Rethink your drink
Many must have noticed in some or the other parties some guys turning into quarrelsome jerks when they are drunk, while some other guys get all blubbery, saying things like “I love you, I missed you, you are such wonderful person man” to everyone. Such drunken guys and girls are sometimes pain; some burst out crying and sometimes there are guys who spill out secrets of others. Does the personality of people who get intoxicated reflect their true disposition? Does their real personality get unmasked because the alcohol makes it impossible to keep up the façade? Or does alcohol just do weird things to our brain, with mottled but not significant results?
Some people get very serious and philosophical when intoxicated. They sit in a corner looking at ceiling with a very serious face. Rarely people behave the same as their natural self when they get intoxicated. Does the behavior vary depending on the drink? Let’s say if they drink beer, wine or hard liquor? I have observed some of my friends become really happy when they have beer; some get into a lousy mood when they consume rum; and there are two friends of mine who start singing and dancing loud and glad to be alive when they mix drinks. I think generally, the person that comes out with the application of alcohol is that person’s “real” personality. It’s because alcohol lowers a person’s inhibitions, so whatever facades of their personality they would normally bottle up for fear of social unacceptability are just dropped due to intoxication. it’s usually the ugly opinions that people keep bottled up that tend to pop out when alcohol is consumed……everyone has a child hidden deep down, the child pops up and we get those expressions like “I love you, man” and those hugs and kisses.
Alcohol has been a part of the human diet for at least 10,000 years. In the U.S., over 65% of adults regularly have at least one alcoholic beverage a year. Typically, a low-to moderate amount of alcohol is defined as no more than one drinks a day for women and older adults, and two for men. One drink is usually one 1/2 ounce or 15 grams of alcohol, which equals approximately 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor. However, these guidelines are tailored by each individual.
However, alcohol tends to make your inhibitions go away. It makes a normally quiet person feel quite gritty and talkative. And, sometimes makes a decently normal person angry and asshole. One evident fact is that inhibitions are part of our genes, part of our personality, and also part of our learned behavior. We have read and sometimes seen famous personalities get into brawls after consuming alcohol. Shahrukh and Salman (both Khans) had a huge fight at Katrina Kaif’s birthday. Both Sallu and SRK have worked professionally together and even been friends off screen. Both had moderate drinks at the party; SRK apparently said a few things out of line that did not go too well with Salman. It turned out to be an ugly fight. Some famous industrialists have has ugly fights in public after drinks.
After certain amount of alcohol is consumed by a person, his/her brain starts to release dopamine, the more alcohol the more dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical your brain creates to make you feel good. It makes the body want to do things that is healthy for it. When a person consumes little more than normal drinks it will release so much dopamine that your brain can’t tell the difference between a good decision and a bad decision.
It is said drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts. Alcohol makes people do stuff they wouldn’t normally do. So you will see people driving at higher speed, picking up fights, singing, dancing, hugging others, passing unwanted remarks at others, doing all sorts of unusual things. Some purposely get drunk to do wrong things and say ‘sorry’ the next day with an excuse that they did all those ‘wrongs’ under the influence of alcohol.
Do you know corporate use drinking as trick? When a person gets drunk in a party, his/her boss observes the behavior. Many of his personality facets are observed by the boss, which were nicely under wrap till then. Few drinks make a person more confident, they gather more courage to express them better, and feel less accountability for their actions. Intoxicated communication is sometimes used in order to meet up certain targets or make plans in a group. A lot of confession is made under the influence of alcohol which is trickily used by the bosses.
According to Bruce Bartholow, author of “Alcohol Effects on Performance Monitoring and Adjustment: Affect Modulation and Impairment of Evaluative Cognitive Control”, alcohol doesn’t make you behave badly; it just makes you care less. For all of you trying to apologies or put right some unwanted words, the excuse, “I was drunk, I didn’t mean it” stop using this lame excuse at once. Bartholow, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science, concludes that alcohol dulls the brain’s “alarm signal” that warns you when you are making a mistake. These dulled warnings are what lead to the loss of self-control we often regret after one too many.
So the next time when you are in a party, at a bar with friends, or at home taking drinks take a pause, when your brain signals that your body cannot take more drinks. Because that’s what drinking is all about: it is not a whirling, plummeting gamble of life. Don’t just throw away all your inhibitions and deliberately drown yourselves in a liquid.
