which is closer - people say what they really think when they're drunk, or they say things that they don't mean?

when i get really drunk, i occasionally do the thing where i tell people that i really love them, maaaaaaan, and i really appreciate knowing them. and i always mean, it too. i have a hard time expressing to my friends how much i depend on them for the happiness that i do have, and when my guard goes down i end up telling people that. and on very rare occasions, i've gotten very drunk and told an asshole that he was an asshole. but either way, drunkenness is a truth serum for me.

but then of course there's the classic stereotype of the person apologizing for all of the things they "didn't mean" the night before. which to me is often code for "i didn't mean to say it because it created an uncomfortable situation", not "it wasn't truthful."

so obviously this isn't either/or, i'm just wondering which side of the spectrum is closer to the truth for you, and for people generally.

mdma to thread

which to me is often code for "i didn't mean to say it because it created an uncomfortable situation", not "it wasn't truthful."

I think this is right.
I have defs said some foolish/awful things on some or another drunken occasion. Alcohol was probably a factor, but I never claimed it was because I was drunk nor that I didn't mean it. Fortunately (???) it was always at parties with strange people who I never have to see again.

I read some book on alcohol that suggested that the way "drunk people" act and the kind of shit people say when drunk varies from culture to culture. e.g. if you live with the idea of mean drunks you're more likely to take on that persona when drunk.

i think you are otm

alcohol + internet = smdh

i have always been a really gooey happy drunk, and angry drunks terrify me!

'you' being z s (not that abbb is offtm, of course)

Angry ppl in general I just try to avoid.

there's a talmudic maxim that when wine enters, secrets leave, and acc to gematria the numerical values of wine (yayin) and secret (sod) are the same: 70. fun fact of the day.

My sister is the angriest person I know but when drunk she's really giddy and silly and even a good mediator of others' anger. TBH I still walk on eggshells around her even when she's drunk because why test things.

She will definitely say things she doesn't mean when drunk, such as "You're my favorite."

uuuuugh, that's the worst - a false "you're my favorite". who ARE these people?

The "in vino veritas" lines blur when you mix alcohol with a really mean sense of humor

sounds like you have a story to tell us

not really, nothing beyond "I have in the past said outlandishly mean things to people when I'm drunk because in my mind it comes across as 'haha omg I can't believe someone just said that!' but to everyone else it's more like 'wow what a dick' unless they are also mean"

The things I only say when drunk tend to be things I don't really mean and just seem like fun things to say.

i had a friend in high school who would tell outlandish lies while wasted, and them stand behind them the next day at school. stuff like "i co-wrote part of what's the story morning glory". people would laugh at first, thinking it was a joke, and then he'd get really pissed off and weave more and more lies to support his original big lie. so fucking weird.

i hope his part was the lyrics

The person apologizing over something unmeant is often someone who made a badly judged contribution to some unserious drunken banter.

you have to take into account that the person doesn't say these things when sober. that they withhold these things, good or bad, is also a truth to what they think.

I think I remember reading something about how alcohol doesn't actually affect your inhibition that much and its mostly just people 'acting like drunk people', which seems true at least for me

ie I'll say things I know I wouldn't have gotten away w/ saying sober

so I guess #1?

nothing beyond "I have in the past said outlandishly mean things to people when I'm drunk because in my mind it comes across as 'haha omg I can't believe someone just said that!' but to everyone else it's more like 'wow what a dick' unless they are also mean"

haha this is what gets me in trouble

I think I remember reading something about how alcohol doesn't actually affect your inhibition that much and its mostly just people 'acting like drunk people', which seems true at least for me

I don't think you've been drunk enough

haha y

eh even when I'm stumbling around I still feel pretty 'in control' in a way that isn't true w/ other things

I think I remember reading something about how alcohol doesn't actually affect your inhibition that much and its mostly just people 'acting like drunk people', which seems true at least for me

i heard something similar on NPR a while back. the thesis was that the ways in which people behave while drunk are to some extent (and perhaps to a large extent) socially conditioned. was based on anecdotal observations by an anthropologist who spent time with a tribal group that consumed alcohol as a social ritual but did not "act out" in the ways that we typically associate with drunkenness. from this, the anthropologist concluded that alcohol's disinhibiting effects were more cultural than chemical. an interesting idea, but it didn't seem terribly well supported.

i kinda doubt how much i'm acting out the stuff i don't remember the next day.

i think booze tends to disinhibit rather than make you a new creature but this doesn't allow for our relationship to "the truth" when we're not soused.

I do wonder what exactly this study measured, given how it's been reported, and then mostly recalled in second hand quotes.

The idea that alcohol is used and consumed in different ways, with different expectations and different effects, in different cultures is hardly new. And it's more than just the "cultural" effects but also the ways in which it's consumed - compare the effects of the same units of alcohol, but whether you chug them all in one go, having skipped a meal, in an effort to get as much alcohol in before closing time or whether you consume that quantity of alcohol over many hours, in a social setting, with a heavy meal and other drinks spaced in between - and see exactly how differently it functions.

You don't need to go to obscure tribes with alcohol rituals to observe this, just compare, e.g. English and French drinking habits.

Alcohol has a mild to severe disinhibiting effect. I'm sure that the severity of that disinhibiting effect depends on how much/how fast you have consumed it (which is itself influenced by culture.) And that what *kinds* of prohibited behaviour will be disinhibited will also vary culturally (I suspect that if your culture frowns on expressions of aggression or sexuality, that is what will pop up during drunkenness, while if your culture frowns upon e.g. expressions of urgent affection between males, then that will pop up during drunkenness.)

Any drug with a psychological effect - the effects will vary based on the circumstances under which you take it, the condition you're in, and your expectations of it. But that does not mean that those effects don't exist at all.

when super drunk, i'll sometimes say fucked up things that i think are funny, cool, important, brave or w/e. because my judgement is terminally fucked, i fail to notice that they're none of those things, just fucked (this is similar to what dan said upthread about mixing "alcohol with a really mean sense of humor"). i'm not sure that this is entirely the product of disinhibition, the drink-liberated mind releasing what it would more soberly repress. that's undoubtedly part of it, but it might also be the simple product of impaired thinking and perception, half-formed ideas and feelings connecting at bad angles.

as a result, i'm kind of agnostic about "in vino veritas". the things a drunk person says aren't necessarily "the truth" (especially not with regard what they believe when sober), but they do reflect things that are truly present in the drunken brain. i mean, i'd like to believe that i'm a generally decent person, but i've got some unsavory bits of mind-garbage sloshing around inside my head even when i'm sober. i don't necessarily believe every stray thought that crosses my mind, after all. some of it is just flotsam, the unfortunate by-product of mental toxins i've consumed, considered or endured.

When I was young, I knew that I would survive anything that came my way, and that even crawling on the floor, I would make the right decisions and say the right things because I was a good person meaning well.

Even this very night as an old nasty drunken ass, I have seriously meant rude and hateful things I meant and said, and can't even get drunk enough to crawl on the floor and have contemplated the worst sorts of murder and suicide, then tried to get better and ate some mixed nuts and drinked some water.

I don't trust my own damn brain, because the truth that used to would keep me safe and honest is all now twisted and ugly from lack of consistency and continual irritants.

lack of consistency and continual irritants

yeah

this was p much already said but sometimes you say the things you mean right there in that instant which are not actually universal truths. e.g. you might tell someone "you are so fucking annoying, you always do this thing, why you always" etc etc when actually you mean "I like/love you very much and depend on you for the happiness in my life and am just very slightly bothered by this one very minor thing you just did which you have done maybe twice before over the years"

(I am not generally an angry drunk but I am a v irritable person and alcohol makes me more likely to say whatever flits across my mind. Also when I was younger alcohol was a brief respite from self-loathing into "y'know, I'm OK" and even "hey I'm actually pretty awesome" which occasionally crossed into "lol @ u, you did a thing which was dumb and I am awesome enough to see it was dumb and insist that I would never have done it" over some really bizarre petty shit. ugh)