re: #321 KGxvi

Yeah, that’s still an alcoholic. Being an alcoholic is sort of like being pregnant - you either are or you’re not.

The word functional is an adjective, they are obviously still and alcoholic. I have 2 friends who are alcoholics. One of them gets about 4 drinks in and gets unsteady and starts slurring his words and is quite obvious. The other, unless you were watching him drink you would be hard pressed to realize he was drunk. With a sloppy drunk it is pretty obvious when you need to take their keys away, with a functional alcoholic you may not even know it is an issue. Not sure why the problem with the modifier, being more descriptive is generally a good thing.