So, I’ve never gotten drunk before. I’ve had a drink or two on occasion, but never enough to get more than buzzed. And realistically now that I’m on antidepressants I probably won’t any time in the near future.
Something I’ve wondered about is when it comes up in movies or real life news stories is: Exactly how responsible are you for things you do while drunk? Not legally, that’s more concrete, but practically. If alcohol inhibits your decision making capabilities, to what extent is anything done while drunk something you “decided” to do? You could still be held accountable for getting so drunk in the first place that this was able to happen, but that seems at least somewhat different from the actual act made during inebriation. Like say, drunk driving: Is the act of deciding to drive drunk merely the act of drinking a lot plus a roll of the dice to see if you end up making a decision you wouldn’t have made sober?
Like I said though, I have no personal experience with this, so maybe I’m way off base in understanding the nature of how in control a drunk person is of their behavior.
Alcohol removes inhibitions. You still make decisions, though. What it tends to do is bring out who you really are. “In vino, veritas” as they say.
Impairment is gradual but you also progressively loose the ability to judge your degree of impairment
Before I started drinking, I had the misconception that drunk people literally have no control over their actions. Then, in university, I got drunk somewhat frequently and also helped take of other drunk people and my view changed.
There are things I might do drunk that I wouldn’t do sober, same thing when I’m stoned. But I wouldn’t cross the line into serious crimes like drunk driving because, even with inhibitions lowered, I am still able to think through the consequences. Being drunk tends to make people a little more impulsive and less concerned about consequences but not to the point of doing things they know are morally wrong or highly illegal, unless they’re already willing to do those things sober. Are there some people who alcohol does affect to that point? Maybe. But, like you said, the responsible thing for those people to do is not drink. Most people wouldn’t drink if doing so took a gamble that they’ll do something highly illegal or immoral that they aren’t willing to do sober
In my hometown, there was a lot of drunk violence, which gave me the misconception of drunk people having no control over their actions. My university friends informed me that violent drunks are already violent people to begin with
I’m a simple man. Mostly when drunk I want to hug dogs and listen to Guided by Voices. I don’t know if this helps.
Tipsy is nice. It’s warm and my brain stops screaming. Drunk is unpleasant. Disgustingly hot not warm. Sick.
I try to not drink often though, at most once a month. Addiction runs in the family.
Same. Basically quit.
“A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts”
When drunk most people just do things that they wish they could when sober. That’s the real danger. Or as in Latin: In vino veritas
Sometimes I think people who act differently drunk aren’t even that drunk, they’re just using it as an excuse
For sure. Lots of people use alcohol as an excuse to act in a way they actually want to. Especially for those who are ashamed of what that actually want.
You decided to do everything you do while you were drunk. You will have less inhibitions and more impulsive, but you still make the decision and are responsible for it.
it’s crazy how many people are confidently answering “you never lose control from alcohol” when they’ve obviously never been blackout drunk.
like, sure, there’s definitely a varying degree of effects to some point but when you black out (drink so much that you don’t remember it) you lose control of your actions. when you black out you do things that you would never do sober.
most people don’t black out more than a few times in their life because it happens, they go “wow that was awful I sure don’t want to do that again” and then don’t. they are the lucky ones. then you have people like me (alcoholics) who want to be anything but themselves and want to feel anything but what they’re feeling so desperately that it happens a lot.
no it’s not just “lowered inhibitions so you do what you want to do sober but stop yourself from doing,” your body goes into autopilot. it’s more like sleepwalking than staying up so late that you start feeling loopy once it hits that point. for an example, the first time I ever blacked out I tried to convince my mom that my dugout (block of wood for holding weed and pipe) would open the hotel room door… that’s not “lowered inhibitions” that’s a brain that’s not working
now I’m a little annoyed by the amount of confidently incorrect in this thread but on a serious note I’m glad so many of y’all don’t get it. alcoholism is a terrible affliction that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. it’s a bad time, through and through.
i think a part of why there are so many wrong answers though is because of the word “responsible.” you’re responsible for what you do while blackout drunk because you are the one who got blackout drunk. nobody else poured the booze down your throat for you. so, while what you do in that state is out of your control, you are entirely responsible for it.
the first time I ever blacked out I tried to convince my mom that my dugout (block of wood for holding weed and pipe) would open the hotel room door…
According to the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics, there is a universe out there, where, when you attempted to open the hotel room door with your dugout, through random molecular interactions, it actually did open the door’s locking mechanism.
idk who downvoted you but this is hilarious. I’m very amused imagining that happening lol
Things get really weird when you start chasing infinities of probabilities. There is a non-zero chance of nearly anything happening. In theory, you could turn around right now and find the literal historical Genghis Khan standing behind you, complete with all his memories, having instantly been assembled just then through random molecular motions. In theory, you could be walking down the street, and a blue London police call box could materialize in front of you, and out could walk a man who honestly believes himself to be the literal Dr. Who. Ever feel nostalgia for the events of your childhood? There’s a non-zero probability of the entire Earth spontaneously rearranging itself to recreate that long-gone setting, including placing everyone back in age-appropriate forms.
The probability of such absurdities is so low that “astronomical” doesn’t even begin to convey how remotely small they are. So low that if the universe was maxed out on population, and everyone sat there watching until the heat death of the universe, that the odds of any one person observing such a thing would be less than 1%. But according to Many Worlds, any possible quantum interaction does occur.
Which means that there’s a universe out there where you have a magic light switch. Every time you flip the switch, in addition to the light turning on, a gold bar appears in the middle of the room. Again, the gold bar was simply assembled by random chance from particles in the environment. In this universe, one day your light switch just started making gold. At first you were astonished, so you tried it again. In most universes, the second time did nothing. But in some, it happened again. And in some particularly rare universes, it’s worked the dozens of time you’ve tried it. You showed your loved ones just to prove to yourself you’re not crazy, and the light switch still made gold. You brought in outside experts, even bringing in physicists and chemists from your local university to observe. And damnit, even in front of them, the light switch still makes gold! They examine the light switch but cannot find anything out of the ordinary with it. As far as repeated testing has shown, you have a magic light switch that makes gold, the one seemingly supernatural oddity in an otherwise completely rational universe. According to Many Worlds, there is a universe out there where this happened to you.
very fun stuff. there’s a bit in an episode of Midnight Burger (audio drama about a time-travelling dimension-spanning diner) where they’re explaining it to someone and they say “there’s a world where mark david chapman missed and the beatles got back together! i like that world.” :)
what’s even crazier to me than the sci-fi stuff though is how often we encounter vanishingly impossible odds, 52! blew my fucking mind the first time I heard it explained.
Twice in my youth I’ve blacked out. I remember the start of the evening, and I remember waking up with no clue how I got to where I was. In between, there’s nothing. I couldn’t tell you whether I was still in control or not, because I simply don’t remember. Neither do my friends: I just disappeared.
Other times, when I was “normally” drunk, it’s definitely like others here have said: fewer inhibitions but there’s still a core that can make decisions. But when I blacked out? No idea. I might’ve stolen the Mona Lisa and replaced it with my own copy for all I know.
I just wish I remembered where I put the real one.
I’m one of the people who gave an answer like you’re describing and I have to admit, I’ve never been blackout drunk
yeah, no hate. like I said I’m glad you don’t get it. it’s not a fun lesson to learn.
Not being able to remember what you did doesn’t mean that you lost control of your actions. When you “blackout” you don’t enter a like blackout state where you lose control from then on - you just don’t remember periods of time.
you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’ll reiterate, I’m glad you don’t
but you don’t
I absolutely do. You obviously have done some terrible things while drunk so you cope by shirking ownership
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Thanks for the insight. That sounds pretty rough. I hope you can get better soon.
I’ve been kinda going back and forth in my head on whether or not to respond to this, but I’ve landed on “respond and try to keep it pithy” (something I’m bad at)
you don’t really “get better” with alcoholism or addiction. you can be sober 20+ years and you’re still an alcoholic, just a sober one.
that said I’m hanging in there, one day at a time and whatnot
You still have complete control you just start to believe that you might actually do the things that are possible. So for example you don’t jump out of a window thinking you can fly but you do tell Wendy her eyes are like a cool breeze on a hot day and whenever you reach out you want her to be there. Then you sleep and forget it all and wake up sober and have flashbacks all day about what you said to your ex teacher that you just happened to bump into last night. You have those flashbacks for the rest of your life.
The best description I’ve come up with:
Alcohol makes you act without thinking, and cannabis makes you think without action.
Drunken actions can be understandable, but you’re still responsible for them. If you set a valuable antique on the edge of the roof, and a stiff breeze knocks it to the ground, it’s still your fault. Sure, you didn’t cause the wind that made it fall, but if you hadn’t put it in such a stupid place, it would still be in one piece.
Most drunk accidents are exactly that. You don’t really think things through like you normally would, so you can get up and sing karaoke without worrying about embarrassing yourself and talk to people that intimidate you, or things get misplaced or broken, or you agree to temptations that you would otherwise resist.
I’ve been drunk a lot and high a lot. I had never thought to articulate the difference between them in that way. When I’m drunk, I remember what I did but I don’t remember what the hell I was thinking. When I’m high, I have weird thoughts but don’t do much.
I’ve also been both at the same time and collapsed on a bus feeling like it was going 200km/h. NEVER do both at the same time
I’ve never really had an issue with doing both. I just end up feeling half drunk and half high.
But I know a few people who can’t do both, and others that have to do them in the correct order.
Of course all drugs affect different people differently but doing more than one drug at a time is something to be cautious about. Apparently alcohol increases THC absorption when you do both at the same time. After I collapsed on the bus, they gave me electrolytes intravenously to try and get the THC out of my system.
It’s important to note there were other factors involved, it was a hot day, I tend to get motion sick anyway, and I’m autistic which makes me prone to sensory overload
Alcohol makes you act without thinking, and cannabis makes you think without action
I like that one.
Very lightly buzzed feels good. Can think normally, would not drive but it is a pleasant feeling.
Drunk to me feels annoying, and I feel stupid. That is also how pot feels to me. I don’t feel out of control, no. Just dumbed-down.
So my limit is 2 drinks, I don’t over-drink because I have learned that one more does not make it better.
It’s such a hard question to answer because it varies by person, by dose, by context, etc.
It’s not like you are there at the time feeling “oh I’m only 80% in control of myself here” there’s no little sober pilot inside your flesh-mech running things, the person trying to determine how in control they are is impaired by alcohol.
I mean I am like that when I’m drunk, but that’s also who I am in general. When I was super drunk in college I would self-regulate and stop drinking and like go somewhere safe to sober up. I also never hooked up with people drunk and stuff like that.
But many folks aren’t like that, you’re right. They are not monitoring their sobriety and thinking about how impaired they are… they are just in the moment feeling what they feel and reacting accordingly.
You might have a pilot you trust, but he’s still drunk
and he knows it. the issue with a lot of drunk people who do stupid shit is they don’t know they are impaired or drunk. often, in fact, they vastly overestimate themselves and their abilities due to the alcohol impairment. hence why they do stupid shit.
the only mitigating factor is that you’re so relaxed physically from being drunk, you’re less likely to hurt yourself. hence why drunk drivers are injured less than their victims.
There’s still a little rational thread though. Like last week I was way too drunk to ride my bike home and I thought I was fine. After I fell twice I was like “ok, we have reviewed the data and it says perhaps we are too drunk.”
if i notice myself trying to convince myself that i’m fine to drive, i don’t drive
“If my mind is doing things to my mind on its own, I just use my mind to tell my mind not to do that to my mind.”
I have a particularly weird view on this so I don’t know how helpful it will be, but I share it when people discuss alcohol.
You, as a person, are basically an imaginary construct given meaning by consistency. Your friends trust you because you consistently behave in a way that says they can trust you. The pattern of behaviours is you because the physical parts swap out all the time. When you drink, you distort yourself a little, because it distorts the behaviour. Anyone who says it doesn’t is delusional. For some people, the distortion is minor. For others, it distorts them a great deal. The drunk you is always so distorted as to be essentially a different person, but one for whom you have total responsibility, because you ‘gave them the keys’ as it were. You are letting the funhouse mirror version of yourself take control of your body so you can be amused by the distortions. Everybody’s mirror is different, but they are all distorted. How much do you trust someone who is much like you, but distorted?
The drunker I get, the less thinking I do for before acting. Still kinda in control but more easily swayed by myself to do whatever tf.
