in vino veritas?

[sb6052]

So I just wanted to explore the issue of the effects alcohol has on people and hear others' opinions on it.

 

The main question is, does consuming alcohol make one more likely to reveal their true self, or innermost thoughts, or does it turn someone into something they're normally not? This can be a pretty heated debate.

 

For example, I had a roommate who when sober wasn't very friendly (well the second year I lived with him; at first we got along well), and would often behave rather coldly toward me, though kept it superficially civil/polite, probably because he thought I didn't like him for some reason or that I was always trying to imply things about him, and kept thinking that there was some other negative message in whatever I said to him, which wasn't true. Though I could have handled it better myself, I admit. Our interactions became increasingly strained due to these misunderstandings, though on the surface still nice, and we would rarely talk to each other throughout the week.

 

Anyway whenever he would get really drunk, he would suddenly become very friendly to me and act as if I was one of his best buddies, telling private stories, messing and joking around and roughhousing and all that, like guys do. But the next day after he would drink a lot, he would resort to his usual colder attitude and mentality toward me, despite that... this happens on a fairly regular basis (I feel like we need to have a chat about it but I'm not good at these things, especially with dudes lol). So I'm wondering what the real him is; and in general how drinking affects people. Is the true self the nice friendly one or does alcohol just cloud judgement and allow people to look past things they normally don't like? Kind of like how it lowers people's standards when it comes to judging a member of the opposite sex.. aka beer goggles haha.

 

I want to believe that the real self of people comes out when the inhibitions that are taken away by alcohol are gone, but it's hard to tell. It's hard to draw the line between simply lowering inhibitions and being drunk to the point where one has no judgement. Sometimes I'm the same way; I might not like someone or outright dislike them sober but when drinking with them I forget about a lot of that and can deal with them and relate to them on a more personal level. Smoking weed arguably makes people even more chill with other people, but that's another story.

 

There's others who say that alcohol is a bad influence and twists reality; the whole temperance movement in the US back in the day was due to this kind of belief that it was a very negative force on a person and in society in general, almost like it was some evil spirit or devil tempting you lol.

 

As a counter to the above examples where people can turn nicer/friendlier after drinking, there's other stories about violent, abusive people who turn horrible when drinking. Like drunken deadbeat dads who assault their family members and are irresponsible. Does that mean that the "true self" of these people is bad or is it just the booze that brings that out in them?

[carhill]

I don't know the science but can relate that both my male social circle as well as my exW's friends tended to use the 'drunk test' to see where my personality went when drinking. I presume the logic behind it is that inhibitions lessen and filters go away so aspects of one's personality which are suppressed or controlled tend to come out. I don't drink that much and apparently passed their tests. Usually, I'll talk and joke more when drinking. I guess some people become 'mean' drunks and that's what they watch out for. I also noticed some differences between beer/wine and hard liquor but socially we tend to mostly drink beer and wine.

[preraph]

Here's my two cents. It's not your inhibitions alcohol removes. It's your filter. The same filter that gets removed from Alzheimer's and the same filters 7-year-olds don't have yet that keep a person from going around saying "Why are you so fat?" or grabbing their relative's boob.

 

As far as friendly, some people are more sentimental or emotional drunk, and others, many true alcoholics, turn very bad. It's about filters. Someone who becomes an alcoholic may have lots of pain that keeps them trying to tamp it down, so there's more to spew about.

 

It is very individual, but my dad, for example, was a peach on his first drink, but by his third, he was bitter and crying about his mother, some pain from his childhood he never fully expressed. My mother used to say she liked him better after one drink, but the problem was it didn't always stop there and he'd have two or three (and once they divorced, it became one bottle and went way downhill). But on one drink, he was charming and jovial. One of the times I remember laughing so hard at him, a couple of my moms sisters (all middle aged by now) were changing clothes in the dining room just off the living room, with the door closed, and my dad went up to the door and asked very generously if "any of you girls need any help in there," which made all the "girls" giggle their middle-aged butts off.

 

So having a little filter slip and being a bit naughty may be fun and funny, but going too far generally isn't and most people don't have all that much control.