So, I’ve never gotten drunk before. I’ve had a drink or two on occasion, but never enough to get more than buzzed. And realistically now that I’m on antidepressants I probably won’t any time in the near future.
Something I’ve wondered about is when it comes up in movies or real life news stories is: Exactly how responsible are you for things you do while drunk? Not legally, that’s more concrete, but practically. If alcohol inhibits your decision making capabilities, to what extent is anything done while drunk something you “decided” to do? You could still be held accountable for getting so drunk in the first place that this was able to happen, but that seems at least somewhat different from the actual act made during inebriation. Like say, drunk driving: Is the act of deciding to drive drunk merely the act of drinking a lot plus a roll of the dice to see if you end up making a decision you wouldn’t have made sober?
Like I said though, I have no personal experience with this, so maybe I’m way off base in understanding the nature of how in control a drunk person is of their behavior.
I’ve only been properly drunk once. For myself, at no point did I feel out of control, and my reasoning ability still seemed perfectly intact.
It was interesting to observe the effects of the drunkenness on my balance and ever increasing ‘lag’ type feeling, and I did notice I was a bit less inhibited, though I was around friends I already was quite comfortable with so I wasn’t that inhibited to begin with, but even still I did catch myself saying something I might’ve held back or said in a less direct way. At that point I was satisfied with the experiment and didn’t drink any more that night.
The experience did make me wonder how other people could convince themselves to drive while drunk, as even while I was wobbling to the bathroom, I was fully aware that I was totally incapable of safely driving.
I also had no issues recalling that night, so I didn’t get drunk enough to get ‘blackout’ drunk.