Topic: Well said

[gpw11]

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/94/if-youre-functioning-youre-not-an-alcoholic

This chick is actually pretty funny, but she does have a point. 

[idolminds]

heh, no shit. People are such pussies now. I blame Oprah.

[Pugnate]

So angry.

[Cobra951]

I liked that.  The first time I ever heard the term "functional alcoholic" was around this past Thanksgiving.  My sister used it to refer to herself and her husband, jokingly.  They're partiers, that's all.  So am I, although not as much lately as I used to.

[gpw11]

I suppose I'd also be a functional alcoholic.

But yeah, it's retarded.  I remember in high school I had to go to a counselor as part of a suspension stemming from marijuana.  They use these fear tactics on you...or try to but it's pretty much impossible to scare someone about being an addict when they're like 17.  I remember filling out these quizzes and they'd go over the results and be like 'you're sitting on the fence right now, you can either be clean or you continue on the path you're on and end up in a gutter.'  I just remember sitting there thinking that I had a B average without doing homework, played two sports, had a girlfriend that I hung out with every day, had a real job and a volunteer 'work experience' job.  The fact that I smoked a bit of pot and drank on weekends obviously wasn't having nearly as much of a detrimental effect on my life as this chick was trying to make me believe.

You also occasionally see little quizes in newspaper stories or shitty advice columns, and there are questions like "have you ever blacked out?", "have you ever drank alone?", or "have you ever done anything drunk that you later regretted".  And then the thing is if you answered yes to any of them you 'might' have a problem....or maybe you just went to university.

[nickclone]

God, I remember being forced to go to an outpatient program when I was 18. My parents made me go after I got drunk at school, but I didn't get in trouble at school. I was the youngest one in the group, there were people a couple of years older than me, but they were addicted to oxycontin and everyone else were alcoholics.

When people would talk about their problems I would feel bad for them, some were dying, some had lost their wives/families, some had no money, been to jail and were all around pretty bad off. When they made me speak (yes, made) I told them I was there because my parents made me come and if I didn't I couldn't get my driver's license. They asked me what I would do if I didn't have any booze, I told them "nothing", what the hell could I do? They wanted me to be an alcoholic so bad that I couldn't believe some of the things they were trying to get me to admit. Apparently if you're in the program you must be an alky.

Whenever I got shit faced I still went to work the next day, sometime I got shitty during work. Got sent home a few times, but thats the only way I could stand working there.