Is The Person You Become When You're Drunk The 'Real' You?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I dunno about that. I’m thinking of one guy I knew who was a real party animal, life of the party, tellin’ dirty jokes and buyin’ rounds kind of guy when he was drunk. Fun guy, you know?

…except about every tenth time he got drunk.

The tenth time… he’d get moody. He’d get morose. And as he got drunker, he’d start to seethe.

We learned quickly that when Rusty got all quiet after the fourth or fifth drink, it was time to get him the hell out of public airspace and someplace private, pronto. Because by the tenth or twelfth drink, he was either going to tell someone exactly what he thought of them, to their face, or he was going to ignore the preliminaries altogether and simply deck somebody, out of the blue, no warning whatsoever.

I really don’t think that this was the “real” Rusty.

The theory also doesn’t explain something people have noticed about ME – the fact that around the fifth drink, I begin speaking like a stage Texan.

I am a Texan, born and raised, but normally, I speak with very little regional accent whatsoever. People have told me I could be a newscaster in any of the fifty states. But when I drink, I very suddenly go from “no accent” to “sounds like I’m trying out for a role in a bad Western movie.”

No way am I going to believe that the “real me” is channeling Fess Parker, here…

22

One time, out of curiosity, I asked my ex-husband (we were married then) if there was any difference between my drunken and sober behavior, and if so, what was it. He said, and I quote:

“You’re exactly the same when you’re drunk as you are when you’re sober, only more so.”

Hmmmm…

23

If so, all the people I know who’ve gotten drunk are “really” semi-incoherent dopes who have difficulty walking and getting out whole sentences. I think getting drunk has little to do with a real personality and a lot to do with being blitzed and not knowing up from down.

24

Huh. No one’s even noticed the drunk slut with her shirt on inside out standing over there?

looks over at ouisey

Hey, uh, I like your stain. Kinda looks like Walter Mondale.

25

Like Yersinia’s ex, my friends have commented that the drunk me is the normal me, slightly exaggerated.

26

Well, to truly consider what alcohol does to your personality, and whether that is the real you or not, you need to consider whether other drugs can bring out the real you. If alcoho brought out the, “real you,” then some other drug would do it too. It has to be a blinded test, so to speak.

I do not think alcohol brings out the, “real you.” I think other people have hit the issue on the head with the idea that alcohol lowers your inhibitions.

27

If so, the real me is a big goofball who giggles a lot, cusses like a sailor, makes crude comments to people, and then falls asleep really early. Oh, wait, never mind.

28

Apparantly the “real” me needs more sleep.

The effects of not having a drink in a few months, having an intense sparring match, then quaffing two drinks at dinner nearly resulted in my going to sleep before the main course was served. And in front of the kids on the team, too!

I don’t really remember the following day… oh wait, we were in the car all day. There’s nothing to remember.

29

Add me to the long list who believe alcohol doesn’t bring out the “real you”.

There isn’t a single state i gravitate too while drunk, although i am usually pretty happy drunk - becoming very talkative, laughing a lot etc. Sometimes though i can get quite moody, or argumentative, or just generally act like a twat.

If alcohol does bring out the real me then i must have multiple personality disorder!

30

One thing you’re not saying is “how drunk is drunk?”

My old boss used to put on “alcohol seminars” in Tennessee, in which he’d get a whole mess of cops, judges, and lawyers to attend about 4 hours of serious training on the physiological effects thereof, then he’d have them sign a piece of paper saying OK to videotaping, and bring out the wet bar and the Breathalyzer. Everything they wanted to imbibe was there for them, from Bud to Benedictine, and all of it was free. They’d spend about another 4 hours getting drunk while he videotaped them (my boss remained in his job for 40 years, wonder why?). They’d blow into the Breathalyzer every now and then.

One uptight woman judge who never drank, consented to a half glass of white wine, then put it down suddenly with her eyes wide, saying she could feel she was drunk. The Breathalyzer put her at 0.00. She could feel it at levels so low the machine couldn’t detect it.

Most people would say they could “feel it” at about 0.07 to 0.08. This is the level of say 3 to 4 drinks in an hour (YMMV depending on how fast you absorb and metabolize). Most people who got to this minor degree of inebriation said they wouldn’t drive.

People started to get happy, sad, or loud at 0.10 to 0.15 (five to eight drinks in an hour, more if over longer). Angry came at about .12 to .18, but just as folks have said in this thread, not everyone gets angry; there are sexy drunks, sad drunks, happy drunks, angry drunks, quiet drunks… My boss said one of the things that really chilled him was one particular judge who had said, at 0.09, “Oh, no, I wouldn’t drive like this. Someone else would have to drive me home.” At 0.18 he looked over at my boss and said, “You know, a li’l while ago, when you asked me, I thought I really shouldn’t drive. But now, I think I was wrong. Now, I think I can handle it.”

Which of those do y’all think represents the judge’s real self? I’m with the psychologist who says all of it is “the real you”. Maybe I’d say it’s “the real drunk you” versus “the real slightly inebriated you” versus “the real sober you”. Not to mention “the real high as a kite you on nonalcoholic intoxicants”, nobody seems to have mentioned that.

Boss was particularly chilled by the judge’s remark since the majority of our fatal motor vehicle accidents come in at 0.17 to 0.19.

S o S

31

YMMV indeed! Three to four drinks in ONE HOUR?! I’m not uptight about drinking (not like the woman you described above), but I don’t drink that often either. I drink whenenever I feel like it and the amount I drink is also “what I feel like having.” I feel like having a drink at intervals of weeks or months, and when I do drink, about 80-90% of the time I have wine or beer (I also occasionally enjoy an apricot sour, a shot or two of sweet vermouth, or what I call my “milk drink” which is Irish Mist liqueur in warm milk, topped with cinammon). But since I usually drink wine or beer, I’ll mention that I “feel it” with ONE glass of wine/bottle of beer, and if I have two (usually, one drink is enough to make me happy though so I stop there in most cases), I’m absolutely and positively drunk.

If I have more than two drinks (yes, I’ve experimented in the past, so I know my limits!), I get sick, as in “my head is apinning and I’m gonna barf” sick. And mind you, I don’t drink fast or on an empty stomach. Yes, I do 98% of my drinking at home (the other 2% only if I have a sober person to drive me home or if was planning on staying at my friends’ house anyway).

32

So, if becoming drunk reveals the “real” person, what does becoming drunk on fake alcohol reveal?

That’s right, “drunk” behavior (including some physiological responses associated with “drunkenness”) can be a pure placebo effect.

33

Me too…the real me is a real lazy, sleep bum. I get a buzz and I fall asleep.

My husband on the other hand is a very fun drunk. ALl of his inhibitions are gone, and he gets loud, laughs a lot, gets grabby and gropy…well, he’s always grabby and gropy. He once told me that everything he says when he’s drunk is what he thinking anyway, but when he’s drunk he can’t stop himself from saying it…(or doing it)…

34

Yersinia, you’re a cheap date.

Sultana