My personal trainer once told me that athletes that become alcoholics belong to either endurance sports of various kinds or to archer or pistol shooting. The shooting sportsmen use small amounts of alcohol to reduce tremor [1], and small amounts of alcohol became bigger with time.
The situation in endurance sports is very different. Very elevated count of mitochondria in cells of endurances athletes make their whole body a liver, basically - these mitochondria organelles get rid of alcohol metabolites during sleep very effectively. Top level endurance athlete drinks to heart content and does not experience a hangover the next day. It is all good and well for some time, athlete can drink everything for a long time, until he has his body physiologically depend on the alcohol, now this endurance athlete is an alcoholic.
I saw an example of alcoholic former endurance athlete once in my life. It was not pretty. He drank anything he can find (or what he brought in) and sleep the work day throughout, delivering nothing.
[1] https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jhe1972/14/2/14_2_99/_p...
The situation in endurance sports is very different. Very elevated count of mitochondria in cells of endurances athletes make their whole body a liver, basically - these mitochondria organelles get rid of alcohol metabolites during sleep very effectively. Top level endurance athlete drinks to heart content and does not experience a hangover the next day. It is all good and well for some time, athlete can drink everything for a long time, until he has his body physiologically depend on the alcohol, now this endurance athlete is an alcoholic.
I saw an example of alcoholic former endurance athlete once in my life. It was not pretty. He drank anything he can find (or what he brought in) and sleep the work day throughout, delivering nothing.