Just read another news story about a racist tirade at a dog park. I wonder how many of similar incidents (abusive airline passengers, people screaming at service workers, etc.) might be partially explained by inebriation?
Probably not as many as one would hope.
or… Racist Ignorance incited by Steve Bannon provocateurs…?
( “Well, I suppose anything is possible. Hail Hydra!” )
It wasn’t so much the specific attack was addressing. Considering the high incidence of alcoholism, I was just wonderIn how much antisocial incidences are due to inebriation. Every time I go to Walmart, I speculate about how many shoppers are drunk. It’s probably not a small number.
Yeah, I got that. My comment was with that understanding. Some incidences will be due to intoxication lowering inhibitions, but there are lots of people who don’t turn into asshats when drunk, and lots who are asshats when totally sober.
Inebriation is getting shit on here. I’m currently inebriated, but not bothering anybody.
Not at all. I’ve had a few beers, but am just sitting on my couch. I don’t think inebriation by itself leads to objectionable behavior. I just think it’s under-reported as a contributing cause.
I’ve always understood a drunk asshole to be an asshole who is currently drunk.
Alcohol doesn’t change your personality, it reveals it.
YOU don’t get to decide that…
.
(I was going to say "WE’LL be the judge of that!", but I’ll wait until someone makes a poll…)
So, it’s come to this.
And usually enhances it. Assholes become bigger assholes and goofballs become bigger goofballs.
Yup. Being drunk may lower the inhibitions of an asshole, and make it more likely that they will display their asshole nature in their behavior, but alcohol in and of itself probably isn’t going to make a nice person into a jerk – it just brings out the inner asshole.
While that is true in the short run. People who regularly consume alcohol to excess can, indeed, see changes in personality. Particularly, it can make them more reactive. They basically get a shorter fuse. And it also decreases their ability to properly assess threats. They can perceive slights where none was intended. Extensive alcohol abuse can also increase paranoia. So inebriation could be a factor in some of these events.
But, I don’t think this really addresses the op. It’s probably more likely that this seeming increase in bad public behavior is due more to recording being ubiquitous. As is being discussed in this thread
Very true. And as the saying goes, “In vino veritas.”
I’ve been known to be blunt when tipsy/drunk. But I’ve never lied.
Yes, alcohol lowers inhibitions, suppressing the mental governor that will cause one to bite their tongue and keep their inner thoughts to themselves when sober. But different people are affected in very different ways. Some people seem to have a very low threshold of inhibiiton-lowering and become loud, obnoxious drunks. Others are fine. I think there’s also something to the concept of the “mean drunk” vs. the “happy drunk”.
I personally do not have much, if any change in my attitude, temperament or emotional inhibition when I drink. At the drunkest I’ve ever been, the only way you’d be able to tell is when I start to slur when I talk, or walk unsteadily. I don’t think that’s so much because I’m such a great person; it’s more likely I’m so emotionally inhibited when sober that drinking brings me to a ‘normal’ level of emotional inhibition 
And wasn’t it a long way down?
It improves the hell out of the Walmart experience, if you ask me.
In vino veritas.
My kid did a fair bit of weed in his teens and twenties. My attitude was “You always hear about someone being a ‘mean drunk’, but never a mean pothead.”
(stoner trying to start a fight: “Whoaaaa, I just made a fist and all my fingers disappeared! Here, man, watch, I’ll see if I can do it again, it’ll blow your mind…”)