Drunkenness reveals what soberness conceals.
Alcohol can lower inhibitions and cause people to reveal their true thoughts and feelings. Be careful what you say or do when under the influence.
Acting differently under the influence doesn't necessarily mean that drinking reveals someone's true self. Alcohol can, however, bring up non-dominant thoughts and feelings people ordinarily detach themselves from. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, leading us to act more impulsively and care less about what others think.
In 2006, when Mel Gibson
was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving, he unleashed a vitriolic anti-Semitic tirade that went viral. The incident alarmingly raised the question as to whether he meant what he said—namely, about Jews being responsible for all world wars.
Blaming excessive alcohol intake for his patently racist remarks, Gibson protested: “I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.” But mental health professionals, weighing in on his unfortunate slip of the tongue, didn’t perceive that explanation (or rather, rationalization) as sufficient to get him off the hook. Whether or not he was drunk, many argued, his vehemently derogatory speech nonetheless reflected a deep-seated prejudice. When sober, this inflammatory bias could be suppressed, but in an inebriated, altered state of consciousness, it could—non-volitionally—emerge.
That a drunk person can say or do something that doesn’t represent some subconscious part of them is a concept that experts have repeatedly questioned. And despite the circumstance that many laypeople think one’s behavior can be excused, if not exactly justified, by their lacking agency when inebriated, applied research on this topic has concluded that they still deserve to be held responsible.
