Odd Question About Alcohol

[mickeyg13]

I was wondering if any of you ever considered this rather unconventional view about alcohol (I started thinking about it because of the smoking thread). I suppose if you don't believe in any set of morals then this does not really apply to you.

For those of you that do believe in some set of morals, please hear me out. Drunkenness obviously impairs the brains ability to make decisions. A drunk person is less able to decide what would be a good decision and what would be a bad decision. Furthermore, drunk people would be less able to discern between moral decisions and immoral decisions. Assuming the person generally tries to make moral decisions when sober, it would seem that being drunk would lead to significantly more bad, immoral decisions that will be regretted once sober. Is it then immoral to get drunk, to deliberately and artificially increase the chance that you engage in immoral/stupid activity? I'm not saying this to be judgmental; I'm curious if anyone has considered/taken this position before.

[Jack10]

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Drunkenness obviously impairs the brains ability to make decisions.

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This, as a blanket statement, is most certainly not true.

[mickeyg13]

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Drunkenness obviously impairs the brains ability to make decisions.

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This, as a blanket statement, is most certainly not true.

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Really? Notice I didn't just say "drinking" but "drunkenness." How is it not true?

[tame_deuces]

Here is an interesting tidbit: Most people have heard that placebo/fake alcohol can give intoxication on the same line as alcohol.

Less known studies have shown something else though:

Placebo alchohol will not affect certain inhibitors in the brain like alcohol does, which affect your ability to 'say no'. Researches tested this by comparing people intoxicated on placebo alchohol vs alcohol vs control group on willingness to drive while drunk.

The intoxicated placebo group scored about the same as the control groups on willingness to drive, whereas the alchohol group showed far greater willingness to drive.

What this gives is that alchohol indeed DOES affect decision making greatly compared to a placebo, making your posed question more than legitimate.

As stated I'd have to say a person is fully responsible for the willing actions taken while on an intoxicating drug taken voluntarily. For example I'd say it is very immoral for an airline pilot to drink a lot of alchohol 10 hours preflight, even if it is fully legal (I don't know if this has changed, but before airline pilots usually didn't have intox levels requirements but had 8 hour time limits between drinking and flying instead).

[Jack10]

OK, so you're implying that while drinking may not affect decision making, drunkenness does. How can we clearly separate the two?

To answer your question, your statement which I quoted is way too broad; you give no evidence that alcohol affects decision making in all situations, or in which ones it does have an effect.

I am 100% certain that there are areas in which alcohol may not only not hinder the decision making process, but very possibly actually help it. For example, I have read numerous times in the strategy and other forums that certain high stakes players are noticeably better poker players after 5+ drinks. This seems proof enough that your statement is clearly false.

[Jack10]

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Here is an interesting tidbit: Most people have heard that placebo/fake alcohol can give intoxication on the same line as alcohol.

Less known studies have shown something else though:

Placebo alchohol will not affect certain inhibitors in the brain like alcohol does, which affect your ability to 'say no'. Researches tested this by comparing people intoxicated on placebo alchohol vs alcohol vs control group on willingness to drive while drunk.

The intoxicated placebo group scored about the same as the control groups on willingness to drive, whereas the alchohol group showed far greater willingness to drive.

What this gives is that alchohol indeed DOES affect decision making greatly compared to a placebo, making your posed question more than legitimate.

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No. What does show is that alcohol indeed does affect someone's ability to decide whether or not to drive.

Edited to say that while I have not read the study, I have some questions about the legitimacy of "placebo alcohol." I mean alcohol is not like pain reliever or something, in that there are noticeable physical feelings, not to mention a noticeable taste, that come with drinking alcohol.

[tame_deuces]

Alchohol has effects which can be dangerous, the OP is a legitimate question regardless if we drink or abstain from it.

Placebo alchohol gives intoxicating effects, this has been shown in several studies. Slurring voice, reduced motorics and other phenomena associated with alchohol. What it doesn't do is affect the decision making to any great degree, and this has been overlooked. That effect is indeed given chemically from alchohol.

[Siegmund]

I have to say that I am very skeptical about the notion that anyone plays better poker after drinking even in moderate quantities. I suppose there could be factors at work like the first drink helping someone get past some nervousness, or the opponents overplaying because they think he is drunk.

But in 14 years of serious tournament bridge, I have yet to meet a single bridge player who played better after drinking. I can think of exactly one who doesn't play noticeably worse after he drinks (he's a very experienced player, expert when sober - half braindead he would still play better than 90% of his opponents.) On the other hand, I have met hundreds whose play is significantly impaired (say two costly mistakes that the player ordinarily knows better than to make in a 3-hour session) by even a single glass of wine after dinner. As a rule of thumb, I would say each of the first two or three drinks is the equivalent of missing about two hours of sleep the previous night.

The VAST majority of people experience decision-making impairment from even very small quantities of alcohol, with increasingly severe effects from more.

[Siegmund]

Realized I never addressed OP's question at all.

Yes, it's a possible viewpoint for someone to take. Most likely a view of a nondrinker, not surprisingly - its very easy for someone who doesn't like drinking to say "drinking sometimes has negative effects, and has no positive effects, so obviously people should't drink." People who enjoy alcohol will argue it does have positive effects (relaxation, sociability, whatever - even if we accept the effects on decision-making are negative) and may set a higher bar for the point at which the net effect becomes negative.

Wherever you DO set the bar for the point at which the net effect of additional alcohol is negative, it would be logical for you to argue that drinking beyond that point is
immoral, to persons with a particular vaguely utilitarian view of morals anyway.

[ChrisV]

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I have to say that I am very skeptical about the notion that anyone plays better poker after drinking even in moderate quantities. I suppose there could be factors at work like the first drink helping someone get past some nervousness, or the opponents overplaying because they think he is drunk.

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I play both live poker and pool better after a few drinks, as it cuts down on tension.

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But in 14 years of serious tournament bridge, I have yet to meet a single bridge player who played better after drinking. I can think of exactly one who doesn't play noticeably worse after he drinks (he's a very experienced player, expert when sober - half braindead he would still play better than 90% of his opponents.)

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Bridge is different. It's a very cerebral game. Poker is more about intuition and judgement a lot of the time. Bridge you have to visualise complicated things. Also there's no element of tension, unless you're playing a major tournament or something.