My mother is a highly-functional alcoholic who, in her 60s, still drinks and smokes every day from 6pm to 1am, alone or socially, rain or shine - and she's done

My mother is a highly-functional alcoholic who, in her 60s, still drinks and smokes every day from 6pm to 1am, alone or socially, rain or shine - and she's done that for 30+ years. I'll spare you the gruesome anecdata that the habit produced over the years. Being an alcoholic is a recipe for hurting people around you. It might not happen today or tomorrow, but sooner or later it will happen, whether you understand it or not. You might think you have a safe routine down, but you're likely oblivious to the human costs of that routine. As coping mechanisms go, it's an expensive and imprecise one. And it's definitely not cool.