I’d say yes, but the terminology used is up to each person.
I flip between ‘alcoholic’ (rare these days) and mostly between ‘recovering alcoholic’ and ‘recovered alcoholic’.
The reasons why:
Alcoholic – suggests to most people I still drink, when it’ll have been 14 years in a couple of months and I don’t think about it like I used to.
I just don’t drink. Like I don’t go to Samba classes.
I don’t dwell on that, or go around telling people I don’t Samba dance, I just don’t do it.
In the same way, I just don’t drink.
Recovering alcoholic – similar reason.
A lot of people think you are still struggling and that’s not how I feel
But, equally, I know if I have a drink, I’ll be back to being pissed every day in no time, so it’s not a bad description – it’s just misunderstood by a lot of people.
Recovered alcoholic – suggests I am ‘cured’ and there is no cure.
But it also stops people with limited or no understanding thinking the negatives of the above descriptions.
In my line of work – running my own business – it’s not so important, people can take me or leave me for whatever reason.
But I know it can be more of a problem for people in regular employment.
I tend to use recovering or recovered most of the time but I also tend to then say ‘or …’ and use the one I have said and ‘whichever…’
It’s not easy being an alcoholic/recovering alcoholic/recovered alcoholic!
