Ask HN: High functioning alcoholism – anyone?

Jack Kerouac was a high functioning alcoholic and wrote some fairly well known books.

Until he died of bleeding oesophageal varices, a common complication of excess alcohol use.

Some beautiful images here : https://www.google.com.au/search?tbm=isch&q=esophageal+varic...

I know a number of alcoholics who attend AA and have been sober for decades.

My sincere best wishes. Please check out https://www.aa.org/

5 nights a week half a bottle of wine isn't an alcoholic. It's drinking too much.

If you're at a bottle of wine s night that's certainly too much.

You've got a poor habit that's all. Just put a system in of deferring first drink, going to bed s bit earlier i.e. Before the last drink, and ensure you have a glass of water and a cup of tea between each glass. That'll reduce the amount you drink by s glass or two.

You're fine.

My good friend, who IS an alcoholic, drinks a 750ml bottle of vodka in a night.

Current UK drinking guidelines are that you drink no more than 14 units per week.

750 ml of wine at 12% = 9 units per night. 9 * 5 = 45 units per week.

That's considerably more than the guidelines.

With excess drinking we tend to talk about problem drinking (drinking a bit too much); harmful drinking (drinking enough to cause harm, and you're certainly doing that) and dependent drinking (drinking enough to have a physical addiction).

It can be dangerous to -without supervision- stop drinking if you have a physical dependency.

Here's what you should expect from English treatment for alcohol misuse: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg115

Here's an interactive flowchart: https://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/alcohol-use-disorders/...

You need, and deserve, medical advice. Please go see a real professional.

  1. Have you ever felt you needed to Cut down on your drinking?
  2. Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
  3. Have you ever felt Guilty about drinking?
  4. Have you ever felt you needed a drink first thing in the morning (Eye-opener) to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover?

I drank for years and years thinking I was "high functioning". I quit drinking using Naltrexone, following the "Sinclair Method". In my opinion it's a far more rational and reasonable treatment program as compared to AA's 12 step (which never worked for me).

Best advice is to find healthy emotional alternatives. Spending time with family and friends. Volunteering, exercising. Above all try to appreciate that you deserve to be alive. Love thyself. IMHO, underlying a lot of these addictions is an underlying death wish caused by a deep sense of unworthiness.

All we know about drinking and yet we still do it. Or fentanyl and opioids. The death rate keeps rising. I can only imagine is that the people who are doing it are doing it as a subconscious act of suicide.

I was in a very very similar situation, working as a software engineer on highly important safety critical systems I was at the peek of my career and very successful. But I was working way too hard, not sleeping and drinking more and more booze. It was OK but borderline. Then a couple of issues pushed me over the limit, and the booze intake got higher and higher. It took probably 3 years of gradual decline before I had just about shutdown, work was about to fire me and I was in severe mental shutdown. Luckily a friend helped me realise I had a problem, I got help and after a further 3 years I am much better. However it was a close run thing and I think if it had carried on I would have ended up dead. You have managed to realise you have a problem early enough that you can fix it.

It's less about changing a single behavior, and more about becoming a better person. Ideally, the better version of yourself isn't a slave to much wine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v1lSrcgk6c

Don't forget to put yourself into cetogenic mode ( by removing the sugar or by fasting for more than 3 days ) in order to clean your liver from fat tissue. ( before doing it, go see a physician first )

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14766695

I were in your situation, too. Quit drinking about 4 years ago now. Used to drink 6-7 days a week for about 12-14 years, while working in IT. Getting sober was the best thing I could have done!

Would it help to become more snobbish about wine?

I really love fine wine, and cheap stuff doesn't really do it for me; it's either fruity and boring, or unbalanced and rough. But get me a rich Cote Rotie, or savoury Burgundy, and it's a different category. And neither are available in any decent quality for less than $50, or much closer to $150 a bottle for the stuff I really like. At this price level, it's a treat that happens no more than a dozen times a year, and usually less, only on special occasions.

I say this because you say you like the taste, rather than it being the sensation of being drunk.

You could also find something else of complexity to drink - gourmet coffee is an obvious candidate.

I'm mot in your situation, but you certainly are not alone.

At least in Finland high functioning 'risk alcohol consumers' are the largest group dying and suffering from alcohol related diseases. They get heart diseases, diabetes, dementia, cancers, strokes. Derelicts are just small and visible minority of alcoholics.

Being aware of the problem is already a big step.

"When do I get this development done? .. with tobacco and wine it would be done. But I have to learn this also without them. I must!" – Jean Sibelius, composer fighting the writers block.

It's unfortunate that this industry embraces alcoholism so much. I've been in your situation for a long time (much worse amounts of alcohol though), but as I grow older I notice the side-effects more, and am worried what I've done to my organs.

I'm trying to cut back myself at the moment, and my wife is helping me by identifying when I've drank 3+ nights in a row -- "do you really need it tonight? give your body a rest". I would encourage you to ask your wife to remind you in a loving way.

Drink less?

You are not an alcoholic in the psycho sense but more like you need to "drink" or "consume" something to keep going.

This is relevant in most cultures. For example, in the middle east where Alcohol is taboo there is Shisha: http://wrpm.ca/wrpm/store/images/products/narjila-b.jpg

Unlike a cigarette, you need to sit down for the full period to consume a Shisha. More like 1-2 hours break. People need a break. Westerns go to the bar.

It is easier than running. Running is healthier but requires some work and effort. Also you can't socialize or talk when running vs. when consuming a drink/smoke.

My suggestion would be to "balance out" your consumption. Maybe try the electronic cigarette if you are a smoker. Maybe switch to a Mojito drink with low alcohol but a focus on lemon/gas pressure to feel a strong taste.

The new drink will distract you from wine but give a similar satisfaction.

Remember that alcoholic feels alcohol differently than us. I get on the mood on 2-3 beers but a tequila shot kills it. I can drink wine and it doesn't make me drank just loose.

Yep, happens to me too.

I can't say that I drink much, maybe once or twice a week, but sometimes I have work to do on the evenings and can definitely feel the difference on focus and motivation for what I'm doing if I've had a couple of glasses of brandy. Also I feel like I get pretty good ideas on that state (which I wouldn't classify as drunk) - Maybe relaxed.

The best advice we can provide is only what works for us. Your best bet is to find an experienced counselor who knows what to look for. As much as I wish I could help you, I can't: your reasons for drinking are yours alone, and your concern about your drinking is just as unique. If you need to stop, you can. You have it in you. You might not need to, you might just need some new alone-time habits. Alcoholism is different for each of us.

My father is an alcoholic. He stopped with the help of a drug called Disulfiram (Antabuse), and any time he feels like he may relapse, he starts taking it again. My brother seems dependent on alcohol, but doesn't binge drink like our father used to.

My partner believes she may be an alcoholic. Up until last year, she was drinking three 400ml cans of beer on average, five or six nights a week, sometimes that and almost a whole bottle of port. What made her quit drinking was the time she told one of her close friends that the friend and I should sleep together. Months later, then she tried to kiss one of her (female and straight) work colleagues. Her effort required to stop was significant, partly because she was raised by a habitual alcoholic mother who though nothing of forcing a beer into her hand.

Personally, I am not an alcoholic. My poison is escapism - video games, movies, even music. I'm stuck in those worlds, to the point of not sleeping until after 2am some days. I crawl into a game - say, Ghostbusters, Assassin's Creed Black Flag, or RimWorld - for maybe 12 or 15 hours a day sometimes, and then realise the whole day has gone by. Just today, I sent five hours playing RimWorld.

In my younger years, I ended up blackout drunk several times a month on and off for a few years. Being honest, which is easy with the anonymity of the interwebs, I often used it so that person I was attracted to would just find somebody else and make things less complicated for me. I have symptoms of autism insofar as I can't read body language or social situations. It's unfortunate that I compounded my problem (loneliness) by driving people away with alcohol. I barely touch the stuff now - I actually can't recall the last time I had a drink. Might be last year, I think.

You already have what you need, what you want now is some help to find it. Good luck. I hope things work out for the best.

My father in law was the same until he was diagnosed with liver cancer three years ago. I never really knew him before then because he was always drunk.

By high functioning you mean you sit in the corner getting drunk every evening whilst ignoring your wife and kids? Fighting with them on a regular basis because you're sozzled?

Since then hasn't touched a drop and I've got a father in law. My children have got a grandpa.

He deeply regrets the time he missed with his kids, but luckily has been able to spend a lot of time with his grandchildren.

I understand where it comes from - kids are hard work and you need a coping mechanism to survive the first couple of years. Yours is alcohol, mine is sweet food (so I'm too fat), others smoke.... maybe we should try collecting stamps instead? :)

This is just my anecdote, I don't know how generalisable my experiences are. But in case this is useful:

I used to drink about this much, but I'm not sure I was that high functioning. I finally realised that alcohol was having a significant effect on my mood and motivation levels, even in relatively small quantities. Whilst I probably wasn't physiologically addicted, drinking had certainly become a vicious cycle.

I am cautious of using the term alcoholic, because often that implies a particular treatment (AA) which would have seemed too daunting, I would have had philosophical difficulties with, and would have denied me the pleasure I now get from occasional, moderate alcohol consumption.

There are some signs of negative introspection in your post. For me the first step was simply to become aware of the link between my alcohol consumption and my mood/behaviour. I realised I was doing much more negative introspection in the 48+ hours after drinking (even small amounts) than at other times. As an effect it is less obvious than drunkenness or a hangover, but for me it turns out to be just as predictable. Experimenting with this obviously required me to go without alcohol for a few days at a time. Being aware of the association then allowed me to take my negative thoughts less seriously and break the cycle ("Oh hang on, didn't I drink last night? That probably explains why I'm thinking this way - maybe I won't use booze to unwind this evening...")

It was a gradual process rather than a panacea, because it took time for the better decisions I started to make to filter through to my living situation, my work etc.

You didn't really mention the context of your drinking.

For example, I've gone through periods in my younger life where I was working on tough projects with tight deadlines where there was a strong sense of camaraderie on the team - it was us against the world, pulling together to make the deadlines etc. Pretty much every night there would always be someone looking to go for drinks, and inevitably a good-sized group would be at the bar each night. What started as "one or two beers" typically ended up as rowdy drinking sessions until the small-hours before stumbling back home for 4 or 5 hours sleep before doing it all again the next day.

And you know what? The drinking stopped when I stopped working on those projects, but even now - years and years later - if I meet up with some of my old colleagues from those projects we always end up drinking fairly heavily.

tl;dr - are you drinking because of the people you're spending time with? Are you being being encouraged/pressured/expected (implicitly or explicitly) to drink by those you know?

Try some alternatives to spend the time - personally I have found that going for a good run helps to bring your brain down to a nice baseline state where nagging stress/concerns/wants/angers can be more easily controlled as I guess our lizard brains kick-in and concentrate on the running. TV/Movies/Games/Programming are too easy to both sit there and mindlessly eat/drunk/smoke at the sametime, while allowing your mind to wander back to the bad things.

How to stop - your kids see their father under influence literally every evening. This is how they will remember you.

Not sure if it will be down voted for the illegality aspect, but psychedelics have shown promising signs in the treatment of addictions.

http://www.maps.org/news/multimedia-library/2982-lsd-for-alc...

Your situation is not as bad as many. It sounds like your problems mostly originate internally, rather than being the result of external pressure. It’s not like your friends are calling you up every day for a bottle; you’re drinking alone. So the only person you need to say “no” to is yourself (granted that might be harder than saying no to someone else).

What works for me dealing with addictions / bad habits is to turn the habit around on itself. Start thinking of it negatively, derisively, until you hate it so much you’d be embarrassed and disgusted to engage with it.

Beyond that, find a way to get a dopamine hit from saying “no” to yourself. Relish the control it gives you. Personally when I say “no” to friends engaging in some illicit but fun activity, it feels good. I feel like I accomplished something just by saying no. That’s a powerful motivator and a critical element of developing the positive feedback cycle necessary to break a habit.

I was in a similar situation for years, and alcohol was the lesser of my intake problems. I was drinking mostly to stave off boredom; let's call it being comfortably numb.

What eventually helped was getting serious about playing music - practicing every night. I can't practice if I drink. I was excited enough about music that gave me an escape from boredom.

A few years later, I decided to start a part-time online Masters degree, and I'm excited enough about that to keep me from of boredom's abyss. It also fills most of my spare time.

I guess I replaced drinking with something that addressed some/most of the underlying cause. Also important to package the change as something positive; _start_ a degree is more motivating than _stop_ drinking.