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.
Being drunk doesn’t change who you are or make your body perform actions that you didn’t choose (other than digestive system side effects like puking). It’s always you in control of your body, making choices to do things or to not do things. It won’t make a good person turn bad. It can make you less inhibited and make it harder to think clearly, but that’s not going to make you forget how to be decent.
To expand on that if I may:
What alcohol does is impair your judgement and your motor control(reaction time)
So things you normally would not do for a variety of reasons(like, yell at a giant easily angered bouncer), now seem like a great idea.
It doesn’t make you do things, it allows you to do things your sober self might find reprehensible into outright vile.
This is also true of all drugs in my experience. People that don’t even consider doing things that harm themselves and others don’t start doing it when high/drunk/wasted.