Is there? If so, what causes this?
There is more than one way of looking at this, the temporarily drink can’t stand up type whose brain is so addled that almost any muscular movement is imprecise so that the top lip speaks Swahili and the bottom lip speaks Medieval Norse at the same time.
The there are the career drunks like Keith Moon and Oliver Reed, who have been drunk for so long and their alchohol tolerance is so high that they can moreorless function.
They do seem incapable of sensing the reactions of others and so may say things that are best not said and they tend to ramble on too.
In their cases I’d say they could hold themselves together so well that it is only their very slight slurring that marks them out as being inebriated.
Unfortunately there are serious medical conditions that can resemble this, such as strokes and brain hemmerages(sp?) and have led to people being arrested for drunkness when emergency care would have been necessary, leafding to delays in treatments and even death.
One would imagine that since the two states can resemble each other that both are due to impairment of motor functions.
[sub]Can’t you hear it?**
It could be complicated by the fact that many heavy drinkers are also smokers, and there is such a thing as ‘smoker’s voice’. But the gravelly voice of a long-time alcoholic sounds slightly different to me. Does alcohol irritate the vocal cords?