Understanding The High-Functioning Alcoholic »

SARAH ALLEN BENTON is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Boston, where she is co-leader of an alcohol skills training program directed to help problem drinkers. She previously held several counselor positions at McLean Psychiatric Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In an earlier career, in television, Benton produced segments for the Disney Channel in California, a CBS affiliate in Denver, and an NBC affiliate in Boston. Benton is a member of a 12-Step Recovery Program and has remained sober since 2004. She earned her Master of Science in Counseling Psychology from Northeastern University.

Who is the typical alcoholic among the 12.5 million living in the United States now? Many, if not most of us when asked that question, would envision a skid row bum or someone at least out of work or with little education locked into a low-skill, low-paying job. But that is not accurate, according to the results of a national study released in June, 2007 by the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The NIAAA determined that alcoholics in the United States really fall into five subtypes, including nearly 20 percent who 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 counselor Sarah 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 liquor consumption but still manage to excel in their careers.

The book includes a look at celebrity alcoholics like singer Eric Clapton and actor/comedian Robin Williams, as well as alcoholics in high positions including Chris Albrecht, former Chairman and CEO of HBO. Other high-profile people included in this book are Miss USA 2007 Tara Conner and football legend Joe Namath. With her own story of alcoholism and her recovery woven into the text, Benton takes us into the lives and challenges of these well-educated and successful people, seeking to understand how, when, and why they became addicted, as well as the reasons their alcoholism is, for most, so hard to admit, cope with, and recover from.

"[E]xplores in depth a hidden class of alcoholics that are professionally successful; topics include High-Functioning Alcoholics (HFAs) in high school, college, and as emerging adults."

Part I: Active Alcoholism

1. Introduction: High-Functioning Alcoholics

2. In the Beginning: High-Functioning Alcoholics in High School

3. Freedom: High-Functioning Alcoholics in College

4. Adrift: High-Functioning Alcoholics as Emerging Adults

5. Falling Uphill: Professional, Intelligent and Alcoholic

6. Attempts to "Cure" the Problem: Out of Control and Hitting Bottom

Part II. Recovery

7. A New Start: The Paths to Sobriety

8. Spirituality, Religion and the Bottle: Filling the Void

9. Transformation: The Twelve Steps

10. The Challenge: Life in Recovery