# Does alcohol change who you really are or does it reveal who you really are? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 27, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842 "2016-10-27T12:28:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/21 "2016-10-27T17:21:44Z")
I always liked Homer’s [drunk dinner party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_QOrIxHsdw). ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/22 "2016-10-27T17:22:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I accept the idea that things like brain injuries or Alzheimer’s disease can have physical effects on your brain that alter your personality. I’m just questioning whether alcohol has the same effects. > > If alcohol is physically changing your brain, why do people revert back to their normal personality when they sober up? If alcohol is physically changing your brain, what’s changing it back? > > If there is something in alcohol that produces changes in the brain, you’d expect to find the changes to be consistent. If two people split one bottle of whiskey, they’re sharing the same brain altering substance. But the personality changes can be significantly different. At the same time, if alcohol just produced random changes, then you’d expect to see drinkers behaving differently every time they got drunk. But you often see drinkers repeating the same drunken behavior. So a single source of alcohol can produce different changes in different brains while different sources of alcohol can produce consistent changes in a single brain. These patterns leave me to believe that the drunken behavior originates in the brains not in the alcohol. I submit that alcohol can have different physiological effect on different people, much like some medicines. Take Prednisone as an example. ---
**Author:** ![Neo-Calredic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/96bed5/32.png) [@Neo-Calredic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neo-Calredic)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/23 "2016-10-27T17:25:17Z")
I refuse to touch alcohol for this reason. I’ve never been drunk, or even buzzed, and I don’t care to find out who I’d be while under the influence. Given some of the thoughts I have, the version of me without a filter could be pretty unpleasant. (Plus, my family has a history of alcoholism on both sides, and I don’t care to find out if I got the gene for it. I already suck at kicking bad habits – no reason to pick up more.) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/24 "2016-10-27T17:39:46Z")
_“The bottle don’t make you do the thing, It just lets you”_ - M. Cooley ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/25 "2016-10-27T17:54:17Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I accept the idea that things like brain injuries or Alzheimer’s disease can have physical effects on your brain that alter your personality. I’m just questioning whether alcohol has the same effects. > > If alcohol is physically changing your brain, why do people revert back to their normal personality when they sober up? If alcohol is physically changing your brain, what’s changing it back? > > If there is something in alcohol that produces changes in the brain, you’d expect to find the changes to be consistent. If two people split one bottle of whiskey, they’re sharing the same brain altering substance. But the personality changes can be significantly different. At the same time, if alcohol just produced random changes, then you’d expect to see drinkers behaving differently every time they got drunk. But you often see drinkers repeating the same drunken behavior. So a single source of alcohol can produce different changes in different brains while different sources of alcohol can produce consistent changes in a single brain. These patterns leave me to believe that the drunken behavior originates in the brains not in the alcohol. All your questions answered: > **[Your Brain on Alcohol](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/you-illuminated/201006/your-brain-on-alcohol)** > > Alcohol is said to be a depressant. Yet, a few drinks can spark energy, elation, and excitement. Is the conventional wisdom wrong? > **[How Alcoholism Works](https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/alcoholism4.htm)** > > Alcoholism can be difficult to spot. Learn the difference between heavy drinking and alcoholism, how alcohol affects the body, what factors may lead to alcoholism and what treatments are available for this addiction. In summary: the short-term effects of alcohol are complex, as it effects different parts of the brain differently, by messing with one’s neurotransmitters. Given that different people’s brains are slightly different, it can have different effects on different people’s personalities - though large amounts of alcohol eventually impact the deep structures of the brain in such a manner as to be basically similar (take enough and everyone will black out). ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/26 "2016-10-27T17:59:03Z")
From a Freudian perspective, drunk=rampant id and suppressed superego. This state of affairs in no way represents a ‘normal’ ego function. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/27 "2016-10-27T18:31:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I feel it has to be the revelation of traits that were already inside of the drinker. Anything else seems ridiculous. Is anybody seriously claiming that there are human emotions contained in a can of beer and they get passed into your brain when you consume the beer? There is state dependent memory and other things going on. For state dependent memory, if you get drunk and learn something you are unlikely to remember that information when you get sober. However, if you get drunk again you way more likely to remember that information. (See [this](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=alcohol+state+dependent+memory&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C29&as_vis=1) for further reading). So, you go out and get drunk. A friend pisses you off. You get sober. You see the friend, all is well. You drink again and see the friend, you are pissed because you ‘suddenly’ remember what pissed you off last time. On top of state dependent memory, there is loss of reasoning ability. Alcohol affects the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe, among other things, is the area that regulates responses and predicts consequences of actions. Frontal lobe damage due to strokes has been shown to cause inappropriate responses to situations and personality changes. > [@](#): > > One of the most common effects of frontal damage can be a dramatic change in social behavior. A person’s personality can undergo significant changes after an injury to the frontal lobes, especially when both lobes are involved. There are some differences in the left versus right frontal lobes in this area. Left frontal damage usually manifests as pseudodepression and right frontal damage as pseudopsychopathic (Blumer and Benson, 1975). > > Sexual behavior can also be effected by frontal lesions. Orbital frontal damage can introduce abnormal sexual behavior, while dorolateral lesions may reduce sexual interest (Walker and Blummer, 1975). [Link](http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/frontal-lobes.php). With alcohol, you are temporarily (assuming you don’t drink all that often) damaging your frontal lobe. Damaged frontal lobes function differently which causes behavoirs to change. In other words, the brain is complex. Alcohol fucks with the brain and all kinds of odd things happen. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/28 "2016-10-27T18:48:01Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > With alcohol, you are temporarily (assuming you don’t drink all that often) damaging your frontal lobe. Damaged frontal lobes function differently which causes behavoirs to change. > > In other words, the brain is complex. Alcohol fucks with the brain and all kinds of odd things happen. I still feel this is dodging the fundamental issue. Here’s the scenario. I’m generally a nice decent person. I’m sober at nine pm. At ten pm, I drink a significant quantity of alcohol and become drunk. At eleven pm, I’m shouting out racist threats against Barack Obama. Now here’s the question: Where was the racism at nine pm? Was it already inside my head even though I hadn’t had any alcohol? Or was the racism inside the alcohol at nine pm and it entered my body when I drank the alcohol? My belief is that the alcohol didn’t introduce the racism into my mind. The alcohol just revealed the racism that had been concealed in my mind when I was sober. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/29 "2016-10-27T19:06:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still feel this is dodging the fundamental issue. > > Here’s the scenario. I’m generally a nice decent person. I’m sober at nine pm. > > At ten pm, I drink a significant quantity of alcohol and become drunk. At eleven pm, I’m shouting out racist threats against Barack Obama. > > Now here’s the question: Where was the racism at nine pm? Was it already inside my head even though I hadn’t had any alcohol? Or was the racism inside the alcohol at nine pm and it entered my body when I drank the alcohol? > > My belief is that the alcohol didn’t introduce the racism into my mind. The alcohol just revealed the racism that had been concealed in my mind when I was sober. In a simple case that may be true. Take a look at what **sleestak** is saying. Suppose you heard some racist crap while drunk, and then next time you got drunk it came out. Does that mean you are a racist underneath, or does it mean your brain’s input filter can be affected as much by alcohol as your output filter. What you are saying is probably right most of the time, I just wouldn’t consider it absolute, especially with more nuanced aspects of personality. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/30 "2016-10-27T19:40:41Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > How do you know it’s that or something like a fun house mirror or kaleidoscope that shows a distorted image? I couldn’t argue much with the idea that it usually shows the true person underneath, but I can’t accept that it always does. I think if you know a person well you can tell the difference, but I’ve also seen people that under the influence may show completely different personalities at different times. In those cases I think it just exaggerates their current mood instead of revealing anything basic. I don’t know for sure; it’s purely anecdotal. But I’ve known a few taciturn and serious types who seem to be playing a role- one of the “Real men don’t talk much” types who mostly grunt and scowl. Get a few beers into them, and they’re suddenly replying in sentences, and smiling. Similarly, I’ve known a lot of people who were playing other roles/putting on masks to the world- brave masks because they were hurting somehow, good-girl masks because they’re worried about others’ opinions, etc… And get some alcohol into them, and the masks come off, and they’re depressed, or out come the boobs, or whatever. In my experience, the people who merely get their personalities amplified are those who aren’t really putting on a mask in the first place. If they’re normally happy, they end up happier, if they’re angry, they end up angrier, etc… ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/31 "2016-10-28T00:16:54Z")
Drunken You is still you. It’s just you under the influence of alcohol. Morning Me is different from Evening Me. Hungry Me is different from Not-Hungry Me. Surrounded-by-People Me is different from Alone Me. Menstrual Me is different from Non-Menstrual Me. One’s personality is a function of multiple factors. Change those factors enough, and your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors change. There is no “you” independent of these things. I think the safest conclusion we can make is that alcohol shows a side of a person that normally stays hidden. A side that we possibly all have, somewhere in us, just waiting to reveal itself under the right condition. Like, personally I have never experienced the “angry drunk” thing. But I have experienced PMS-induced anger, so I know how it feels to feel like a different person–one I can’t control. But PMS Me is still me. It just reveals a side of me that I don’t normally see. And I’m still responsible for what PMS Me does. (Which is why I’ve been taking birth control for the past year). If a person gets drunk knowing that they tend to display asshole behavior in that condition, then IMHO they are consciously acting like an asshole and giving their friends and family permission to judge them as an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/32 "2016-10-28T01:07:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still feel this is dodging the fundamental issue. > > Here’s the scenario. I’m generally a nice decent person. I’m sober at nine pm. > > At ten pm, I drink a significant quantity of alcohol and become drunk. At eleven pm, I’m shouting out racist threats against Barack Obama. > > Now here’s the question: Where was the racism at nine pm? Was it already inside my head even though I hadn’t had any alcohol? Or was the racism inside the alcohol at nine pm and it entered my body when I drank the alcohol? > > My belief is that the alcohol didn’t introduce the racism into my mind. The alcohol just revealed the racism that had been concealed in my mind when I was sober. What goes on in a normal sober mind is more complex than you appear to think it is. It’s a maelstrom of conflicting wild ideas. And a complex filtering and weighting system somehow makes sense of the madness and produces the effect you think you experience of a consistent and unitary self. But that perception is an illusion. At a minimum it’s a simplified and inaccurate view of what’s really going on below decks. You, **Little Nemo** , the unitary you, the one you think you experience every day, may never have had a racist thought reach the level of your consciousness. That doesn’t mean those thoughts aren’t rattling around in your head all day every day. Schizophrenics give us a glimpse into what a mind looks like when the top-level unifying feature is malfunctioning. You’re right the racist ideation wasn’t in the beer can. But the error is in thinking somehow that your brain plus a pollutant poison is somehow more real than your brain operating normally as designed. If I dump some diesel fuel in your car’s gas tank and now the engine is spluttering and spitting, have I somehow revealed the engine’s true nature? Nope. I’ve merely demonstrated how it malfunctions when mistreated this particular way. There are lots of intoxicating substances available these days. You sober, you on whiskey, and you on marijuana are three different personalities. Which is “real”? In my view the non-intoxicated one is the real one. Think back to the root of “intoxicated”. It’s tox = poison. Note all the above is aimed at all the people who argue the boozed-up person is the true one. \*\*Little Nemo \*\*just said it most clearly. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/33 "2016-10-28T01:12:22Z")
Some research indicates that alcohol does not so much lower people’s inhibitions as make them more suggestible. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an [article about this](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/drinking-games) for the New Yorker: > [@Malcolm Gladwell](#): > > Alcohol makes the thing in the foreground even more salient and the thing in the background disappear…Drunkenness is not disinhibition. Drunkenness is myopia. > > Myopia theory changes how we understand drunkenness. Disinhibition suggests that the drinker is increasingly insensitive to his environment—that he is in the grip of an autonomous physiological process. Myopia theory, on the contrary, says that the drinker is, in some respects, increasingly sensitive to his environment: he is at the mercy of whatever is in front of him. According to the full article “the thing in the foreground” isn’t always something external, it may whatever was occupying the individual’s mind when they started drinking that night, but drunken behavior will often be heavily influenced by the immediate environment (e.g. a rowdy party) as well as broader cultural norms related to drinking. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/34 "2016-10-28T01:20:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Now here’s the question: Where was the racism at nine pm? Was it already inside my head even though I hadn’t had any alcohol? Or was the racism inside the alcohol at nine pm and it entered my body when I drank the alcohol? If you are exercising conscious restraint against things that would be socially problematic, those behaviors are definitely more likely to emerge when you drink. However, not every behavior that emerges when you drink may have been a pre-existing thought or tendency. The mind is a complex system. I don’t mean that in the patronizing sense that there’s like, really a lot going on, dude. I mean the sense of complexity where the relationship between cause and effect is difficult if not impossible to determine. By analogy: the weather is another complexity phenomenon. Neither warm fronts nor cold fronts contain tornadoes or even tornadic motion. But when these fronts collide, conditions are right for tornadoes to appear out of nowhere. And then it disappears when that energy disippates. People, however, love the idea of a stable, “true” personality, and hate to think that they or others could suddenly become entirely different, so we are biased to see latent “true” behavior traits in ourselves or others who consume alcohol. Then there are all the fun pharmacological effects of alcohol. In some people it jacks up their dopamine to turn them into stimulation-craving thrill-seekers, which could manifest in all sorts of ill-advised shenanigans that just don’t seem appealing without that chemical stimulation. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/35 "2016-10-28T02:10:09Z")
Bit’a both. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/36 "2016-10-28T02:16:56Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > …In some people it jacks up their dopamine to turn them into stimulation-craving thrill-seekers, which could manifest in all sorts of ill-advised shenanigans that just don’t seem appealing without that chemical stimulation. Hey y’all! Watch this!! ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/37 "2016-10-28T03:00:34Z")
It can depend or as we say here YMMV. For me, after a couple drinks, I become very quiet, reserved and conservation ---- about the only time in my life I can be described as such. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/38 "2016-10-28T03:37:15Z")
How about we say it intensifies certain parts of your personality (which are the “real” you), while suppressing other parts of your personality (which are also the “real” you). I used to do dangerous things while drunk e.g. climb scaffolding. Now, yes, it showed a certain part of me wanted to climb and explore or whatever. Fine. But it also suppressed thoughts of hurting myself, which I _also_ think is the real me – self-preservation is not something I fake just to fit in, I genuinely don’t want to hurt myself. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/39 "2016-10-28T04:51:45Z")
I spent many years trying to find myself. Finally, I just got falling-down shit-faced drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/40 "2016-10-28T05:09:49Z")
For some the former, some the latter. The trick is figuring out which is which. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842.md?page=3)