Experiences with alcohol

[Oly J]

Hi all, questioning a bit of a long-held belief here, until recently, apart from 2 isolated incidents when I was 15 and 18 respectively, I made a point of avoiding alcohol, I had many of my own reasons for doing this but a large one was seeing the effect it had on one of my parents, who, when drunk beyond a certain level (which was almost always reached in my experience) would become incredibly passive-aggressive (once very actively aggressive) and generally upset people and be very unpleasant to be around. This person hasn't drank (to my knowledge) in a long time but to put it bluntly, I didn't want to risk ending up like that, however, I'm just finishing university now and, well, you don't get through uni without drinking, it just doesn't happen.

I still avoided it for the most part, in 2nd year I took to ordering one cider or something so that I could nurse that all night just because I was sick of explaining that I didn't drink and why. But inevitable drinking games happened and getting a bit drunk followed.

I'm now not averse at all, drunk me, as it turns out is much the same as sober me, but louder, and a little less shy, though notably still more than self-aware enough to avoid making a total ass of myself. (Though my coordination did not thank me, I've often wondered if there should be a law against operating a wheelchair while intoxicated)

This has forced me to question my opinion on the subject in short, and I thought I'd ask for more opinions, the basic question here is, to what extent do you think alcohol modifies your behaviour, because I've been practically blind with it a few times (though I still remember most of the experience) and my own experience tells me, not much.

Even when my vision was impaired I don't believe my judgement was, (though I would be the last to know) and the main effect this revelation has had on me is to cause me to lose respect for people who are unpleasant or do stupid things when drunk.

I know how smug this sounds, and I may well be singing a very different tune if I have a future experience which conflicts with this. But that's why I'm here, I'm wondering if anyone here has an experience of alcohol altering their behaviour in such a way that the "I wasn't myself I was drunk" excuse can be seen as anything more than an excuse. Honestly I'm hoping someone has, I don't like the thought that my parent in question is simply an unpleasant person, just emboldened with alcohol.

 

[Silvanus]

Doesn't sound smug to me; you're questioning your own beliefs, which is always a good thing to do.

Alcohol affects people very differently. It makes some loud and others quiet; makes some aggressive and others warm to those around them. The only real common factors are a loss of inhibition and coordination.

Moderation is the thing. If you moderate, you can experiment and find the point at which you're happy and haven't gone too far. Get to know your limits, and booze can be great. Honestly great. But you do have to be smart about it.

 

[MysticSlayer]

For the most part, I only drink beer and hard cider, and it's rare for me to have more than one bottle in a sitting (never more than two). As a result, I generally don't get (noticeably) affected by alcohol due to not having enough of it.

The couple times I went over my unbelievably low limit, I really just became drowsy and acted no different than if I were really tired or depressed. That basically means I'm quieter than usual, less aware of my surroundings, and more likely to lose focus and get lost in thought. Outwardly, no one thinks anything of it, but I personally feel like shit.

That also explains why I don't drink a lot in a sitting. I like the taste of a lot of alcoholic beverages. I just don't like how they make me feel.

 

[DefunctTheory]

When I drank, I mostly just got happy. Not even hyper happy, just smiled constantly and got in a good mood. A mood that couldn't be altered - I once got kneed in the balls and I didn't even flinch of get angry.

Only exception what when I turned 21. I got uber drunk, and then started playing with a dead armadillo. Then I passed out and cracked my brain on the floor.

Haven't drank in 8 years. Whee!

So, anyway... 99% of the time I drank, I was just transformed into a happy version of myself. And the one time I did do something 'I wouldn't normally do,' all it was was playing with diseased road kill.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I'm louder, talk more, talk faster, more likely to speak up. No serious change in personality really.

 

[Odbarc]

I've heard too much "I was drunk." excuse in my life to really think it's a valid excuse. People getting excited about drinking alcohol just so they can act like assholes.

For me personally, I've had two sips of alcohol in my life. Once at 19 or 21, I forget, by accident. It was rum and coke and I thought it was just some coke in a glass. Pretty awful tasting.
Second I was in my late 20's and figured I'd try an actual beer but it was just awful. I couldn't get past the neck of the bottle worth and dumped the rest out in the sink.

I don't see the appeal. Even if you get past the taste and get to any level of buzz or drunk, from what I can observe, none of that seems like something I'd be interested in experiencing.

 

[Poetic Nova]

High tollerance for alcohol, only time I bordered on being drunk it took beer, vodka and flugel to gett me even tipsy.
However, it makes me an annoying obnoxious ass, until my body decides that the alcohol in my body makes me dead tired.

I now only drink beer or vodka on occasion. Can take months inbetween before I touch it.

 

[Elfgore]

Not very much. I'm a big guy and all the times I've drank, I was eating as well. So I didn't feel any effects at all really.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Alcohol just lowers your inhibitions and lessens your judgement. (And YES, even if you don't think your judgement is impaired, IT IS, as well as your general intake of information from your surroundings. You just don't realize it).

I've played video games while drunk/tipsy and it was recorded, and looking back I went "OMG, why the HELL did I do those moves? That was a TERRIBLE idea! What was I thinking?! Why did I think that was a good plan?!" ...Alongside a few moments of clarity like "I am drunk. My coordination is down. Let's just pick Samus and spam missiles all day and just keep running away...Oh look, I won!"

In any case, I'm a lot like you in the sense that drunk me is much the same as regular me, just more silly, goofy and less shy. I'm the "talkative drunk" although I'm still considerate enough to listen to other people in between talking about all kinds of weird shit. Then again, I rarely ever drink alone. I only drink when I'm with friends, or when I have leftover booze from hanging out with my friends and don't want it to go to waste.

Then again, I don't drink to excess. I know what my limits are and I don't' drink to the point where my vision fucks up, or where I forget what I did that night. I came close ONCE, and had one of those moments of clarity where I sat down and went "...Guys. I think I had too much. I'm not having any more. I'm just gonna sit here for a while, thanks...Maybe I'll just go to sleep."

Finally, yeah, sorry, but it's likely that on some level, this parent of yours has anger issues they have buried deep inside that they have not dealt with and when they drink it brings it up to the surface because it's harder for them to keep their mental state and emotions under control.

Well, welcome to the wild world of alcohol. Try different kinds, see what flavors you like (I like Rum and Soda of various kinds), and try not to drink too much. If you feel it physically affecting you to a point where coordinating movement is hard, or your vision is fucking up, STOP. Take a break. Finish your drink later. Do not just down it all to finish it. And yes, don't drink and drive. That never ends well.

 

[happyninja42]

This has forced me to question my opinion on the subject in short, and I thought I'd ask for more opinions, the basic question here is, to what extent do you think alcohol modifies your behaviour, because I've been practically blind with it a few times (though I still remember most of the experience) and my own experience tells me, not much.

I don't think it "modifies" your behavior at all. In my experience, it just ramps up who you actually are to 11+, and removes your inhibitions. The people I know who get silly/happy drunk, are in general silly/happy people anyway. The people I have known who get angry/abusive/violent, were already prone to that behavior anyway to some degree.

I don't think it's a Dr. Heckel Mr. Hyde kind of thing.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

It used to affect me more when I was younger, the end result making me quite a bit lot less shy and a lot louder, and occasionally quite emotional. Now I'm just generally a lot less introvert and much more talkative anyway so the difference between drunk me and normal me is substantially less apparent. To be quite honest I'd can't recall the last time I got truly drunk to the point I wasn't really myself any more and now more often than not I tend to drink much less but start feeling more ill and hungover earlier, which makes me want to drink less in the first place.

Only once have I drunk so much I have literally no memory of the last few hours before falling asleep next to a girl I barely knew on the floor of a friends lounge (don't worry, nothing untoward took place, I'm assured).

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Personally, i've had perhaps more experience with the subject matter than preferred or is reasonably healthy, spent time with many types of party hard people. It is not smug to explain how you are honestly affected. I believe the judgement differences between various folk often boils down to how self aware/conscious you are. If you are always evaluating and judging your own actions normally, being tipsy or drunk does not do much to change that. It can make you feel more free from anxieties to be yourself sometimes (as someone with such issues, it can help with going out with friends and various other activities where allowed). But moderation is the key. Also the speed of drinking matters. Anyhow, this does not mean you are immune from becoming bladdered and doing silly things, drink enough for long enough and anyone can get to that stage. Knowing your limits will be key, but often such things are not discovered without passing them. As a person who also had a parent that drank (and still does i think) regularly, who got aggressive through it regularly, i understand the fear of becoming anything like them, actively avoiding any behaviour or actions that could be parallel to said person.
People will have their different tolerances, limits and various moods with drinking, it appears you are capable of experiencing the more positive of these, it can come in useful for dealing with others who are not able to hold their own at congregations of celebratory nature. Take it as a plus for now, but don't let it go to your head (pun most certainly intended).

 

[King of Asgaard]

At time of writing, I'm 21 and have never tried alcohol of any kind. While I can't pinpoint any one reason as to why I haven't, I've chalked it up to all the stupid drunk stories I've heard from my friends, as well as being told I should by almost goddamn everyone. I realise neither are particularly good reasons, but I can't say I've ever been tempted by one drink or another, even when they have chocolate or something mixed in.

Sucks to hear about your parent, though. All I can say is that it must have the effect of lowering/nullifying their inhibitions to the point where being aggressive is the most natural thing they can do. I know it's not particularly comforting, but it's common.

 

[Dizchu]

Being drunk has never really altered my behaviour, it's just made me feel a bit more relaxed and sometimes sleepy. It affects my sense of balance, sometimes my judgement and depending on what I drink I have to go to the toilet every 20 minutes but apart from that and hangovers (yuck) it doesn't have much of an effect.

And yes I have been absolutely smashed before, to the point where I could barely walk. But it didn't alter my behaviour, I was still "me". I avoided alcohol until I was around 18 because I thought it'd change my personality and behaviour but it really didn't. For some people it does, for some people it doesn't I guess.

 

[Baresark]

Alcohol does not magically transform you into something you are not. People who become passive aggressive or even just plain aggressive are that way already. One thing it does affect early on in your night of drinking is your prefrontal cortex. This basically relieves you of your inhibitions. That means guys like you become a bit louder, less shy, less afraid to take chances. Someone who has violent tendencies will be less in control of that when they are drinking.

When I was in my late teens and early 20's, I had a rather large party phase. For me, that would make me less shy, it would expand my vocabulary so I would user larger words (though by some miracle, it was never the wrong word), and it would make me more... "fun" I guess, because I was less inhibited. Compare that to my father who was in fact a violent drunk. He was always talking aggressively, but when he drank a lot it would turn from talking into action. It's just who he was by some combination of nature and nurture, he was very aggressive in his younger years. My father though, much like an aggressive dog, really calmed down as he got older. It helps that he stopped drinking I'm sure.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Being properly drunk now for the first time in my life, I'm a sleepier person and am making far more mistakes when typing than normal, but that's what the delete key is for. Having finished my first bottle of mead, I'm noticing a bit of dizziness, though it hasn't affected my ability to walk in a straight line. Yet.

Edit: Now having finished another third of a bottle, I'm notably dizzier and number(sp?), but otherwise fine. Still can walk a straight line.

 

[BaronVH]

A drunk man's word is a sober man's thought.

 

[Recusant]

As others have noted, alcohol doesn't change your behavior; it lowers your awareness, coordination, reflexes, and inhibitions, which in turn affect your judgment. That's all. As someone descended from two families with high incidence of alcoholism, I've been very cautious: I did in fact get through college without drinking; it does happen, or at least did eleven years ago. I have, on multiple (though not many) subsequent occasions, gotten rip-roaring, Andy-Griffith-show-theme-lyrics-singing, flirting-with-the-moon blasted. And while I would maintain that getting well and truly drunk, at least once in your life, is a vital part of truly knowing oneself, well... a great deal of the danger of alcohol comes from peer pressure. Yes, I say it's important, but I'm just some weirdo on the internet. Don't let anyone talk you (or guilt you) into doing something you're not comfortable with. There's nothing wrong with taking a conservative approach, especially when dealing with something both dangerous and expensive.

Some good advice has already been given by people posting above me. Here are two things more:
-I know you've heard this before, but don't drink and drive. No, you do not "drive better when you've had a few", unless you're suffering from a medical condition that means you shouldn't be driving anyway.
-If you think you have a problem, stop. If you think you might be developing a problem, stop. If you think everything is just fine and you're having no difficulties controlling yourself, stop, every so often, just to make sure you still can. You can always start up again later.