Can You Be a High Functioning Alcoholic? The Quiet Trap of Looking Fine on the Outside
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
Shaz had a startup that was thriving. A wife. Two daughters. A new build in Houston, on the same street as his in-laws. From the outside, the guy was winning.
From the inside, he was sneaking white claws to the garage during arguments because they don't smell as much as beer.
That gap between what your life looks like and what's actually happening inside it is the entire definition of a high functioning drinking problem. And it's the reason so many people stay stuck in it for years longer than they need to.
What High Functioning Alcoholic Actually Means
A high functioning alcoholic is someone who keeps drinking despite mounting personal cost while still holding down a job, a marriage, a mortgage, or all three. The functioning part is the disguise. It's not proof you don't have a problem. It's the reason no one (including you) is sounding the alarm.
The clinical term most professionals use now is alcohol use disorder, on a spectrum from mild to severe. But sitting at home wondering whether you qualify is its own trap, which we'll get to.
On the Sober Motivation Podcast, Shaz put it bluntly:
I knew mentally that I was killing myself. Like, this is not right.
He was running a successful company while having that thought. Both things were true at the same time.
The Signs Nobody Talks About in the Listicles
Every article on this topic gives you the same checklist. Drinking alone. Hiding drinks. Building tolerance. They're not wrong. They're just sterile.
Here's what it actually looks like in a real life:
You drink faster than the people around you. Shaz's wife noticed this in year one of their marriage. He's on his third drink. Everyone else is on their first. Most people, at this point, double down on the math: they make their first drink stronger so they can stay on their first drink longer.
You start drinking sneakier, not less. When someone mentions your drinking, the move isn't usually to slow down. It's to get better at hiding it. White claws in the garage. Stronger pours when nobody's watching. Pre-gaming before the dinner so the two drinks at the table look reasonable.
You make deals with the future. When I have kids, I'll stop. When I get the next promotion, I'll stop. When we move, I'll stop. The deals always involve some external event doing the work for you. They never do the work.
You normalize the blackouts. Shaz said the giveaway wasn't the blackouts themselves. It was that he wasn't asking himself if he had a problem the next day. He was strategizing the apology so he could be cleared in time for the next party. The 4th of July blackout had to be smoothed over before Labor Day.
You stop venting to anyone real. Stress builds. You don't talk to friends because they'd judge. You don't talk to family because they'd worry. So you pour. The drink becomes the only outlet you trust, and the loneliness it creates becomes the next reason to drink.
The Three Stages, According to Someone Who Lived Them
Shaz uses a three-stage framing that lands hard because he can name when each stage ended for him:
Fun. College, the liquor store years, the parties where he was the guy with all the booze. No real consequences yet.
Fun with problems. Married life in Chicago, then Austin. Blackouts. Embarrassments. Apologies. But still functional. Still showing up.
Problems. Houston. Sneaking drinks in the garage. Building a house specifically so his wife would have her family nearby when the marriage ended, because that was easier than imagining stopping.
The reason most high functioning drinkers can't tell which stage they're in is because they're grading themselves against the worst version they can imagine. As long as they're not Johnny who lost the job and the wife and the house, they're fine.
You don't need to lose everything before you're allowed to admit something's wrong.
The Question That Actually Matters
Forget the labels for a second. Skip the online quiz. Don't ask ChatGPT if you're an alcoholic.
Ask yourself this: do you believe your life would be better without alcohol in it?
If your honest answer is yes, that's the only data point you need. Brad puts it this way: people don't sit around Googling 'do I have a gambling problem' when they buy two scratch tickets a year. The fact that you're searching is the answer.
The label hunt is a stalling tactic. It feels like progress because you're researching. It's actually just another way to keep drinking while you decide what box to tick.
What Most People Get Wrong
They wait for an external rock bottom. Shaz spent years assuming the kids would fix it, the move would fix it, the success would fix it. None of it did. He had to want to stop for himself.
They confuse functioning with healthy. Holding down the career while drinking yourself to sleep five nights a week is not a sign you're handling it. It's a sign you've gotten really efficient at hiding it.
They go to the wrong people for help. Telling old friends I think I drink too much usually backfires. They've drunk with you for years. They have their own opinions about what your drinking means, and most of them are not equipped to listen without judging. Shaz tried this. It pushed him further inside himself, not out.
They believe the deal alcohol offers. Alcohol does what it claims to do in the short term. The bill, the meeting, the marriage stress, all of it feels softer for a few hours. The bill is still there in the morning. The marriage stress is worse. The relief is rented, and the interest rate is brutal.
What Actually Works
Talk to a like-minded person before anything else. This is the single move that broke Shaz's cycle. Not therapy first. Not rehab. A 30-minute conversation with someone who'd been there. He said it gave him something a therapist couldn't: a person who'd done what he'd done and didn't flinch.
Find a community of people who get it. Shaz joined the Sober Motivation community and showed up at 8am and 7pm Central, every day. Not because someone made him. Because he heard his own story coming out of strangers' mouths and realized he wasn't broken. He was just one of many people who had a thing with alcohol.
Read at least one quit lit book. Shaz credits This Naked Mind, We Are The Luckiest, and I Didn't Believe It Either for rewiring how he thought about drinking. You don't need to read all three to start. One is enough to crack the script.
Stop trying to moderate. This was the hardest part for Shaz. After five weeks of slipping, he finally accepted that one drink ends in five. The first drink is the only one you have any power over. The data is brutally consistent on this.
Show up the next morning, especially after a hard night. Five months in, Shaz lost a basketball game by 20 points in front of his daughters. He drove to the gas station that used to sell him white claws. He bought coffee instead, because he knew he'd have to face his community at 8am the next day. The accountability of one upcoming meeting is sometimes the only thing standing between a relapse and a clean morning.
I Found Happiness, Not Just Sobriety
The thing that makes Shaz's story land is what he was actually chasing. Not sobriety. Happiness.
He'd already gotten the financial success during the pandemic, the house, the family. None of it produced what he wanted. So at the end of December 2024, he made a different deal. Take it all back. Give me one percent of actual happiness. That was day one.
A year later, his wife thanks him every night before bed. His daughters write his sober month count in chalk on the driveway. He's coaching his daughter's basketball team. The startup is doing better than ever, not worse.
The last thing he said in the episode is the line worth tattooing somewhere:
The opposite of addiction is connection.
That's not a slogan. That's the whole answer.
You Don't Need a Label to Start
If you've read this far, you already know. You don't need a quiz. You don't need to be the worst drinker you've ever met. You don't need permission.
You need one honest conversation with someone who's been where you are.
Listen to Shaz's full story on the Sober Motivation Podcast. If you're ready to talk to people who've actually quit drinking and want to help you do the same, the Sober Motivation community is open. Just show up.
That's how it starts for everyone. Including the guys who looked completely fine on the outside.
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