How can someone be an alcoholic but not have it be maladaptive?!
Question: How can someone be an alcoholic but not have it be maladaptive?
Answers:
You've hit a very interesting question. The division between health and maladaptive behavior is not always clear, but there are many high-functioning alcoholics. Is there a difference between your friend's behavior and a person who is prescribed a sedative for anxiety?
Obviously, she doesn't have a physician monitoring her "medication" to make sure she isn't having problems with it, but if she is self-monitoring sufficiently, is it really different? Maybe not.
But I would suggest that it is more maladaptive than she cares to admit. She has relationship problems, and she is surrounded by partiers, who are probably not the most emotionally satisfying group to hang out with.
She manages to get to her job, but she is too hung over to consider doing anything else like taking classes so that one day she can have a better job and life that doesn't leave her wanting to drink herself into emotional oblivion.
The addictive nature of alcohol often causes escalation into clear problems. Though your friend has not wrapped her car around a tree (or around a child), she clearly is not making adaptive choices.
Health issues aside, if she were drinking because it is fun (and that were actually true), an arguement could be made that it is not maladaptive.
But she's stuck in a job that she doesn't like with a social and romantic life that she can only tolerate if she is constantly numbed by alcohol. Unfortunately, the alcohol use is stopping her from being able to improve either her work or personal situation. That is the definition of maladaptive behavior, and she is an alcoholic who is so far into denial that she can't even recognize the harm it is doing, even though the harm is clear.