It is clear that large amounts of alcohol affect emotions and clear thinking. But does it make us completely different people? Or does the influence of alcohol encourage us to express the emotions and thoughts we have?
Does alcohol really change us into "someone else"? Or does it just lower our inhibitions enough that we actually become more open than when we're sober?
Everyone wants to think they are better than they really are. So it's no wonder how often when people do something stupid, they blame it on alcohol, of course, if they were drinking at the time.
They blame their bad behavior on something "out of their control". This story is as old as time. The excuse for drunkenness is used for everything from stupid and unpleasant behavior like dancing on tables or fighting with strangers to promiscuous behavior.
Everyone wants to think it's theirs "drunk me" the complete opposite of theirs "sober self" – is it really so?
According to the study Association for Psychological Science, from 2017, published in Sage Journals, the only thing we can really blame is alcohol— vomiting
Is your drunken self basically your real self, which you hide under the surface of politeness and good manners during sobriety? The researchers came to two interesting conclusions.
1. You think you're different when you're drunk, but you're not
Research has shown that people think they are different when they are drunk, but in reality their personalities are the same. The research was conducted on peers who first socialized, then half of them got drunk, the other remained sober. Sobers became evaluators while the drunken group was observed engaging in the same type of socializing they had while sober. Psychologist Rachel Winograd, who led this research, explained that raters reliably reported what they saw, and participants experienced internal changes that were real to them but imperceptible to observers.
This seems to indicate that alcohol has little (if any) effect on personality, but drunken individuals imagined that alcohol had an effect on their behavior. The reason is that they were convinced that alcohol was affecting their brains.
2. You are more social than usual when you are drunk
In the study, raters (people who were sober) noted that their peers did not seem different in personality. They seemed to differ in their degree of extroversion. They were much more open and sociable. What does that mean? Is it possible that you are more "you" when you are drunk?
It is clear that large amounts of alcohol affect human emotions and thinking. But do these things make us completely different people? Or does the influence of alcohol change us in terms of self-expression of the emotions and thoughts we have, making us more honest?
Most people seem to think so. Lizzie Parry explained this research by saying: "It is a very popular idea that we change into different people when we are under the influence of alcohol. But new discoveries suggest that alcoholic beverages actually have no power, to drastically change a person's personality."
