Life as a Functional Alcoholic: Part 1

While most people think that alcoholics are people who dance on the bar tables and have random affairs, not every story follows those lines since alcoholism crosses every class line.  I am the perfect example of that since my alcoholism is one that is defined as a functional alcoholism.  This is not to say that I did not drink, because I did, almost every day of 14 years.

However, I was able to keep it hidden because to the rest of the world I was still a perfect house wife, it was only under my makeup that I battled the hangover every day and at night that I drank until I could not feel anything anymore.   In fact, given the fact that I battled the urge to drink everyday as I kept lunch dates, got my kids to school, and went shopping by the time night fell I felt I deserved the vodka I kept under the sink behind the waste bin.

Every night after the kids were fed and doing their homework I would head into the kitchen for a drink.  At first I would take it slow until the kids were in bed so no one would notice, but by the time I went to sleep I was trashed, a fact I was reminded of every morning when I woke up and felt horrible.  The worst part is, that my concern over being out of alcoholic for the next night was higher than my concern for my actions.

The only thing that finally made me search for help was one night when my four year child became ill and had to wake up her sister to help her.  The next morning I found out that my little girl had tried to get me up but I would not budge something I didn’t even remember.  It was at this point that I knew I would have to seek help because as much as I tried to believe that my drinking was not affecting my family, this was the first sure sign that it was.