Alcohol - We're Doing It Wrong.
Discussion
So says Kate Fox, whose book Watching The English I enjoyed enormously.
A welcome slab of sense in a debate that's so often characterised by hysteria and doom-mongering.
tl;dr: If you put up posters telling people that they'll become anti-social, aggressive and promiscuous when they're pissed, don't act all surprised and indignant when people become anti-social, aggressive and promiscuous when they're pissed.
A welcome slab of sense in a debate that's so often characterised by hysteria and doom-mongering.
tl;dr: If you put up posters telling people that they'll become anti-social, aggressive and promiscuous when they're pissed, don't act all surprised and indignant when people become anti-social, aggressive and promiscuous when they're pissed.
Quite right, we've always drunk - classical literature is literally awash with piss-headed toss-pots. Dickens' Pickwick Papers being a fine example of 'tired and emotional' characters, who were hammered but gentlemen nonetheless.
Find an uptight and neurotic person and I'll guarantee they're never been properly mullered. Once in a while, a slight dose of anebriation is as liberating for a tired mind as a decent massage is for soothing aching muscles. I can't do the full-on bing now, partly because I tend to get too drowsy, but also because I simply cannot take the hangover and subsequent anger at time 'lost' the next day, but enjoy the pleasantly relaxing sensation that mild, sustained inebriation brings.
Find an uptight and neurotic person and I'll guarantee they're never been properly mullered. Once in a while, a slight dose of anebriation is as liberating for a tired mind as a decent massage is for soothing aching muscles. I can't do the full-on bing now, partly because I tend to get too drowsy, but also because I simply cannot take the hangover and subsequent anger at time 'lost' the next day, but enjoy the pleasantly relaxing sensation that mild, sustained inebriation brings.
I don't have any science to back it up but my view has generally been that alcohol has the effect of acting as a window on the person who's consumed it.
I like a drink as much as the next bloke and on plenty of occasions in the past have done the total skin-full thing without managing to start any fights, damage anyone's property or otherwise cross the boundaries of acceptable behaviour that I live within for the rest of my life. My belief is that the t
ts that you see generally making life unpleasant for others in town centres after kicking-out time aren't behaving like that because of what they've drunk over the preceding 4 hours. They're behaving like that because they're just tts.
But the bit about 'acting drunk' after placebo drinks? Oh, come on!
I like a drink as much as the next bloke and on plenty of occasions in the past have done the total skin-full thing without managing to start any fights, damage anyone's property or otherwise cross the boundaries of acceptable behaviour that I live within for the rest of my life. My belief is that the t
ts that you see generally making life unpleasant for others in town centres after kicking-out time aren't behaving like that because of what they've drunk over the preceding 4 hours. They're behaving like that because they're just tts.But the bit about 'acting drunk' after placebo drinks? Oh, come on!
I think age has a lot to do with it; young adolescent men (and their hormones) don't mix well with drink IMHO.
I was a vile bd when younger - i.e. not legally old enough to actually drink (licensing laws are something we seem to have right). Had I been a Bullingdon Boy, no doubt it would have been called "high sprits", but in my book that borders on or well into criminal damage.
I was a vile b
d when younger - i.e. not legally old enough to actually drink (licensing laws are something we seem to have right). Had I been a Bullingdon Boy, no doubt it would have been called "high sprits", but in my book that borders on or well into criminal damage.DaveR said:
I don't have any science to back it up but my view has generally been that alcohol has the effect of acting as a window on the person who's consumed it.
I totally agree. Even when p***ed as a fart I've not done anything criminal, not gotten into fights and so on. Nor have my friends.
Those who do all the other things are to my mind inherently "bad" and simply have their inhibitions removed by booze thus act out their true type.
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