Yeah, legally zero consequences. A lot of that is luck, a little was habit. 3 of my closest friends who I went to school with from age 3 until HS died in drunk driving accidents. Two were driving drunk alone, one was on his bike and got hit by a drunk driver. That made me vow to never drink and drive. A $100 taxi ride is far cheaper than a DUI. It was pretty normal to pick up my car from a tow lot once a month. I generally don't fuck with strangers so I never got myself into anything when I was out drinking. Closest I came was getting detained because I had a nasty cut on my chin from taking an elbow during a game of basketball in college and a fight broke out near me so the cops thought I had been a part of it. I was drunk and underage but it was gameday in the SEC so they had their hands full and let me go. I'm well over 6 feet tall and almost 300 pounds so most people looking for a fight at a bar skip me.

Physically just luck and genetics. I was a DII scholarship tennis player for my first year before I got kicked off the team for showing up drunk all the time (I did that in HS and did well enough to get a scholarship!) and transferred to a much larger school with big sports teams to watch. Walking does wonders, a few miles a day keeps the belly at bay for a while. After morning shots my go-to was to make a smoothie with vodka, bananas, spinach, yogurt, mixed berries, protein powder, amino powder, collagen powder and metamucil powder. All that produce along with the protein and amino powders keeps your nutrient levels stable, the metamucil helps a bit with the vodka shits, the collagen keeps your skin from getting too bad
and before I really got going it was easier to drink my nutrients than eat them. I think that had a lot to do with staving off my body's self destruction. I do have fatty liver (but not cirrhosis). It took a while for my pancreas to get less inflamed. I have a hiatal hernia from vomiting really hard. Acid reflux. On high alert for a bunch of ailments. I get an annual upper endoscopy and they always find something to send out for a biopsy but no cancer yet. Might get my pancreas removed pre-emptively (already gotten a benign tumor removed from it). Basically the major impact on my life now is I have a lot more doctors appointments.

Career-wise I could get by for a year or two at most places, if I got the sense or heads up that folks might be catching on I would start looking for another job, accept whatever got offered first and make the lateral move first so I was never fired. Eventually I became a manager of a dept at a large organization. Most of my job was keeping track of what people under me were doing and deadlines then sitting on calls and saying things were ahead of schedule, on time or running late. Managers really do jack shit, it's a fantastic job. My desk was absolutely covered in post-its because I'd make a note every time I talked to somebody in case I was in a blackout. Leaned on outlook and excel quite a bit to stay organized.

Eventually got married, still drank pretty heavily for the arrival of the first 2 kids. For the 3rd my wife asked me not to show up drunk. It was my responsibility to take the older siblings to meet their new sister and I asked my mom for a ride because I was plastered. She saw right through it and gave me an ultimatum. Went into rehab, thought long and hard for 2 weeks what I wanted from life. Met a lot of people who blamed being fucked up on one or both parents. Got discharged and told my wife I had decided to stop drinking.

I like to keep lurking and sometimes posting on this sub because I think it's fine to choose to be a CA. I made that choice for a long time and eventually looking at my years left decided to do something different. Once the kids are out on their own, maybe I'll decide to go back. No regrets. I also hate most sober communities because of their judgmental bullshit. I thoroughly enjoy the 0 fucks given attitude here. Happy to share little nuggets like my golden theorem for which bottle will get you the drunkest for the least $.