First of all, alcoholics, and basically recovery people everywhere, believe that alcoholism and drug addiction are progressive diseases. Over any significant period of time alcoholics and addicts always get worse, never better. Therefore you may be wondering how a functional alcoholic might even be possible. If we are always getting worse than a functional alcoholic is just a few drinks away from failing to function. We’ll return to this thought in a minute.

In the meantime let’s address just what it means to be a functioning alcoholic. Do you think that someone you know and love might be one? Or perhaps you are worried that you yourself fit the bill.

A functional alcoholic is a person who has built alcohol into the routine of their everyday life. This person definitely drinks regularly, probably everyday and probably at a set time. However, believe it or not, the fact that a person drinks frequently, or even everyday, does not make that person an alcoholic.

An alcoholic is different from a hard drinker. A hard drinker may consume alcohol at what seems like proportions reserved for only the harshest of alcoholics. However, this person, the hard drinker, can often moderate on stop their drinking if presented with a serious enough reason to do so. This is a key point. The alcoholic can not do this on their own.

So, let’s say that you get off work everyday at 5:00 and by 6:00 you are working on a bottle or twelve pack that will carry you late into the evening. This is your routine and you stick by it religiously. You’ve never been to drug rehab or attended a 12-step meeting. Sure, your drinking may have caused you to get into a few scrapes but you haven’t had any serious consequences.

Then one day a serious consequence does present itself. Maybe your health begins to fail or perhaps you are faced with some sort of legal consequence. You decide it would be best to just quit for a while. If you make this determination to abstain from drinking and are able to successfully put down the bottle then you are not a functional alcoholic. You are not even an alcoholic. You are merely a hard drinker. Congratulations you’ve just saved yourself a trip to rehab!

However, and this is where the question from above comes into play, if you are unable to quit on your own when faced when sufficient reason to do so then you are in fact an alcoholic. Despite the fact that your drinking has not cost you a job or your family, the fact that you cannot abstain in the face of overwhelming consequences indicates you are an alcoholic. Welcome to the club…

So, can you be a functional alcoholic? I’m afraid not. Returning to the point from above, we believe (and all evidence strongly suggests) that alcoholics do not hold steady in the disease of addiction. The fact that you have never lost a job due to your drinking does not mean that you will never lose a job due to this affliction. You just haven’t lost a job yet.

And, on that note, it is extremely for alcoholics to retain their jobs and, to a lesser extent, their families long after the disease has progressed to the point that their performance has been impaired. The job is the last thing to go. Always! We’re very good at maintaining the things that allowed us to abuse alcohol and, considering our immense talents at manipulation and deception, we are generally allowed to hang on to things far longer than actually does us any good.

Like I said, over any significant period of time we alcoholics always get worse, never better.

It is possible for one to graph the consequences of one’s drinking. Perhaps thus far your consequences have been minor or trivial. But look to the trend. Are things getting worse? You can be a “functional alcoholic” for years but if you are honest with yourself you will confess that things have been deteriorating over time.

Now, remember that just because someone may drink frequently it does not necessarily follow that they are an alcoholic. If given proper reason, they may be able to stop or moderate on their own. However, I must also say that in my experience the “hard drinker” is a rare bird. Most people who drink everyday are not simply hard drinkers. They have a problem with alcohol.

And this brings us back to the point of the article. If you are believe you are a functional alcoholic I have some unfortunate news for you. You will not be functioning at your present level very much longer. Not to be downer, but it simply isn’t possible. For to be an alcoholic means that you are getting worse so long as you remain in active addiction. Therefore, functional alcoholics don’t really exist. The functional alcoholic is merely an alcoholic on a pit stop on the path to spiritual and physical oblivion or he is not an alcoholic at all.

So, if you are honest with yourself and see that over time you are becoming less “functional” than you used to be, I have good news. Alcoholism is a disease that can be arrested with proper treatment. There is no inevitable path to ruin, unless you leave the disease untreated. There are numerous rehab facilities that can get you your way. You simply have to look into them.

And if you are merely a hard drinker, if you merely enjoy your drink, then I say to you: Enjoy! You’re not one of us!