Drunk, to me, is impaired. It’s having trouble walking steadily. It’s having trouble speaking clearly, or at proper volumes. (The value of being able to walk and talk as means of self-expression and self-protection are taken for granted until those abilities are diminished, IMO.) It’s short-circuiting your memory. It’s pulling the plug on your decision-making capability. It’s making yourself extremely vulnerable, especially if you’re a young woman in a bar full of young men whose inhibitions have been seriously lowered by their own alcohol consumption. It’s a loss of control, and not usually in a good way.
Essentially, it’s giving yourself an intentional, albeit temporary, mental handicap. How can that be fun?
I will admit that I have never been drunk in my 42 years on the planet. I am not a teetotaler. I do enjoy wine (when I’m not breastfeeding, that is) and the occasional mixed drink. But I have one or two, and stop. I don’t drink for the buzz, I drink because I enjoy the taste of the beverages. I can’t understand the motivation to go out and get so buzzed as to be wasted, and I just don’t see how it’s so enjoyable that a surprisingly large number of people (especially young people) do it on a frequent basis.
So can someone explain it to me? Especially someone who enjoys getting hammered? I really do want to understand it. I don’t know if I ever will, but I want to!
It’s relaxing. I always have a million thoughts a minute flying through my head. Alcohol slows things down. I can listen to music and watch movies and enjoy the sights and sounds with less distractions.
In social situations, I can talk what’s on my mind with less inhibitions. I’m rather quiet and reserved in real life, and it’s refreshing to be able to be more social for a little while.
Why don’t you try 3 or 4 at a sitting once? It’s not enough to get you hammered, but it’s enough to get a decent buzz going on usually.
I don’t understand why people drink until they pass out and throw up, but I do understand why people would get to a level of drunkeness approaching this.
I’m with you, tlw - I don’t understand it. I’ll have a drink or two, don’t mind feeling a little relaxed, but more than that? Not fun. Yes, I’ve been puking drunk twice in my life. Dumb, dumb, dumb. No fun at all
My theories on why some folks think this is fun:
Remember, alcohol can function as a painkiller or anesthetic. If you’re in pain, it can make you “feel better” by numbing action. Since this can apply to mental as well as physical pain, it is possible that a person who is unhappy, or suffer from some emotional pain, may drink to excess as a means to dull the impact.
It is theorized by some that there are folks with a metabolic quirk that does, in fact, make them react differently to alcohol than most. In which case their perception of drunkeness may be different than ours
Peer pressure. “Everyone else is doing it”. As in, everyone else is doing it and pretending to have fun, so I have to be an idiiot, too. In support of this theory, the prime time of life for doing stupid drunken human tricks is teens to mid-20s - a time of life when self-esteem is not always fully developed, insecurities run rampant, and peer pressure is strongest. A lot of folks taper off or even stop drinking by their mid-30s because they realize that it really isn’t fun, and pretending that it is to “belong” is really stupid.
When you’re drunk, you forget how crushingly depressing / pointless / meaningless your life really is. That, and people like you better. (At least in my case.) Unless you’re really drunk, in which case they find you very annoying. But most people don’t get sloppy, fall-down drunk; they get buzzed and relaxed and then stop.
(Based on my observations at several college parties.)
Back when I worked at the supermarket, I’d go to my co-workers’ annual New Year’s Eve party and usually ended up playing chaperone. My tasks were usually delegated between keeping the drunken guys from tearing off the drunken girls’ shirts, taking keys away from people who wanted to get into cars, and catching people when they decided to go stair-diving.*
They had fun. I didn’t.
*Stair diving, for the ignorant, is exactly what it sounds like: you get yourself drunk and dive down the stairs. The alcohol blots out the pain, so it’s more fun than harmful. This actually happens.
I’m sitting at home thinking “Crap, I really should get to work on that project, but even if I do my part the other team can’t do theirs, and the project was a horrible projection from the beginning, which means it will likely be canceled soon, and I will be out of position, since with the economy the way it is the company will probably not have any other position to move me into so I will soon be laid off, so I should really start saving money, which means that I can’t afford to have that bizarre clunk in my transmition looked at, and it will probably fall off with the next 500 miles then I will be without a job, and without a car, so I should try to get in touch with that stupid annoying bitch Jenny, since she has so many contacts, and I’ll be needing them most likely, But last time I was with Jenny there was that one girl there who seemed to smile at me, although she was probably smiling out of politeness, or possible to someone sitting behind me, although she may have been thinking about what an ugly pathetic loser I am , and was just smiling as she was thinking about the story she would have to tell her friends about the loser she met.”
or B
I’m sitting in a bar drunk thinking “Damn this beer is good…Wow what a play by A-Rod… hey I think that girl smiled at me, I should go introduce myself.”
I am going to go along with B a lot of the time. Alot of people like to throw Psychbabble like 'harmful Self-medication" around. But if shutting off my brain for a few hours a day with alchohol will keep me happier, then I’m gonna keep doing it.
For some reason, my grammar improves when I drink, because I seem to have a compulsion to think carefully about everything I say before actually speaking, sometimes “rehearsing” a line three or four times to get it perfect.
Or at least I think it’s perfect. I might sound like a complete babbler to others.
With this uncertainty, I feel completely disinterested in getting tipsy, let alone blotto. Witty conversation is tricky enough without introducing more obstacles.
I’ve been drunk a few times. I don’t like it at all. I get dizzy, confused, tired, nauseous, and belligerent. And that’s not even counting the hangover.
Like any drug the effects vary drastically from person to person. Take pot for instance – some people smoke it and get very mellow and happy, other people turn into jittery paranoid freaks.
Changing one’s perceptions is fun.
I can remember when I was a child (and every child has done this) I used to look into the sky and spin around real fast until I got dizzy.
Alcohol is much the same thing, only for adults. Be careful though, what starts out as a fun diversion may evolve into a nasty, life destroying habit.
Bad to pass out, then throw up. Not so bad in the other order. Hell, I’ve been known to throw up in a trash can and resume drinking without even putting the beer down.
I don’t really know why I find getting drunk fun, but I do. I guess I enjoy doing things that I normally wouldn’t. Sure, many of those things are things that I avoid for good reasons (really, the reasons against repeatedly banging one’s head into a table ought to be self-evident), but often the lowered inhibitions get rid of a lot of useless insecurities and self-doubt.
This is something that has puzzled me as well. And I went through a “getting drunk” phase myself, in college. I don’t much like the taste of liquor (and really can’t stand the taste of beer, save on a very hot day) so I would always get the “sweet” drinks that masked the taste of the liquor. This made me feel like I wasn’t drinking all that much alcohol, I guess. Had one very bad go-round with tequila (and to this day I can’t drink it); after that, I cut back some, but it wasn’t until a few years later that I got to the level I’m at now: an occasional glass of wine or mixed drink–very occasional.
There are several alcoholics in my immediate family, and observing the both physical and emotional effects of the disease was enough to pretty much make me stop drinking. Plus the suspicion that a “susceptible” to alcoholism gene may run in the family.
Young people probably do it for the same reason they smoke, etc: because they are very easily influenced by peer pressure. I think if you reach the age of (say) 27 and have not abused alcohol, your chances of starting are close to nil. In other words, it proves what we already know: that young people are pretty stupid.
I must admit, I do see how being drunk is fun. I’ve only been significantly drunk once (and another time before that I had huge amounts to drink and didn’t feel the slightest effect, which lulled me into a false sense of security. :smack:). It lowers your inhibitions, so you’re capable of having fun and making conversation much more easily.
Now I don’t drink - I don’t like having my inhibtions artificially lowered, and alchohol lowers all of them. For example the “being shy in conversation” inhibition is lowered but so is the “don’t jump up and down because someone has told you it’s a really good idea 'cause it will make you sick” inhibition (I wasn’t - I felt perfectly fine. Just rather silly and lacking in co-ordination).
Drinking so much that you’re physically ill or pass out 'though? No, I don’t see how that can be in any way fun. I imagine if I had suffered from a hangover the next day (as opposed to a ‘still being slightly drunk’ the next day ) I’d have thought the whole thing was less fun as well.
tlw, may I respectfully suggest you try getting drunk, at least once. Not sloppily or dangerously drunk; just have four or so drinks in the company of good friends. Don’t bother going out to drink, just sit back at home after a nice dinner. Turn the lights down and remain around the dining table. Put some music on – anything you personally like. Make a silly toast to your friends. Get stuck into a decent bottle of wine
If you are indeed curious as to the attraction of alcohol, this – call it an experiment – will probably give you at least some insight.
Thanks for the explanation, sailor. I’m glad us young people have folk like you to so glibly explain our motivations.
Thing is, I always thought we got drunk for the same reason as proper grown-up people.
Narrad: Yes and no. A lot of us young 'uns (maybe even the majority) do so because we enjoy it. However, certainly in britain if not elsewhere, there is a certain attitude of it being expected that you will drink. Particularily amongst sports teams for example (I know the rowers at our university are notorious for this). Peer pressure is definitely a reason, in some cases the overwhelming reason.
) I’d have thought the whole thing was less fun as well.