People typically report substantive changes to their personality when they become intoxicated, but observations from outsiders suggest less drastic differences between “sober” and “drunk” personalities, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological ...
The person under the influence of alcohol changes personality through lower inhibitions and loss of coordination. Alcohol is a frequent substance used with others, such as marijuana, cocaine, and benzodiazepines.
Your personality can change when you drink due to alcohol's effects on the brain. When you consume alcohol, it is quickly diffused into your bloodstream, reaching your brain within about five minutes. As your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) rises, the effects of alcohol on your personality become more pronounced.
While under the influence you'll probably act differently, but that doesn't mean drinking reveals who you really are. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, leading you to act more impulsively and care less about how others adversely regard your behavior.
“A drunk mind speaks a sober heart” is a saying often attributed to French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau, himself quite a drunk. The idea is that when we are drunk we lose our inhibitions and allow ourselves to verbalize our true thoughts and feelings, bringing our true personality traits to light.
But, the most important question here is - do drunk people mean what they say? The simple answer to that is, yes, they do. Alcohol is not a mind-altering substance, like some others. It doesn't put in an alternate state of mind where we hallucinate, or experience extreme moods.
While alcohol does make you tell the truth in most cases, people can still lie while under the influence. Context can help determine whether someone who's drunk means what they say. Negative comments and anger while drinking tends to be defense mechanisms and may not necessarily stem from the truth.
Self-control
The basis of narcissism gets centered around the ego, and addiction to drugs and alcohol often results in a person exhibiting egotistical personality traits.
"With larger doses of alcohol, not only can a person lower their inhibitions, but their emotions can also be altered," Glasner explains. This combination of decreased inhibition and increased emotion can create a perfect storm for physical affection.
Individuals with alcohol‐related disorders have a lower intelligence test score both in young adulthood and in late midlife, and these disorders, moreover, seem to be associated with more age‐related decline in intelligence test scores.
Like some other drugs, alcohol causes you to lose your inhibitions. It's very common to be much more friendly, fun or extroverted when drinking.
Patients with alcohol dependence have deficits in components of emotional intelligence. Identifying and targeted training of the individuals with lower scores in components of emotional intelligence may be effective in prevention of alcohol dependence.
A short-term effect of alcohol abuse on the brain is ethanol reducing the communication amongst brain cells. As a result, many people start to loosen up their inhibitions when they begin drinking. This leads to people saying whatever thoughts pop up in their minds that they would've normally repressed.
Experts believe the reason some people become aggressive when drunk is due to the way alcohol affects the brain. Binge drinking increases the likelihood of both becoming aggressive or angry and also being on the receiving end of someone else's temper.
“Gray area drinking” refers to a level of alcohol consumption that falls between moderate and risky drinking. Gray area drinking can describe people who misuse alcohol or struggle to control their alcohol consumption but do not fulfill criteria for an alcohol use disorder, or alcohol addiction.
No matter how triggered you may feel, or how important the issue at hand may seem, you cannot reason with someone who is intoxicated beyond the point of understanding. If you find yourself arguing with a drunk person, do your best not to engage with them until they've sobered up.
Alcohol interferes with the brain, reducing our ability to think straight or act rationally, it can cause some people to become angry. Evidence shows that while alcohol may not always be the direct cause of a person's aggressive behaviour, it is often a contributing factor, and some people even become violent.
Conclusions: Empathy (both cognitive and affective) is significantly reduced in alcohol dependence.
Alcohol affects the part of your brain that controls inhibition, so you may feel relaxed, less anxious, and more confident after a drink. But these effects quickly wear off. The chemical changes in your brain can soon lead to more negative feelings, such as anger, depression or anxiety, regardless of your mood.
Substantial use of alcohol among adolescents and young adults is not only dangerous in its own right, but new research in nonhuman primates shows that it can actually slow the rate of growth in developing brains.