For the first time in my life that I'm aware of, I drank a "significant" amount of alcohol on two consecutive weekends. I think it's not being too conservative to estimate that in all the time I've been alive, I've probably consumed alcohol on fewer than 50 discrete occasions, almost always in the form of a single beverage, such as a beer or a glass of wine. Of the times I've had enough alcohol to have an effect on my perception of behavior, it's not more than 10 times, and I'd say about half were loosely-controlled experiments to see how the alcohol would affect me. For me to drink socially, without strictly monitoring how much I consume, is very rare.
But last weekend Heather came down to help me move into my new apartment, and then we went out to a bar in Cambridge to meet some friends of hers. Since I lived within walking distance of the bar, I wasn't concerned about having too much, and so I did, in the form of three beers over about two hours. Then this weekend I went up to visit my sister Dianna, and proceeded to play a game of Catan with her and Arthur while Arthur instructed me in the the technique I'd heard about before involving a short of tequila, a lime wedge, and some salt on the back of your hand. I believe in this case I consumed 5 shots of tequila over the course of about as many hours.
For whatever reason, I can't get intoxicated without becoming curious about and introspective of my intoxication. This typically manifests itself in my desire to stack blocks if I've been drinking, to observe to what degree the alcohol has reduced either my physical dexterity of mental reasoning skills. Last night may not have been a fair test, however, as all I had to stack were Catan pieces, and those are hard to stack while sober. However, at the point I considered myself the most "drunk", I had no trouble rejecting Arthur's plan to leave the house and ignite an illegal firework.
Dianna can give her appraisal of my behavior while drinking, but I believe that aside from being more inclined to lean sideways in my chair, and introduce more non sequitur topics, my impression was that I was not significantly different than I would otherwise be when sitting around playing a game in the company of people with whom I'm generally comfortable in the first place. I'm fairly confident that my concern over appearing stupid is significantly reduced though, making me more likely to blurt out things that pop into my head that might have been filtered when I was completely sober.
In any event, the most profound thing I've noticed, this weekend and the last, with respect to drinking alcohol, is a curious phenomenon that accompanied each new intake. This only occurred once I already believed myself to be intoxicated. From that point on, about five minutes after every new shot I drank (or beer I drank last week), I entered into a brief period where I suddenly believed myself to be extremely sober. The physical effects of the alcohol were not apparent to me. That is, normally when I'm drunk I feel a little bit like I'm under water, and that there's some delay in my perception when looking from one thing to another. But during this short window, I felt like I hadn't had anything to drink at all, which is extremely curious. Of course, within five minutes of that I was completely obviously intoxicated, but those periods of clarity are interesting.
I've heard that drunk people often over estimate their abilities while drunk, especially with respect to their ability to drive a car. Perhaps I am beginning to understand why that is.
Well, it's good to have a sense of how much alcohol I can drink before it has a significant effect on me. But at the end of the day, whether I have anything to drink or not has not impact on whether I will enjoy myself, it turns out. Maybe it's useful in cases where I'm meeting strangers, and I'd otherwise me insecure if completely sober. But I'm definitely aware of a sense of satisfaction of being completely in control of myself, compared to the feeling I have when I've had a lot to drink, in which case I feel like I'm more inclined to shrug my shoulders and let things play out without my direct involvement.
The thing I find funny is that in sitting here thinking, "Do I look forward to drinking again?", the vast majority of my motivation to drink is to have another opportunity to observe the specific effects it has on me, provided I'm in an environment in which I'm confident that a complete loss of rational judgement on my part would not get me into trouble. However, that kind of introspection doesn't combine well with the social aspect of drinking, which I suppose is to let go a little and enjoy myself. The obvious solution, as a way to combine the two objectives, is probably to bring a Jenga set with me the next time I'm planning to drink.
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