I’m not much of a drinker and have never gotten drunk. But I have seen people who are drunk and see them do some pretty crazy things. Sometimes they don’t remember about them the next day. So for you drinkers, do you know when you’ve crossed that line to where you’ve drunk so much you won’t remember your actions the next day?
And a related question, if you’re drunk, can you realize it and force yourself to not do or say crazy things? I’ve seen drunk people yelling at cops and get arrested, where if they kept their mouth shut, nothing would have happened.
That’s a hard question to answer. But for me, personally, NO. I can’t sit there drunk, and say “I won’t remember this”. Even if I did think or say it, how would I remember if I can’t remember?
Different people behave differently when they’ve drunk heavily. You’re right, there’s ones who become extremely agressive. But I suspect the majority are like me, that they’ll be calm and passive, even if they are vigourously debating the decline of democracy or something else that seems good at the time.
I find the memory-loss thing really tricky - sometimes two or three drinks is enough to trigger it, and at other times I’ll get completely steaming yet recall everything. I don’t know anybody who can convincingly pretend to not be drunk when they’re any more than tipsy - unless the person who they’re talking to is also drunk
When I did drink. I knew I was drunk, but I never remember losing the power of rational thought. I always felt aware of myself and felt like I was actually a sober person with slow reactions and a narrow field of vision.
I would wake up hours later and think “I remember feeling quite sober. so how come I feel so crap now?”
Getting drunk is weird and hard to explain. It’s like the observing part of your brain is sober and is observing the other parts do stupid things. One might do something and consider it ‘proof’ (as if the brain wasn’t capable of knowing already) that one is drunk. “Why did I do that? I must be drunk!”
ive only had one alcoholic blackout. normally i dont drink that much as when i do i tend to feel sick, which ruins the point of drinking. drinking is supposed to be fun, wanting to vomit for 4 hours is not fun so i cant answer the first part of the question. If i did contemplate whether i would remember the events while drunk i do not remember contemplating htem. Tell you what, if i ever get that drunk again i will write down ‘try to remember this’ on a piece of paper and leave it somewhere. but i doubt ill get that drunk again for a while.
as to the second, yes you can control yourself while drunk. alcohol just lowers inhibitions and rational thought. It makes it easier to do stupid things but generally you are still aware that the acts you are thinking of are dangerous and will have negative repercussions after the alcohol wears off. its just that the inhibitions against them are not as strong as they normally are. Alcohol doesn’t ‘force’ you to act bad, it just makes it seem like it doesnt matter nearly as much. But if you understand that it really does matter and that you are in a temporary altered mindset you wont do anything stupid.
In my experience, after drinking a certain amount I cross a line where I realize I’ve had enough and it’s time to stop. However, I don’t always stop there (I’m having fun, and my judgment and self-control aren’t at their best). Once I’ve crossed that line, it only takes a small additional amount of booze for me to cross the next line, where the concept of “enough” does not compute. There’s still a ways to go before crossing the “you’re gonna get sick” line, but there’s not much slowing down my progress towards it at that point.
Once drunk, you’re at least partially out of control. If people could realize it and direct themselves not to do stupid stuff, they wouldn’t do stupid stuff.
That’s kind of the reason you do things when you’re drunk that you wouldn’t do sober. The alcohol affects your judgement (hell, look at some of my previous posts ). This is why people need to call a cab if they’re out of the house having a few.
There’s two elements at play here. Firstly, when you are drunk, you can actually stop yourself doing stupid things. I have, at times, been compelled to do something completely stupid, and told myself “no, I’m drunk, I’ll regret this is the morning, I’ll just go find something else to do.” This is surprisingly effective - drunks have short attention spans, so once they move on from one stupid idea, they’ll go on to the next one.
The other possibility though, is the stupid idea you have will seem really brilliant after a few. When you can’t even see the stupidity of your supposedly wonderful idea, that’s when you’ve got problems.
Yelling at cops and all that is probably just “angry drunks” not having the natural check on their inhibitions they have in a sober state. Its not that they can’t realise that yelling at that cop isn’t a good idea, just that they don’t even evaluate whether its a sensible idea or not. They just do it.
This makes sense to me but just add in one or two drinks. At the point of feeling like “a sober person with slow reactions and a narrow field of vision” you may have one or two, as yet unabsorbed drinks. When they have been processed you start having the extra drinks you don’t need because you were quite drunk enough in Lobsang’s first paragraph. And now you’re in his third. Eventually you wake on the lounge and experience paragraph 2.
Interestingly watch good actors playing drunks and they act just as Lobsang says “slow reactions and a narrow field of vision” and excessive deliberateness. And so do drunks, mostly.
As someone who enjoys an occassional drink, I generally drink at a reasonible pace. I have a pretty good feel for what and how much I can drink without getting rocked or making myself ill. Remember kids, the objective is to get a nice feel-good buzz on and keep it throughout the night. Not to get smashed and pass out at 10:15pm.
What gets dangerous is when you’re out with a group of friends and the rounds of shots start up. All of a sudden you get a lot drunker than you expected a lot more quickly. That’s when things like running down 14th Street smashing trash bags over each others heads, making out with that girl at the bar or beating up the “Dell kid”* seems like a good idea.
What also happens is that people who drink 5 times a year - Birthday, New Years Eve, St Pattricks Day, Wednessday Before Thanksgiving, and one ‘floater’ day don’t know how much to drink or what pace. They end up getting smasholaed and wake up with the “what did I do last night-s”.
*We did not actually beat up the Dell kid. My friend thought he saw him on the street and that it would make a funny story to kick his ass but as a) my friend tends to see a lot of shit that no one else sees when he drinks and b) we didn’t want to go to jail and c) any number of other reasons why it would be a bad idea, we convinced him otherwise.
I generally realise when I’m drunk. I guess the choice is to carry on until I don’t care to to stop.
Nowadays I tend not to have any sort of early warning (the “you’re tipsy - better slow down” sort of moment) and go straight into the “oh bugger, drunk again” state.
I also find the affects of alcohol highly variable, so somethimes I can be downing vodka after vodka and still feel in control, other times just a few drinks will get me. Also different types of alcohol get me in different ways. With beer I seem to the lose the abilty to speak coherently before my thoughts get fuzzy, which is pretty frustrating. Vodka tends to mean fun without falling over, and tequila, well, perhaps I should keep quiet about that one.
I know how much I can drink before I really start to get stupid. Once I reach that stage, I’ll usually continue drinking, but just at a much slower pace so I can keep my “buzz” but not get any drunker. And I never have a hangover the next morning when I drink like that. It’s a good fealing - almost like I am floating when I walk and I get extremely sociable and chit-chatty.
But sometimes I like to get smashed just for the sake of getting smashed. Very occasionally I’ll drink so much that I don’t remember things the next morning. However, I know that I never do anything that I would regret because I always drink in a very safe environment, and there are always sober people around to watch out for me/give me a ride home, whatever I need. The feeling of losing control is quite fun, its as if you don’t have control of your body. Its hard to describe. And there is always someone with a camera, so everyone’s stupidity is documented. Its fun!
I’m pretty aware of how far a drink will take me. My first beer or drink goes down fine; I’m still myself afterward. After two drinks I’ll have slowed reflexes and be wobbly and I’ll be very talkative. If I have any more, I know I’ll get silly, and then I’ll get sleepy. That’s pretty much how my drunkkenness has always progressed.
Of course, the harder the liquor, the less time the journey takes. But I’ve gotten absolutely smashed just once, and it’s not an experience I want to live through again. Hell, even two drinks gives me a hangover these days. I seriously limit myself if it’s been a while since my last drink. It ain’t worth the morning headache.
At any rate I’ve never blacked out and I’ve never not remembered what I said or did. Nor have I done anything wildly outrageous or obnoxious. Guess it just isn’t in me, even with my inhibitions tossed aside.
I can’t remember a time when I was so drunk that I didn’t know I was drunk, nor do I remember a time when I completely lost control because of alcohol. I’m tempted to make a joke about not remembering because of the black-outs, but I’m not sure I ever had one of those. I say “not sure” because I’ve evidently lost little bits and pieces of time thanks to alcohol and other drugs. People I’ve partied with have told me stories about things I couldn’t remember, but those weren’t big things–no unremembered tales of adventures with cops or naked people, for example. I may have knocked down a bowl of pretzels or something and not remembered, but never groped my boss’s wife or peed in someone’s garden without remembering it. Basically, when I drink (which is very rare these days) I become less inhibited, become less coordinated, and my moods seem to work a little differently. But I pretty much always keep my basic personality, memory, and capacity for rational thought. Which isn’t to say I’ve never done something stupid while drunk and blamed it on the alcohol . . . but excuses aren’t always true reasons, are they?
I can’t remember a time when I was so drunk that I didn’t know I was drunk, nor do I remember a time when I completely lost control because of alcohol. I’m tempted to make a joke about not remembering because of the black-outs, but I’m not sure I ever had one of those. I say “not sure” because I’ve evidently lost little bits and pieces of time thanks to alcohol and other drugs. People I’ve partied with have told me stories about things I couldn’t remember, but those weren’t big things–no unremembered adventures with cops or naked people, for example. I may have knocked down a bowl of pretzels or something and not remembered, but never groped my boss’s wife or peed in someone’s garden without remembering it. Certainly I’ve never had a “true” black-out. And always I know just how buzzed or drunk I am at the time (I think). Basically, when I drink (which is very rare these days) I become less inhibited, become less coordinated, and my moods seem to work a little differently. But I pretty much always keep my basic personality, memory, and capacity for rational thought. Which isn’t to say I’ve never done something stupid while drunk and then blamed it on the alcohol . . . but excuses aren’t always true reasons, are they?
Sorry about that. I decided to edit one or two things from my original post. I hit preview and didn’t see that I had somehow already posted. Weird. And I haven’t even been drinking that much tonight. Perhaps the hamsters are drunk . . .
One time I was at a party and a female friend of mine was absolutely trashed. I asked her “Are you going to remember this tomorrow?” She shook her head no.
I wrote “Hi.” on a piece of paper and put it into her jacket pocket.
Next time I saw her, she asked me if I put that note in her pocket. She didn’t remember me doing it, even though I know she saw me do it.
Maybe I could get a grant to do some more research on this.
). This is why people need to call a cab if they’re out of the house having a few.