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My own experience with the so called "high functioning alcoholics" is they probably managed to both find the right level of moderation to slow this loss to a ra

My own experience with the so called "high functioning alcoholics" is they probably managed to both find the right level of moderation to slow this loss to a rate that they can handle and developed the coping strategy of keeping routines they cannot break. It's like they become robots. While it's definitely bad for health, I'm not sure broader society really cares because good health isn't necessarily correlated with success in life past a certain point. My somewhat more positive counterexamples roughly fall into the dichotomy of introverts and extroverts (yeah yeah I know). On the introvert side, I've seen hard drinking make people into creatures of habit. Not necessarily "bad" habits, but habits nonetheless such as overworking themselves in a narrow field, deep hobbies, etc. "drunken masters" so to speak. On the extrovert side, I've seen hard drinking train people to optimize for high charisma, handling crowds, and deep knowledge of conflict resolution to the detriment of being able to learn any other skills or really appreciate the world in any other way. The "life of the party" while being just as dead inside as the introverted example above. They get trapped into a certain way of life from the brain damage. I'm definitely not advocating alcohol abuse just sharing my perspective. I'm pretty sure more people drink than abstain so this isn't a topic that can be dismissed as just purely bad. If anyone knows of research on this kind of topic that would be amazing. Too often this is only discussed via movies, ads, and personal stories which are all strongly biased.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
There's a really common saying / dark joke in AA "we were all high functioning once." When admitted alcoholics look back on their lives we usually find a period of years where we and even those around us considered our drinking "high functioning" but that's not really a stable position. Eventually some major life disruption will throw off whatever is keeping you balanced there and then it's on for real. It's better viewed as a stage of alcoholism rather than a type of it, if that makes sense.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

There's a really common saying / dark joke in AA "we were all high functioning once." When admitted alcoholics look back on their lives we usually find a period of years where we and even those around us considered our drinking "high functioning" but that's not really a stable position. Eventually some major life disruption will throw off whatever is keeping you balanced there and then it's on for real. It's better viewed as a stage of alcoholism rather than a type of it, if that makes sense.