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.

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[–] 3 points 4 months ago

Drunk driving is dangerous because your mental processes are slowed and your physical reactions are slowed. So if you make a bad decision that requires a quick reaction it is more likely to have a bad outcome. Driving tired or distracted are very comparable to being drunk because it also involves slowed thought processes and slowed reaction times.

Outside of driving it varies widely from person to person, and in general people tend to be more of who they really are because it lowers inhibitions and scales with the amount of intoxication for that person. It doesn't give you ideas or anything, it just removes some guardrails from doing things you might be keeping from doing while sober.

People don't cheat or start violence unless they were already inclined to do so while sober.

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