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Do we tell the truth when we are drunk?

Do we tell the truth when we are drunk?

“In vino veritas” (There is truth in wine) — Pliny the Elder (24-79 AD)

A white Alabama man was recently sentenced to more than a year in prison after he left threatening voicemails to two Georgia state officials, both black, who are investigating and harassing former President Donald Trump for possible election crimes. The man left phone messages with racist and obscene threats. During the sentencing hearing, three of the man’s friends and his 19-year-old son told the judge that the defendant was a good person and that the phone calls did not reflect the person they knew. The defendant said that he had been drinking and does not remember leaving the message. He stated that he is not a racist. So when was he telling the truth: drunk or in the courtroom?

How does alcohol affect the brain?

Alcohol has four known effects on the brain: it reduces the release of the neurotransmitter glutamate in areas of the brain such as the hippocampus; this leads to memory disconnection of consciousness, which arise in connection with events occurring during intoxication. Alcohol causes the release of both endogenous opiates (endorphins) and dopamine create the euphoria that people desire. Finally, and most important to this discussion, alcohol increases the inhibitory effect of the neurotransmitter GABA, resulting in sedation, concern decline, impaired coordination, and impaired judgment. Because the frontal lobes and neocortex are generally the highest level concentration The effect of alcohol on GABA receptors significantly disables higher cortical functions.

When alcohol partially deactivates the frontal lobes, people become talkative and loose and exhibit what psychologists call “punishment behavior.” Punished behavior is usually inhibited by the frontal lobes because that behavior is usually avoided under normal circumstances. Punishable behavior includes being verbally or physically aggressive, being unreasonably rude, mean or boisterous, and talking without any attempt to filter the content. As children, we all exhibit punishable behavior, but as the neocortex matures, and thanks to warnings from our parents, police, clergy, or polite society, we learn to inhibit it. By inhibiting the frontal cortex of the brain, the punished behavior is released from inhibition.

Does all this mean that alcohol makes people more honest?

Alcohol does make us more talkative, and then our random thoughts are spoken out loud without the usual filtering provided by the frontal lobes. These words can reveal what a person really believes, but it is often difficult to understand. Alcohol often prompts people to express long-suppressed sadness or resentments that are real and usually unspoken. Under the influence of alcohol, it is common to say things that we would not normally express, whether it be long-buried fears, prejudices, or just confused ideas. However, alcohol does not affect many key aspects of our personality; for example, people don’t change their religious beliefs, they don’t change their political party affiliation, and they don’t become better liars.

Alcohol effectively loosens social constraints, allowing us to express words and behaviors that are normally forbidden when we are sober. Alcohol hardly encourages honesty; rather, it facilitates the leakage of rash statements and habitually inhibited thoughts and behaviors that are often regretted when sobriety returns. For most of us, we just hope these apologies don’t have to be presented in court.