An alcoholic is always an alcoholic. When the alcoholic is no longer actively drinking, that person is an alcoholic in recovery. The harm that alcohol causes to one's life remains as emotional and physical scars. The alcoholic learns how to cope with it to mitigate these damages. Some are superficial scars that are more easily managed while deeper scars are not so obvious or easily managed. Those of us closest to the alcoholic may have been even more severely harmed than the alcoholic, even though we avoid using alcohol. We learn our own coping mechanism like the alcoholic, most notably the denial. We are also always in recovery.