Can Alcohol 'make' you a 'different' person than who you are?

[Evergreen]

Carrying on in a more specific area from another thread I came across somethign quite compelling to argue here

Originally Posted by LHC

Anyway, you can only really totally blame the alcohol if you've drank so much you can't remember anything (i.e. complete mind blank), at which point you are an entirely different person.

Now I'm sorry, I know there's insanity and a whole host of medical conditions out there, some genetic, some induced, that can indeed make you behave not as your self due to being open to the suggestiveness of your enviroment and being able to demonstrate no learned control. I however totally abbhor the idea of when you've drunk enough that it's lights out and you wake up not remembering anything, that you had behaved in any other way than who you truly are.

Personally on a v simple scale the difference between who you are and who you can't remember the night before because of alcohol is the same is querying the noise a tree makes when it falls in the forest if you are there and then if you are not there to hear it.
A tree isn't going to make some bizarre mouse noise just because you weren't there to hear it and a drunk person who can't remember what happened the night before isn't going to behave any more different than he would do when he can remember how he behaved when drunk on a previous night.

I believe we are all culpable for our drunken behaviour regardless of post-alcohol brain damage affecting the memory retention of it or not. You are not a different person, you are you, just more unrestrained.

[JonnyBGood]

We're totally responsible for our behaviour when we're drunk imho. It was your choice to ingest alcohol and if you were of sound mind and body at the time it's similar to sawing off your legs and complaining when you're runover trying to cross the road on your hands. The effects of your actions were directly caused by an action you committed when you were fully compus mentis (did I get that right?). I can choose to act differently, ie being less sociable or hating gambling, and it'll still be me making the decision. It's just a different interpretation of the entity "you", the confusion only arises because you're the one doing the interpreting.

[Androme]

Valid point but alcohol affects everyone in their own individual ways. No-one can fully predict how the alcohol will chemically react inside a body - to the extent of the 'actual' effects. While it can be 'observed' no-one can fully say how someone will be thinking up there and what their current state of mind is/isn't. It's a mental thing and something which is near impossible to observe in everyday situations like being drunk

[JonnyBGood]

No-one can fully predict pretty much anything. Initially you're taking a chance and on successive occasions you should be aware by that stage as to how your body tends to react.

[Dante Hicks]

You're certainly responsible for anything you do while drunk - but that's a slightly different issue. You're responsible for any action that occurs as a consequence of a voluntary action you undertake generally. But this is not the same thing as being the same person. If you take acid (or the equivalent) and freak out, thinking your house mates are monsters and you kill them, you are certainly responsible but this doesn't mean you aren't being different.

Obviously we can get into semantics here - you are always you on some level, and your brain is always interpreting various sense data. Alcohol can do two things, one change the way your brain processes such information, and two affect your sensory perception of certain events.

You are still you of course, but you're also different. Speaking from personal experience if I get completley messed up then I almost become a carictature of myself and the things I would say as a joke while sober (or less drunk) I say almost seriously. It's a strange phenemenon but I've heard stories of things I've done while drunk which I can't even follow the logic of.

[JonnyBGood]

It's not really a unique situation though is it? You're different in small ways after each second that passes. This time the effects are exaggerated I acknowledge but nothing that special in itself.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

the things I would say as a joke while sober (or less drunk) I say almost seriously.

Storm the winter palace comerades!

[LHC]

I thought I lived in the town centre which is not me being 'unrestrained'

[Evergreen]

Originally Posted by LHC

I thought I lived in the town centre which is not me being 'unrestrained'

Unrestrained in the sense you were aware you were trying to find your way home but honestly preferred if you could do it like a bird uses magnetism rather than actually identifying your location by landmarks (be them architectual or signs).

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

It's not really a unique situation though is it? You're different in small ways after each second that passes. This time the effects are exaggerated I acknowledge but nothing that special in itself.

True, but changes that occur over time are usually linear in some fashion. Alcohol is slightly different not just because it's exaggerated but because it wears off (to some extent, you return to your original point).

I agree the effects of alcohol can be simulated by other non-chemical means though. A friend of mine went a bit weird for a while, kind of had a breakdown, developed some strange ideas, and then recovered back to this original state. It was kind of a slow-motion binge (over a couple of months) without the need for alcohol.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

True, but changes that occur over time are usually linear in some fashion. Alcohol is slightly different not just because it's exaggerated but because it wears off (to some extent, you return to your original point).

Are you telling me that the night after a heavy binge and you've made an absolute tit of yourself when you find about it all (if you've forgotten) you feel no different to how you did before you went out?

[Weeks]

It just lets stuff out of you which you wouldnt normally show.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Are you telling me that the night after a heavy binge and you've made an absolute tit of yourself when you find about it all (if you've forgotten) you feel no different to how you did before you went out?

You feel slightly different, which is why I said "to some extent". Let's look at a time-line :

Point A : Noon. Dante (sober) goes to the pub.
Point B : Dante starts drinking heavily for five hours.
Point C : Dante makes a total tit of himself
Point D : Dante sobers up next morning.

Now, Point D is undoubtedly slightly different from Point A, but it's a lot closer to A than it is to C.

[JonnyBGood]

And how is that different from a day where something important happens (which obviously changes you) like say a grandparent dying, or graduating, or having a religious experience or something? Obviously this changes you but you're clearly still the same "entity".

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

And how is that different from a day where something important happens (which obviously changes you) like say a grandparent dying, or graduating, or having a religious experience or something? Obviously this changes you but you're clearly still the same "entity".

Generally if you have a religious experience or a relative die it leaves much more of a permanent mark (or scar perhaps, in the latter case) than a simple drinking session. Obivously if you drink so much that you either do something completley horrific or manage to seriously injure yourself that's slightly different.

This was my original point. Alcohol (and drugs) personality changing effect is a lot more temporary than if I was to go down to the shops and be badly beaten up or whatever. Obviously it's a matter of degree and depends on the individual, etc, etc.

[Bunga]

If a person is "drunk out of their mind", then imo they are not physically responsible for their deeds. But they are still morally reponsible, since they made the choice to get drunk.

[Jennifer]

What I am and what is 'me' is defined by the way I behave: what I say and do. So how can something I say or do be any less like 'me'? If you mean out of character, using my normal (how I am most often) as a baseline, then yes of course alcohol can make me a different person. I am the most restrained person I know. If while drunk I was the same person only unrestrained, then I would be an entirely different person, since my self-control is such a defining characteristic.

[roadrunner_0]

alcohol makes you lose some inhibitions, generally, when i am well wasted, it exagerates my normal behaviour, which isnt too bad, [i]however[/] there are some drinks which i have refused to drink more than once or twice (lo absinthe and gin) as i have found that they have altered my behaviour, which i do not like. So to me, you are the same person when drunk even if you cant remember it the next day, which quite frequently happens to me (such as the fact that i can only remember about half the night i spent at MrL's house the other week-cue stupid jokes)

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by Weeks

It just lets stuff out of you which you wouldnt normally show.

It sounds like you're implying that self-restraint and shyness etc are not personality traits, but somehow 'fake' and 'hiding' the true person underneath.

It's like saying an orange is the same after you've peeled it. Yes, it's still an orange, and yes, the orange segments were still there underneath before you peeled it, but it's still different. Oranges grow with a skin. That's what an orange is - a load of segment surrounded by orange skin. A skinless orange growing on a tree would be a very different thing indeed.

[JonnyBGood]

Analogies are ****ing bollocks. You're one person with one brain. People aren't defined by their actions, they're defined by who they are. Actions are merely a helpful to guess what people are like.

[1-X]

I've always thought alcohol shows the real person you are underneath, (in a very general way) which is why we have happy drunks, aggressive, bitter, etc. It's the underlying fundamental trait that can be more easily hidden by sobriety.

[dr.fox]there's no actual evidence for it, but it's scientific fact[/dr.fox]

[the_dastardley_chihuahua]

yeah alcohol can make you a different person, ive drunk lot tonight and my posting is better than ever!

[Nodrog]

The question only really makes sense if you believe people have a particular 'base' personality, from which all their other personality states are derivative. If you dont think people 'are themselves' while under the influence of alchohol, do you think they 'are themselves' when they are in an other 'abnormal' situations?. My personality when I'm drunk is different from my personality when I'm sitting in my room, but thats also different from my personality when I'm around my parents, which in turn is different from my personality when I'm around my friends, when I'm in a situation where I feel threatened, where I feel happy, when I'm lying in bed thinking, when I'm under the influence of non-alcoholic drugs, etc etc etc. I act/think very differently in many different situations; which one 'is' 'me'?

[Baron Morte]

So you took one post completely out of contex to try to prove the poster as "having a lesser inteligence"?

[Luckeh!!!!]

apparently i'm boring when sober.

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

You're one person with one brain. People aren't defined by their actions, they're defined by who they are.

Who someone is is defined by who someone is? What?

You're one person with one brain, but everyone else has a brain too. What makes yours individual and unique to you? The way in which it operates? Surely alcohol affects that?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Jennifer

Who someone is is defined by who someone is? What?

I'm saying that defining what something like this is in terms of something else is utterly pointless if you're looking for accuracy and not just a way for people to understand your general implication.

You're one person with one brain, but everyone else has a brain too. What makes yours individual and unique to you? The way in which it operates? Surely alcohol affects that?

The fact it's mine and the fact I haven't yet met anyone exactly the same as me. As for it being affected by alcohol it's also affected by a myriad of other things in various different ways. Bar the obviously shortened time span involved I don't see a reason for considering it as a case in it's own right (or if you want to include drugs and shit with it as well that's fine).

[Jennifer]

So what do we mean by 'different person'?

[JonnyBGood]

You.
Me.
Luckeh.
Muslim.
idimmu.
nodrog.
the dastardly chihuaha
jesus
bob dole
george bush

They're all different people.

[Dante Hicks]

Cash prize for first person to start going on about essences, or Platonic ideal types.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Cash prize for first person to start going on about essences, or Platonic ideal types.

Just no.






Hell no.








Still no.





I'm not changing my mind on this.






NO.

[queball]

Platonic essences are only fleetingly incident on reality (imperialist conceptions of "self" notwithstanding).

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by queball

Platonic essences are only fleetingly incident on reality (imperialist conceptions of "self" notwithstanding).

SAY MY NAME!

[Jennifer]

So does drinking make you change your name? No, it doesn't.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Jennifer

So does drinking make you change your name? No, it doesn't.

What does this have to do with what I was saying?


Unless you cut out your brain and die or something you're not a "different" person.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

Platonic essences are only fleetingly incident on reality (imperialist conceptions of "self" notwithstanding).

Winner!

Seriously though, a lot of this discussion is unnecessarily philosophical. We all know what we mean if someone says "there's a cup over there" (generally) and so I don't see the problem with a person having (an assumed) base of the same form.

That's why phrases like "that person acted out of character" makes some kind of sense.

[JonnyBGood]

People can act out of character, but nobody would say it's not them doing the "acting".

[queball]

Where do I collect my prize?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

People can act out of character, but nobody would say it's not them doing the "acting".

I was agreeing with you at this point.

Originally Posted by queball

Where do I collect my prize?

Next time you're in South London you can have whatever money I've left on my carpet.

[JonnyBGood]

You can't agree with everyone dude. It's a ****ing argument not a tea party.

[queball]

The question might surround the psychology of regret. That's what self is about as far as I can tell: a feeling of attachment and continuity, and self-interest. Certain drugs can induce just detachment or real loss of memory. Then we can talk about consequences.

Is it right to **** someone knowing they're likely to regret it? It sounds best to avoid the whole situation off hand and perhaps choose some easy option like man=bad, woman=good. But I feel there is no really hard problem: the legal position is clear enough, the people involved are aware of consequences, and denying personal responsibilty is the worst possible option. That's not to say that ****ing vulnerable people is alright, that's a personal choice. But she cannot reasonably deny responsibility.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Next time you're in South London you can have whatever money I've left on my carpet.

Ok, but my native country's currency is Che Guevara t-shirts.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by idimmu

if you think about helping people all the time but go around ****ing people over

Unless you're suffering from some sort of cognitive dissonance at the level of insanity, this would be difficult to do for any period of time.

Unless you had some specific reason, or were doing it accidently or something.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by idimmu

your actions define who you are to other people

if you think one thing, but do another, then people will perceive you for what you do rather than what you think

Still merely appearances though. Much like having gay sex doesn't necessarily make you "homosexual". You're that, or not, irrelevant of whether or not you have gay sex.

if you think about helping people all the time but go around ****ing people over

you are not a nice person

you are a ****

Thinking about it all the time and "being a nice person" or whatever are totally different things.

[ParraCida]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Much like having gay sex doesn't necessarily make you "homosexual". You're that, or not, irrelevant of whether or not you have gay sex.

Is that what you tell yourself when you do the yucky thing?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by idimmu

That's my point, you are how you act.

No you're not. You are who you are. This cliched bollocks about trying to find shortcuts causes endless crap to be spewed out in the name of "philosophy" and "reason".

And again, yes thinking about being a nice person and acting as a nice person are totally different, so if you are a nice person it is because of how you act.

No you're a nice person when your state of mind is such as to actually value being a nice person enough so that you are one. You aren't what you eat, you aren't who you know, you aren't what you read, you aren't what you think and you aren't what you do. You are who you are. Life was not designed so as to be easily understood. It's full of **** ups, complications, misunderstandings, bad ideas and inaccurate interpretations. Who you are is affected by everything but "being a nice person" is not because of how you act. The whole point is that nice people have committed evil actions, and evil people have committed nice actions. This is due to the accident of circumstances. Circumstances affect how people act but they are not the be-all and end-all.

So thanks for changing your mind and agreeing with me!

I'm running out of time here so I'm going to finish up with a "**** you and have a nice day".



PS Just when I'm doing your dad in the ass parra <3