Drunk by Edward Slingerhand

Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication. 

From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows,
Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence—one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then. 

Note: If you have (or suspect) alcohol dependency issues, I'd skip this one. It's very pro-drinking, with limited discussions of the many cons we know of.

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Why I Picked It Up

I've always been curious about our relationship with alcohol—and any sort of vice or pleasure, really. I'm always reading about hedonism and aesthetics and discipline and consistency of the self: what is deepening a zest for life, and what is self-destructive in the long term? What's the ultimate control—being able to partake in moderation, or abstaining entirely from something because it makes you less in control? The control to feel less in control, so to speak.

I wrote about this in my review of Buzzed, but I've recently been so curious about our preoccupation with substances and how we use them to regulate ourselves to so-called normal levels of whatever it is we want to be feeling. It's not just alcohol, either, but even more natural-feeling chemicals or molecules like endorphins and caffeine. When are we the steadiest? Are we ever?

Whether you think alcohol reveals a true version of yourself or you use the "I was drunk" excuse to defer accountability, all pleasure or self-medication has a purpose and can change us, which is partly why I value aesthetics so highly. And then, as a creative myself, there are so many case studies of Aldous Huxley and Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King being drunk or high when producing their most iconic works.

But we can't talk about alcohol without discussing its dark side—addiction, the blur of the senses, physical exhaustion and illness, etc,. Even frequent drinkers agree that it's poison. My own dad has been cold-turkey sober for years based on his father's alcoholism. I dabble in drinking or not based on my ever-changing ideas about what is true control — restriction and total self-awareness, or the freedom to let loose and let chips fall where they may. It's an idea reinforced by our cute lil' habit of assigning friends drunk alter egos, as if we are not constantly the same people taking ourselves along for the ride.

Anyway, I read Girly Drinks and Wine Folly within the same weekend as this one several months ago, so I was on a kick. I personally get very nervous about other substances, so if I'm participating in anything, it's probably alcohol anyway. This book investigates the "why" behind consumption in an engaging way, because I secretly have the curiosity of a toddler and want to know the reasoning behind how absolutely everything works. Drunk, overall, is more vivid (and thus more entertaining) than other similar titles.

What It's About

First, the book dissects several theories about why and how drinking really started. Evolutionarily (a theme of my reading lately), we would have adapted against it over millennia had it not served some broader purpose within our survival.

Trusting & Honesty

For one, drinking is often used to build trust because it weakens the drinker's capacities overall. Studies show that we evaluate trustworthiness within milliseconds of meeting others—and often based on warped standards. It's not rational, but it is enduring. Politically (and in business), drinking evolved as a mechanism for making deals and negotiations partly because we perhaps unfairly (and not entirely consciously) assume that those under the influence are less likely and capable of lying to us. In ancient times, those drinking when at an enemy's stronghold are less likely to attack.

Drinking reduces the activity in our prefrontal cortex, which makes it harder for each of us to lie, which is why alcohol gets its reputation as a "truth serum" of sorts. But, as the book points out, focusing on whether someone is lying has the opposite effect on our ability to detect lies, actually. We are worse at detecting untruths when we are focused on doing so (which also goes with ideas of soft-focus and indirect processing I've been thinking about lately. Drinking may be the artificial—and least valuable—shortcut to doing so.)

Ritual & Social Connection

Rituals boost social cohesion, too, as written in Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. Drinking is shown to boost your pain threshold. (If you've ever eaten it in heels after a cocktail like I have—and skinned a knee—you understand this one.)

Intoxication boosts the contagion of smiling within groups, especially groups of men. (I've always loved when guys I know get all glowy and smiley when they're a little gone, and it does feel contagious. Turns out it's biology!)

Crucially, it's the alcohol itself and not the group benefit because of its relationship to trust and incapacity knitting together social fabrics. So having a mocktail at happy hour definitely helps on a surface level to connect and establish friendships and show intention, but some of it is about the psychological bond of being mutually disarmed and vulnerable together. So it's no wonder that it's used to make fraternity brothers, coworkers, teams, military groups—you name it—feel more loyal to each other.

Let's Get It On

Drinking reduces the barrier to hooking up, which is good biologically, but men also show a vastly diminished ability to tell the difference between friendliness and flirting. Oh! And they also tend to focus more on bodies than faces while drinking. They're less discerning overall in who they take home. Nice!

My favorite fact from the book has always been that if you're tipsy or drunk, you appear physically more attractive to others (perhaps of your perceived vulnerability?) This is both a blessing and a curse for me. Sometimes, a few drinks and dances in, I'll look at myself all flushed and messy-haired in the bathroom mirror and feel so "not" together. I've always liked being sober and being able to have a better control over my presentation. So that was weirdly nice to know, but also may sway you a little more towards drinking for the aura.

Of course, all studies are an aggregate based on scope and availability, so take any psych conclusions with a grain of salt rather than a cut-and-dried prediction of all male behavior after knocking back a tumbler.

Interestingly (and horrifyingly enough), the presence of ethanol (alc) in their brains also changed men's perceptions of sexual assault. When sober—of course not. There was a separation. But when drunk, they got just as excited by rape's depiction in porn as with consensual sex. And a few other tidbits in this section that are alarming, to say the least...

Creativity & Cognition

The book talks a lot about the relationship between alcohol and your prefrontal cortex, both before and after its maturity. When the PFC matures, your decisions are more long-term (and usually more mature), evaluating short-term versus long-term benefits. That being said, your cognition is more rigid and less flexible, which is why it can be significantly easier to pick up a foreign language when you're younger, for example.

(A fun fact I learned from this book: if you were taking a French class online, or perhaps sitting down to do your Duolingo lesson for the day, a glass of wine can go a long way in helping you retain it.)

Of course, alcohol also reduces your ability to form and solidify memories, so there's a balance in how helpful it can be on that front.

Alcohol's ability to mute the stern voice of the PFC can be super helpful in creativity and lateral thinking rather than getting "stuck" in a specific mindset or pattern, which can definitely trigger breakthroughs. And its effects are magnified in groups rather than alone.

But Drinking's More Harmful Than It Used to Be

While, again, Drunk doesn't give a whole lot of weight to the flaws of alcohol and its role in our society, it does admit a few points that have made drinking more of a problem than it was in, say, the medieval ages—beyond the obvious, like easier access to three-thousand-pound vehicles or an opening a text thread with an ex who crossed your mind.

• Drinks are stronger. The invention of distillation—hard liquor—made drinking fundamentally different because we can have a whole lot more alcohol in a shorter amount of time. While Slingerhand argues that drinking is a preferred substance because you can measure the amount and dole it out exactly (versus plant-based substances or medication that does hit people differently), he admits that the strength of alcohol is a huge problem.
• People drink at home. Drinking used to be an activity more restrained to bars, pubs, and public places—so crowd behavior, tolerance, and social expectations dictated a lot more behavior. But because alcohol is so accessible, it means it's more likely to be abused. We can drink at home, and worse, we can drink alone, which cancels out a lot of the "social" benefits the book argues make alcohol important within our society.

Gen Z as a whole (which I'm technically right on the cusp of) is less alcoholic than previous generations, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves. We're feeding our dopamine intake in other ways, like with phones. We have plenty of other addictions demanding our focus, and everyone's picking their poison. We also have less access to third spaces that don't involve alcohol or spending money, which is another factor affecting our emphasis on bars or getaways.

You might be doing Dry January, or opting for low-ABV liquors hitting the market, or all in all just thinking about family patterns or wellness culture or what-have-you more. The pilates class you signed up for at 10 A.M. on a Sunday morning is $40 to cancel nowadays (which feels criminal, but I digress.) So you can't skip because of a hangover.

Voice, Tone, Pacing, Content, etc,.

Drunk is absolutely packed with info, which can make it a lot to process. It leans into a lot of disparate thoughts, so there's always a new fun fact or angle complicating the discussion. You'll likely come up with a list (like I did) of about fifteen different subtopics or reads you want to learn about next.

In fact, I think a lot of the strength of Drunk was in the studies and references it made to broader topics like the prefrontal cortex or the deadline effect—other aspects of neuroscience, cognition, social bonding, and creativity, versus its discussion of alcohol itself. It was a great explainer of some complex aspects of brain development and, again, the purpose of pleasure and indulgence and blurred lines in facilitating some of our human processes.

Slingerhand is a philosopher more so than a biologist, so his anthropology can convincingly go in a few different directions while theorizing—reminding you not to take everything as Bible. It's rather a collection of relevant phenomena to a pervasive activity.

It could get a little dry in sections, and extremely repetitive too, but I didn't mind. Still, I do think it could have been maybe 50 to 100 pages shorter with the same value. Overall a winner though!

A Long-Winded Musing on Alcohol in My Life, at the Moment

I'd say I'm not a big drinker, but I am largely aware of it. For one, I'm in my mid-twenties, and have frequently thought about whether or not I had the traditional "be a little stupid, make mistakes, etc,." twenties experience. (No. But do I want to? I think back to college and was definitely dumb, but also was very self-possessed at any given time.) For another, my Dad's family history makes me conscious about the role of alcohol in my life so that I notice if it ever shifts for the worse. But overall, my emphasis on self-sovereignty and responsibility and productivity and all that generally makes me value other aspects of life more so than drinking—even if I sometimes veer into obsessive about the level of control I have over myself.

I wouldn't say I ever drink a ton either, but I am fundamentally a lightweight and also technically allergic to alcohol—so I don't process it well regardless. I get major flush, major hangovers, and just two or three drinks (or those with a significant amount of sugar) can absolutely knock me out the next day. It's genetic; migraines run in our family, and alcohol can be a trigger.

I hate feeling like I've wasted a morning (my favorite time of day), and drinking has also started majorly tanking my sleep quality regardless of how much or little I have. My sleep scores, told by my tracker, are remarkably different, so one rough sleep night can affect activities I like and value more—like writing or exercising or being "in the moment" versus cloudy. I hate leaving the weekend feeling exhausted instead.

I did have a major drunk texting phase during a bad breakup in college (sorry, R!) and I did notice when I was drinking to numb emotions rather than because I was feeling good, which of course made it a little more self-punishing in a bad way. I do know that if I drink when I'm upset, I'll get tired, and usually I only cry when I am deeply exhausted—so I am also a drunk crier if I'm having a rough time!

I do love the sensory pleasure of having a drink and deepening my experience in a thoughtful way. I read a lot about the senses, and taste is the most immediately related to our sense of being "in the now," the most likely to orient you within a specific moment. So I love a glass of wine and how it can section out my day in a way I value since working from home—a formal cue that I cannot work past that point. (I could, if I wanted, but it tricks my brain into being less of a workaholic.)

My senior year of college, I didn't drink at all because I wanted full control over myself at all times. And then it turned into a bit of a hardship inoculation social challenge for me. I knew so many friends who would not step foot into a specific party house unless they were "drunk enough," and I thought that was completely wild. If we're not friends enough or comfortable enough to be somewhere four years in, why do you want to go at all? I loved and gained so much confidence by being able to go into absolutely every fraternity house I wanted and hit any dance floor wildly and dead sober; my logic was that if I needed to suppress self-consciousness in order to flirt or dance or hang out with people I hadn't gotten to know yet, then I shouldn't be there at all. It definitely made me braver socially not to "need" the crutch, and I respected myself a lot for it.

But my sobriety almost went too far, at times, and there was a darker side to it. I do think that part of the reason I didn't drink around then was because I trusted others less. I trust myself way more, obviously, but literally spent the last year trying to deconstruct how intensely independent I can be.

And sometimes, I was just "party mom" to feel helpful. (Pro tip: being useful is not the same thing as being cared for.) On the flip side—if I got hammered or sick, I didn't really trust my circle enough to believe that someone would make the effort to get me home and safe, which made me uncharacteristically lonely. And then, oh God, having needed and relied on someone is so embarrassing.

Total trauma-dump personal anecdote: My junior year, I got roofied at our school-wide gala, and it was my first (and only) time blacking out. I'd had two glasses of wine throughout the entire night, had eaten dinner, drank enough water, etc,. and still went down hard. Ultimately, I woke up the next morning having gotten myself home alone and safe, but I was 1) really upset that nobody would have noticed if something had happened because no friends had checked in on me, which put me in a dark place for the rest of the semester and 2) was so, so embarrassed about the interactions anyone had with me that night. The conclusion we came to was that I'd been accidentally "bar-dropped" (an evil practice) when grabbing drinks for a group, and had probably reached for the wrong drink. Still a bad experience that messed with my sense of control for a while.

Even now, drinking around someone does indicate a deeper level of trust for me—and builds it, biologically, according to the book. Many people do see me as too intense or too serious, so being a little less rigid could go a long way in alleviating some of the friction I encounter when others find my personality intimidating.

Because fundamentally, sometimes not drinking is out of fear that I will look or say something stupid, which is a silly idea as someone generally detached from caring too much about what others think. We could psychoanalyze that more deeply, about whether the drunk idiot me is a little more "real," or whether if I do something drunk it means I really wanted to, or whatever. Still, I largely define myself by my discipline and self-possession. But it's a pride fallacy. If I like you as a friend or otherwise, I should be okay looking and feeling stupid around you too. You have to see all of me, and people can't/don't just pick you for who you are at your best (sappy.)

So drinking can be good in allowing me to become more comfortable in embracing how little I control how others interpret me at any given time, and how I don't need to correct any mistaken assumptions. (Related: I'm reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and detachment is a tricky line.)

It helps reduce the perfectionism, probably, in a healthy way. Because friends now in post-grad have seen me drunk and it didn't change their perception of me. A friend's walked me home at 2 A.M. because I was stubborn enough to want to walk from their street instead of get a ride. ("Fresh air.") Definitely stupid. Another saw me cry for the first time on a back porch after an emotional bruising. It's made us closer, I think, to finally show them vulnerability. I also love dancing, which is looser and smoother when I'm drunk, and (like many) am much more likely to actually flirt when my inhibitions are lower—which is necessary for me because I'm independent to a fault and went like four years without thinking much about dating. (It sounds bad to say I need to drink to open up, but lowering my defenses there is probably good based on how I'm wired. Plenty of people have a drink to cool the nerves before a first date, and it does take humility to put yourself in the position of looking a little stupid to someone.)

I'm probably sober for the next few-ish months more so related to my schedule than to my morality. I'm hoping to write a new draft of a book, will probably be on submission for my hopeful debut manuscript (which is a brutal process I'd rather not feed the highs and lows of), have some physical fitness challenges I'm undertaking, and generally have a lot of hobbies I'd rather devote my time to. Still, I'll go out to hang on the back deck of Stonefish or go out dancing or what-have-you. But I'm hoping the reasoning—my openness to the concept of openness—has changed.

Overall Thoughts

Again, I would maybe not read Drunk if you have a concerning relationship to alcohol because it's mainly focused on drinking's ingrained benefits. The Molecule of More does a better job addressing its drawbacks and the addiction loop formed by alcohol in the brain—why so many are so bad about saying "just one more."

It's definitely pro-alcohol and does an excellent job explaining why and how we sometimes draw lines between drinkers and non-drinkers, unintentionally or not. Enough tidbits and crossovers to other subjects made me giddy. The discussion was engrossing and sprawling, but could have delved into more nuance in arguing that alcohol led to civilization rather than civilization to alcohol.

A doable solution from the book could be to go out to the bar when you're stuck on a cognitive problem, but skip the nightcap on the couch or when you're suffering emotionally. (Common sense, but it's easy to want to suppress.) Read in tandem perhaps with a more warning-centric book about our reward systems like The Urge or The Molecule of More.

Like most indulgences, drinking makes sense most in moderation and with significant contrast to the rest of your life, and the book's value is largely in its case that it can be good to turn off your limits occasionally.

For fans of:

The Molecule of More by Daniel Z. Lieberman; Girly Drinks by Mallory O'Meara; Cultish by Amanda Montell; Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha; How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom; Wine Folly; The Urge by Carl Erik Fischer; etc,.