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AINYF SHORTS
Corner Office, Bottom Drawer: My Career as a Functioning Alcoholic
“And the counselor who said you don’t need to do that anymore.”
I met Pat in my first serious recovery program. Pat was the lead counselor, and he was good at his job. He could see through the bullshit excuses that alcoholics are famous for. I often wondered if he was put into my life to help me get sober when all else failed. Or was it that I finally arrived at the point of desperation where I was ready to listen?
To quote the Tao Te Ching: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Either way, Pat was confrontational when he needed to be, and I responded well to his nonsensical approach. In addition to getting into my face, Pat firmly believed in the capability of most ‘functioning alcoholics’. I was proof of that (sorry about the pun.) I was running a fairly successful business with a bottle in the bottom drawer.
He was aware of recovery’s strange and paradoxical truth: maintaining an addicted life requires extraordinary effort. The functioning alcoholic or addict isn’t lazy — far from it. Drunks often work harder than anyone realizes to stay afloat in a life that constantly threatens to drown them.
