think AA is a bad thing and it certainly works for some people. But I do believe it engages in a bit of brainwashing, as evidenced by some of your writings.
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