I started this as a response to Lucy and AnnaZed in the comments of the latest “Keep Coming Back,” but I just couldn’t shut up, so I turned it into a post. — ftg
Of course, drunkenness impairs people’s judgment and impulse control, so there’s a solid correlation between drunk driving and alcoholism. But the two — chronic drunk driving and alcoholism — seem to me to be such vastly different things. Making dangerous decisions every time you’re drunk is not the same thing as being alcohol dependent.
People do what they’ve given themselves permission to do, knee-walking drunk or not. I know that seems harsh and maybe unreasonable, because I’m sure we’ve all done things drunk (pick fights), hungover (call in sick and eat Cheetos and Gatorade all day in front of Jerry Springer), or because we wanted to drink ( lie, treat family like shit), that we never, ever would have done sober. At the same time, though, there are things we would never do, no matter how drunk we got, because we just don’t have permission to do them. Continue reading National Conscience
