The thing is, there's always that sneaking suspicion: What if that drunk person -- that person who's way more likely to speak their mind than Sober You, way more extroverted and honest and experimental and horny and generally deviant than you'd normally ever dare to be -- is the real you? Am ... am I really the "touch my beard" guy, while the (mostly) sober person writing this column right now is just a pale imitation, shackled and restricted by the norms of society and pants? Say it ain't so, science!
Science Says:
As much as we'd all like to use the old "That was the booze, I'm not really like that at all" excuse for that one time when we drunk-dialed all our exes, compared our boss to a genital wart to his face, and woke up in a ditch beside a stolen police motorcycle, science disagrees. Alcohol doesn't make you do stupid stuff; it just dulls the brain's "alarm signal" which monitors your mistakes, allowing you to do all the stupid stuff you wanted to do anyway.
According to a 2011 "Let's get them drunk and scan the shit out of their brains as they do stupid drunk stuff" study at the University of Missouri, you're not behaving "unlike you" when you're drunk at all. You just care less about the consequences of saying and doing what you really think and want. This totally applies to our tendency to feel a little friskier after a few drinks, too. This paper, which looks into so much research in the alcohol/boning field that the source notes alone take up eight pages, heavily indicates that although alcohol has powerful aphrodisiac properties, we totally use them to, quote, "wittingly or unwittingly to encourage the reluctant mate or to unleash deviant sexual desires." Christ.
Yeah, you know what all of this means. That thing you did at that party? You know the one. That was you, unfiltered, undistilled, and unleashed. Yes, even the thing with the two clowns and the traffic cone. Especially the two clowns and the traffic cone. Sorry you had to hear it from me. No, don't apologize to me. Apologize to the cone.
Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.
If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.
Catch a faceful of funny Thursday, October 19, at The Cracked Stand Up Show hosted by Alex Schmidt and featuring Soren Bowie, Eddie Della Siepe, Joel Samataro, Riley Silverman, and Barbara Gray. Get your tickets here.
For more check out 5 Things Every Snob Says (Confirmed by Science) and 5 Old Wives' Tales About Health (Confirmed by Science).
Subscribe to our YouTube and find out why we're lost in a sea of confusion in 6 Easy Questions (That Science Has A Hard Time Answering), and watch other videos you won't see on the site!
Also follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page. No questions asked.
268 Comments