Understanding the High-functioning Alcoholic

This title offers insights into the millions of 'successful' people who excel in many ways, but remain under the control of alcohol. When picturing a typical alcoholic, most people would visualise a down-on-his-luck, low-income individual. However, of the alcoholics in western countries, nearly 20 p [...]
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This title offers insights into the millions of 'successful' people who excel in many ways, but remain under the control of alcohol. When picturing a typical alcoholic, most people would visualise a down-on-his-luck, low-income individual. However, of the alcoholics in western countries, nearly 20 per cent are 'highly functional alcoholics, well-educated with good incomes'. They include corporate presidents, powerful politicians, police, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and other highly-skilled, highly-educated people who are middle- to high-income and by most accounts successful. In this unprecedented book, mental health counsellor Sarah Allen Benton takes us into the worlds and minds of so-called 'high functioning alcoholics' to understand how people so intelligent and achievement-oriented get drawn into states in which they secretly cannot control their alcohol consumption but still manage to excel in their careers.This book includes a look at celebrity alcoholics like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton as well as high-functioning alcoholics in the news ranging from University of Mary Washington President William Frawley to famed racecar driver Al Unser, Jr.This book also includes personal interviews with high-functioning alcoholics who have avoided headlines but been addicted to drinking, from professors and an engineer to a corporate president, attorney, and other high-powered achievers. With her own story of alcoholism and recovery woven into this text, the author takes us into the worlds and minds of these well-educated and successful people, to understand how, when, and why they become addicted and the reasons their alcoholism is for most so hard to admit, cope with, and recover from.