The Functional Addict is a deeply personal yet openly shared space—a kind of halfway house between confession and research, where recovery is neither romanticised nor wrapped in euphemism. This isn’t a comeback story. It’s a survival account, told in real time.

In this blog, I piece together lived experience and evidence-based insight on addiction—especially the kind that hides behind productivity, ambition, and freshly laundered clothes. High-functioning addicts. The ones who don’t “look” like addicts until it’s too late. The ones who show up, meet deadlines, and quietly unravel behind the scenes.

In my memoir, I retrace the life I built in Sydney as a TV and film editor—cutting Olympic coverage, Emmy Award-winning documentaries, and iconic concerts: Coldplay, UB40, Norah Jones. On paper, I was thriving. On-screen, my name rolled past in credits. Behind the scenes, though, I was staging a very different production—one my partner never auditioned for. I built an alter ego who lived on methamphetamine: first a sharpened lens, then a wrecking ball. A substance that whispered productivity and delivered erosion.

Nothing—and no one—came before it.

The illusion held, until it didn’t. My mother arrived unannounced one day and found what was left of me. Rehab came next. Then court. I walked out without a criminal record, but not without damage. Then came Argentina. Then silence. Then the slow, inelegant work of becoming human again—without shortcuts, without applause.

Writing, oddly enough, became the lifeline. What began as an act of survival—scribbles in notebooks, unsent letters, fragments typed at 3 a.m.—morphed into something else. Something shaped. I’ve since published parts of that story in The Listener and The New Zealand Herald.

This work—this memoir, this blog—isn’t about redemption arcs or tidy conclusions. It’s about moral injury and how long it takes to heal. It’s about memory, clarity, relapse, forgiveness, and all the grey matter in between. It’s about telling the truth, even when your voice shakes.

If you’re navigating this same hidden terrain—if you’re tired of pretending you’re fine—I hope these words reach you. They’re the ones I needed, too.

—Alexander Longstaff