I can see the point that some of what people say while drunk is just nonsense, but it doesn’t change my belief that if someone decides to unload how much they hate you and lists a litany of your sins while drunk (or angry, for that matter) then that’s what’s really in their head. The ‘oh, I was just drunk, I didn’t mean any of that’ excuse still won’t work on me 
People who insist drunkenness’ disinhibiting effects are the keys to unlock a torrent of truth are misunderstanding disinhibition.
You can’t assume what inhibitions are being suppressed. Is it the social inhibitions of not speaking transgressive truths? Or the social inhibitions of not trolling your fellow human?
You don’t know, and in that unknowable distinction is the the difference between drunken truth and drunken bullshitting.
I have found that very often drunk people will spout off something they heard someone else say. So it’s not necessarily their own real thoughts, but it’s something that you wouldn’t get to hear otherwise, so normally good information.
The last choice is the most true of the given options for me. I always assume there’s a grain of truth,and take a good long look into the mirror with whatever they’ve said. But I also do my darnedest to pretend it never happened. People who are drunk, grieving, or have a newborn should never be held accountable for any action less serious than murder.
You listen to drunk people, better be ready to take it on the chin and move on graciously.
Any particular outburst from a drunk can vary wildly depending on the circumstances and the amount imbibed. But the cumulative behavior of a person when they are drinking reveals something, I think. In my experience when people get the reputation of being an angry drunk, a happy drunk, a boastful drunk, a maudlin drunk, etc., their drunken reputation is not far removed from where their emotional centers really lie when sober.
I think you’re right, which is too bad, because I am not a very nice drunk. (Well, I am for a little while).
That doesn’t matter to me, because I don’t accept ‘just trolling’ as an excuse for awful behavior.
Perhaps more often than not, but that’s still not a good metric to go by. I chose the third option. All I can say is that being drunk lowers inhibitions, but that could be inhibitions to tell the truth, or inhibitions to lie. Ask a drunk if they’re drunk and tell me they’re telling the truth. “In vino veritas,” like most aphorisms, are too general to apply to individual cases. I’ve been buzzed or drunk probably on the order of hundreds of times, and, for me, there’ve been times the truth comes out, there’s been times I’ve lied off my ass, there’s been times somebody I don’t generally like suddenly becomes my best friend because I’m feeling all lovey dovey off the booze, etc. Just by judging myself and how I am when I’m drunk, I would take anything a drunk person says with a big grain of salt.
I don’t think it’s the “alcohol talking”, but I definitely think it impairs judgment enough that it can’t reliably convey what you “really think.” (Note: I think the same thing about Ambien, and if Roseanne didn’t have a history of outrageous statements, I would have given her a pass about the Valerie Jarret thing).
We’ll, the topic of the poll and the OP is regarding the truthfullness and reliability of a statement made under the influence, not its palatability. If a drunkard says something stupid and terrible to you, you would be reasonable in disliking it, so that’s not in question.
The question is “did they actually mean what they said?”.
The OP is about “Are drunken statements their real thoughts or just useless ramblings?” and explicitly asks “If someone gets drunk and… rants that they think your new hairdo is stupid, how do you evaluate it?”, which I remember pretty well since I’m the one who wrote both. So how to evaluate people saying revealing unpleasant thoughts while drunk is explicitly part of the OP, and as such is certainly a valid point of discussion on the thread that I started.