@Clueless2000 Hi OP. Sorry this is a long post but I want to give you my perspective and it's an emotive subject for me.
My Dad was a functioning alcoholic and I remember growing up, how I used to find half-bottles of whatever brown spirit he was drinking at the time, in the strangest of hiding places (Even from a young age when I didn't even know what they were!) I wasn't rifling through drawers or anything, these would be places I'd come across whilst playing with the cat or my sibling for example.
Looking back, my Mum's reactions to these discoveries became more & more despondent. She knew she was out of her depth and that if he didn't accept there was a problem then there was quite literally nothing she could do except the usual kitchen-bollocking at teatime when he came in.
Eventually he stopped hiding them in the house. He must've carried them in his car or work van as he ended up with a driving ban which was a massive shock to the family as my Dad wasn't a criminal in any other way. It highlighted how much of a hold his addiction was having on him.
Just to finish off the story for those interested, he did seem to mostly overcome his addiction (or so we presume) as he got his licence back and became a taxi driver and remained so for many years (and nobody inc. any of the company's passengers ever claimed to have smelt alcohol on him during or after a shift. And I fully believe he didn't drink drive as he loved that job, it was his livelihood. In fact I'd never seen him happier than in his taxi).
Once I was older, I do remember him taking me to a pub a couple of times when not working, for a quick drink and him telling me not to tell mum. Although he did only have a half on both occasions; so he clearly was capable of restraint.
However he sadly died of heart failure eventually, as all his years of drinking had lead to heart disease and the symptoms of which he'd seemingly ignored, so it had become heart failure.
I'm not telling you this to worry or frighten you or anybody else reading this. I just want to point out/remind you that an alcoholic will^^ find ways to drink undetected if they have no self control.
But also to say that I've first hand experience of an alcoholic being fully capable of self control IF they want it enough. I know some will disagree with me there, but I've lived through my Dad being truly hammered as a child almost daily, then as described above, him later being fully capable of restraint. Enough for him to drive 12 hours per day, 6 days per week for 14 years, sharing a vehicle with 50/100+ people per day (most of whom were sat next to him in the front) who would've almost certainly reported him to the taxi company he worked for (or the council who licence taxi drivers) if they'd detected any hint of booze or its effects on him.
(To those thinking yeah, he obviously just learnt to hide it well when he'd been drinking - nah, my Dad heavily perspired whenever he drank more than half a lager! Also like I said, it was his livelihood).
Apologies if I've gone off on a tangent or made your thread all about my experience. I just felt it only fair to show the full picture.
Best of luck, OP.