I’m Grateful To Be An Out Of Control Drinker

Valuable lessons amidst the chaos

Dave Tieff
3 min readSep 7, 2024

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My father was the quintessential functioning alcoholic — but that’s such a misleading term. Anyone who drinks too much is not functioning at total capacity. It would be more accurate to say they’re “malfunctioning.”

First, there is the term “Alcoholic,” with all of its ambiguous confusion.

Fortunately, that antiquated word is being replaced with the term Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), which provides a more accurate snapshot of what the disorder is:

A spectrum of use and abuse.

Not only is the word alcoholic misleading (and serves no clinical purpose) but adding functioning to the label makes it a get-out-of-jail-free card for problem drinkers.

“I go to work — leave me alone!”

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Dave Tieff

Alcohol Free (AF) singer-songwriter & cyber journalist. Here to discuss everything sex, drugs, rock, and culture🤘🍄🎙💋 www.davetieff.com