# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**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 28, 2016, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/41 "2016-10-28T05:10:31Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > 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 can agree with this. The aspects of ourselves that we show when we’re drunk are different than the aspects of ourselves that we show when we’re sober. That doesn’t mean one set of aspects is more real than another. They’re all genuine aspects of ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/42 "2016-10-28T14:25:08Z")
I think maybe we’re talking somewhat at cross purposes; some of us (me included) aren’t really talking about being “drunk” in the sense of significantly intoxicated like it appears that others are. You see some of these changes even at really low levels of alcohol consumption; 1-3 drinks in many cases, and the people involved are for the most part, sober, or very mildly intoxicated. Certainly they’re aware of themselves, and cognizant of their own thoughts, unlike more intoxicated people. That’s why I’m saying that a sour-seeming person who lightens up after a couple of beers is more or less revealing something we may not have been able to see otherwise. And I’d also agree that the behavior of someone who’s had 6-8 drinks is really more of the alcohol talking as it’s some kind of “true” personality revealing itself. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/43 "2016-10-28T15:19:08Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Hey y’all! Watch this!! "Hold my beer … ". ---
**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 28, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/44 "2016-10-28T15:35:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s why I’m saying that a sour-seeming person who lightens up after a couple of beers is more or less revealing something we may not have been able to see otherwise. And I’d also agree that the behavior of someone who’s had 6-8 drinks is really more of the alcohol talking as it’s some kind of “true” personality revealing itself. Well in a way I suppose, but it may take different levels of intoxication for different people to expose some part of a personality they are hiding. Mel Gibson discussed his anti-semitic remarks recently in an interview and said he was loaded when he said them. I don’t know what his true self is there, but I do know he grew up with a very hateful father who left the US for Australia because the ‘white’ enclave he lived in wasn’t ‘white enough’ for him. So even if he had rejected all of his father’s hateful concepts they are still in his head, and in that circumstance I could see him under the influence saying things that don’t reveal his true self, only the unfortunate memories he cannot rid himself of, which is possibly the reason he drinks in the first place. In a tangential case, Michael “Kramer” Richards started shouting racial epithets at hecklers under stress. I don’t know if he was intoxicated at all, but I don’t think he had a truly racist motivation there so much as an intention to be hurtful. Something like could happen when a person’s judgement is impaired. There are obvious cases, I’ve experienced quietly making some kind of racist remark to me. I think they’re fishing for fellow haters and I wouldn’t give them any benefit of the doubt if they’d been drinking. Other situations don’t seem quite so clear to me. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/45 "2016-10-28T15:54:01Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > 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. Right. During our lifetimes we are inevitably exposed to tons of stimuli and information from all directions, and it’s not like those to which we got positive reinforcement stayed in and everything else was flushed clean out. What is seen/heard cannot be unseen/unheard and a lot of it stays in there, subject to your inner server one day hitting it with the content filters off. And yes, not just individual people but our culture in general tends to dwell on how Mr. Hyde/The Hulk/transporter-split Kirk dwells within us ready to be triggered by the right catalyist/stressor (intoxication, disease, fear, peer pressure, demagogic ideology, etc. ). ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/46 "2016-10-28T16:30:50Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I’ve seen a lot of examples where booze makes people stupid. They make crappy decisions, can’t do basic logical thinking and on and on. > > I can’t see how that would be the “real person”. If they normally make good decisions… They made the decision to drink. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/47 "2016-10-28T16:33:56Z")
Are we supposed to pretend that our animal instincts, our “ids,” are the only measure of who we “really” are? Alcohol certainly can bring out PARTS of us that we usually keep under wraps, but ti hardly follows that those parts are the “real” us, and that the people we try to be are mere facades. Yes, we have animal urges, but the people we TRY to be are every bit as real as the animals we tend to suppress. ---
**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, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/48 "2016-10-28T18:25:38Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > They made the decision to drink. You say that like it’s a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/49 "2016-10-28T20:39:21Z")
I don’t drink for 2 reasons. 1. I can’t stand the taste. I am certain I could learn to enjoy the taste of I put enough effort into it, but that runs into 2. I’ve spent decades working on building up these inhibitions, don’t know why I would want to remove them all at this point. Fortunately, I don’t have to explain all this anymore, I just say “I’m diabetic, no thanks.” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/50 "2016-10-28T21:01:55Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > They made the decision to drink. Point taken. ---
**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 28, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/51 "2016-10-28T23:13:54Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Hungry Me is different from Not-Hungry Me. Have a Snickers! ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/52 "2016-10-29T02:35:39Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Are we supposed to pretend that our animal instincts, our “ids,” are the only measure of who we “really” are? > > Alcohol certainly can bring out PARTS of us that we usually keep under wraps, but ti hardly follows that those parts are the “real” us, and that the people we try to be are mere facades. > > Yes, we have animal urges, but the people we TRY to be are every bit as real as the animals we tend to suppress. Actually, I would argue that the person you try\* to be is more important than instincts you may have developed over the years. Say a person is raised in a racist environment. During adulthood the person rejects racism and while sober never exhibits any racist behavior. They get drunk and say some stupid racist shit. Is the person racist? My thinking is that the conscious choice the person makes to reject racism and racist thoughts and actions is more important than the racist statement that slips its way out when the higher cognative functions are effectively disabled. Of course, we can only judge by a persons actions since we cannot read minds. Slee - Try assumes, in this instance, that the person who is doing the trying has some success. I know enough people who do or say stupid shit and who always claim to be trying to do the right thing that you soon realize that they use the ‘I’m trying’ bit to avoid being held responsible for their actions. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/53 "2016-10-29T02:41:42Z")
Old, old saying with a lot of truth. “_In vino varitas_” =\> In wine there is truth. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/54 "2016-10-29T14:41:52Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Actually, I would argue that the person you try\* to be is more important than instincts you may have developed over the years. > > Say a person is raised in a racist environment. During adulthood the person rejects racism and while sober never exhibits any racist behavior. They get drunk and say some stupid racist shit. Is the person racist? > > My thinking is that the conscious choice the person makes to reject racism and racist thoughts and actions is more important than the racist statement that slips its way out when the higher cognative functions are effectively disabled. > > Of course, we can only judge by a persons actions since we cannot read minds. > > Slee All of this is true. However, I would not blame someone for not wanting to be around this person–whether drunk or sober–if their drunken sayings are offensive enough. I once read an article that provided some explanations for why black college kids don’t tend to go to the wild binge-drinking parties hosted by whites. One reason is that white drunks can sometimes say fucked up things to black folks that make the whole experience not fun. White colleagues have invited me to go drinking with them before, and I usually turn them down. Not just because I personally don’t enjoy getting drunk, but I also don’t want to risk seeing a side of them that will make it difficult for me to get along with them on the job. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/55 "2016-10-29T19:39:54Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > White colleagues have invited me to go drinking with them before, and I usually turn them down. Not just because I personally don’t enjoy getting drunk, but I also don’t want to risk seeing a side of them that will make it difficult for me to get along with them on the job. This is actually a really great encapsulation (and no, I don’t live by this myself, but we’d all be better off if we did) why it’s better to keep “workplace life” and “drinking / socialization” to a large extent separate. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/56 "2016-10-29T19:43:10Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I will go with door #1. I have known “good drunks” and “bad drunks”, and it seems sorta arbitrary who fits in what category: some good people are “bad drunks”, and vice versa. > > The ancient Persians, according to Herodotus, always considered a decision made while sober again while drunk, and a decision made while drunk again while sober … 😉 I’ve heard that anecdote about the Persians before, and love the idea. ---
**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 29, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-alcohol-change-who-you-really-are-or-does-it-reveal-who-you-really-are/769842/57 "2016-10-29T19:46:41Z")
IOW … if Jekyll and Hyde both love it, then it’s a winner for sure. [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=2)