Why We Drink
The science and history of getting sloshed in 10 points
Hi,
If you’re reading this with a head-splitting hangover from last night’s raging, this will undoubtedly provide some solace. Because today we’re going to talk about what’s always on everyone's mind: drinking.
This isn’t just about the stupid act of getting wasted, though.
It’s about taking a step back and asking: why exactly do we get drunk? Why do we continue to roll in the ethanol…and 3 hours later, our own puke?
Why do we wreck our bodies with that putrid shit despite the the promises we make to ourselves in bed every Saturday afternoon: that that was our last drinking session ever….only to repeat the insanity the very next Friday?
The answers are going to make you feel good. For years you must’ve wondered why you continue this deadly ritual apart from the simple fact that drinking is pleasurable (which is a good enough argument in itself, by the way).
Beyond that, there are even some deep, evolutionary reasons that attract us to drinking and put our senseless Friday nights into perspective. Here are 10 short, crisp points on this:
Origins: Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been brewing and having alcohol for at least 8000 years! There are various theories that explain why we may be attracted to alcohol. Some suggest that it was a great nutritional package, others say it was great for fermentation. The drunken monkey hypothesis is particularly compelling and states that over-ripe fruits start fermenting and producing ethanol. The scent of this chemical spreads far and wide, and we humans were able to follow that smell and locate nutrient-rich fruit and get high while at it. Thus, this gave humans who were able to locate these fruits a survival advantage- which probably led to positive associations with alcohol!
BBB: Many oppose these theories and work hard to debunk them. There’s an even grander idea that I’d like to introduce here: the beer-before-bread hypothesis. It asserts that as our appetite for alcohol developed, we began to take efforts to grow the ingredients so we could produce it at scale- and this led to the very foundations of our agricultural revolution. Thus, alcohol literally made modern civilization. Sounds exotic and there might be some truth to it but like all theories in life, we can never know for sure.
The 3 Cs: Enough with cool theories that can make you look real knowledgeable at the dinner table. How did alcohol really help people, so much that they’re ready to bear the deadly costs (hangovers, brawls, sexual mistreatment, accidents, health disorders, etc) that come along with drinking? Because it helps us deal with the unique challenges we face as humans. Here’s the thing: humans are born naked and helpless. We are completely dependent on others for a long gestation period and *have* to be creative, communal, and cultural (learn how the world works from existing norms, institutions, and people) in order to survive. Turns out alcohol is a great help when it comes to the 3 Cs.
Creativity: Humans progress only because they can think creatively and invent ideas/things to solve problems. As we grow, our child-like creativity & wonder gradually recedes as the pre-frontal cortex (the executive control center of the brain) gets into the driver’s seat and we fall into the typical patterns of life. We quit doing stupid things or exploring the world as a kid would, precisely because the rational, restraint-oriented PFC is in control. But the PFC can be creativity’s enemy and silencing it can have tremendous benefits. We are no longer under its strict watch and begin to think with lesser inhibitions and create more cross-connections between ideas: things that are essential to produce creative work. Experiments have indeed shown that people whose PFCs are ‘silenced’ with transcranial zapping devices do better at creative tasks than those with active ones! So as the old cliche goes, alcohol does help us with creativity.
Cultural learning: Ask yourself this: would you have known how to live life if it hadn’t been for the millions of things you’ve learned from your parents, customs, family, and the things you observed while growing? Absolutely not. We’re heavily reliant on cultural learning and spend almost 2 decades in a state of dependence as we build accurate models of how the world works and engage in cultural learning. This is unlike pigeons, who are pretty much born with the knowledge/skills that they’d have even when they grow. But as we age, we get into grooves of rigidity, and become less open to learning from new experiences and different POVs. By loosening the grip of the PFC which resists these free explorations, alcohol makes our minds more conducive, trusting, and open to such newer ideas and learnings, thereby supplementing the cultural learning muscle that’s so crucial for us to thrive in this world.
Cooperation problems: In the long arc of human history, figuring out whether the fellow in front of you is trustworthy has been a crucial survival skill- so much so that we’ve developed the ability to detect microexpressions and quickly tell if the other person is lying. We also developed ideas like shaking hands, the true purpose of which is to confirm that the person in front isn’t hiding a knife on their wrist! You see, we’re inherently suspicious apes; and it’s critical to build trust, for it is the very foundation on which all of society is built. Given that our brains always keep us alert and suspicious, alcohol has been a fantastic tool to take the PFC offline and engage in sessions of mutual vulnerability- so that we may see others for what they really are (and not the fake self they’re projecting) and thereby build trust that’ll ultimately lead to cooperation and collaboration. This is why ancient Persians would come up with policies when they were drunk (and confirm them after a sober review to eliminate the crappy ideas that we also get when we’re piss-drunk), and also why Henry Kissinger famously told Deng Xiaoping that with enough Mao Tai, they could solve any problems!
Anxiety reduction: This one’s pretty commonly known and has been experimentally confirmed with rats as well as humans. Alcohol does provide solace to people faced with chronic stressors and the reason should be obvious by now. By downregulating the PFC, which is also responsible for our constant barrage of thoughts and self-awareness, alcohol is the shortest way to get that (painful) internal dialogue box to shut the eff up. Free of the endless rumination which leads to so much overthinking and stress, drunk humans engage with the world in a fun, uninhibited manner. The same downregulation can also be achieved in a variety of other ways: meditation, running (many of us have experienced the temporary runner’s high), Sufi dancing, or prayer. But these are all high-effort activities. Or in other words, ain’t nobody got time for that crap. Ingesting 60 ml of ethanol in 60 seconds is a fast and sure-shot way to achieve the same. No wonder alcohol is almost a $2T industry.
Attractiveness: Just look at the picture below, which illustrates the point better than a thousand words. Tests revealed that people were perceived to be more attractive after a glass or two of alcohol. But more importantly, alcohol also makes us feel more attractive. One, it makes us forget about ourselves (and our crappy self-image and the anxieties about how pathetic we look), and two, it releases dopamine which also makes us feel good about ourselves. With this one-two punch, the trick is complete and we end up feeling much more confident and end up being perceived as more attractive…although, things can start getting weird after a point, as the picture once again demonstrates.
Credits: Marcos Alberti Distillation: Now that we’ve explored why drinking has evolutionary utility, there are 2 big dangers that modernity has introduced: distillation and isolation. Here’s the thing: until the last 500 years, humans have mostly had really weak alcohol (2-3% ABV). But with the advent of distillation, we suddenly have cheap and endless access to extremely strong spirits that have turned it into such a big modern issue. Our bodies evolved to handle naturally fermented and weak alcohol- not the deadly spirits which can get us totally knocked out in just a few small glasses. This is one of the reasons it has turned into a modern scourge, with 1.5-3% of the world’s population suffering from alcoholism.
Isolation: The other big problem is isolation. Throughout history, humans have devised elaborate rituals to constrain the amount and speed of consumption. The Chinese had elaborate ceremonies that had to be performed before everyone could drink, thereby controlling the pace. The Greeks had toast leaders in their parties who’d check how drunk people were and send back the wasted ones before shit hit the rooftop. They even had tiny cups so the drink would start spilling out if you got too tipsy! More than anything, drinking was a social experience- to be had with others. But now, with more and more folks drinking alone at home, there’s a real threat of things going overboard in the absence of other people to offer (useful) resistance. Combined with distillation, this is a really thorny problem that we haven’t solved yet.
That’s about it, folks.
We’ve had a pretty interesting history of consuming alcohol to solve problems of cooperation, creativity, communality, and cultural learning. When it comes to those deadly birthday parties though, nobody gives two hoots about these ideas: and we all dive headfirst into a night of outright madness.
But now that you’ve read this piece and educated yourself, I’m sure you’ll remember it the next time you raise a toast. Cheers 🥂
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Wow. Never in the wierdest dream would have thought of so many and mind-blowing reasons behind "why we drink"! 😀 Thank You for sharing.