DRUNK ON HAPPINESS

It seems impossible to have a wild party without free-flowing beer or an open bar. Who cares if it has a scientific reason or not? People who want to get wasted don’t give a damn about the chemical composition of beer. All they know is that happiness starts when they begin to feel tipsy.

Before lithium, Elmer’s Glue, rugby, or any other mood-altering concoctions came along, liquor was everyone’s failsafe happiness-inducing substance. As the late singer Frank Sinatra said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink.When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”

But then, according to The Simpsons patriarch Homer, it can go both ways. “Beer,” he said, “is the cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems.”

Yes, there are happy drunks who amuse us with their intoxicated “performance art.” These are the people who become total idiots when the alcohol buzz kicks in. They pass out by the dog’s cage, mistake cabinets for toilets, and recite the lyrics to “Ice Ice Baby” at the top of their lungs as their friends carry them away. These people are fun. They prove that alcohol causes one to forego dignity. The stories about their hilarious drunken episodes will be passed on from generation to generation.

Then there are those who don’t handle liquor well. They’re the people who get featured as news fillers. Say, when talk of mind-boggling government issues proves too much, they cue in footages of some inebriated fools figuring in car accidents, catfights, and rumbles.

However, more extensive coverage is given to those who turn nastier. These people do more damage: stabbing neighbors who sing “My Way” off-key or assaulting people whom they think are looking at them funny. When asked what made them wreak havoc, they all answer without remorse, “Lasing kasi ako.” (“I was drunk.”)

Such violent episodes lead us to conclude that when there’s alcohol, there’s bound to be some trouble. Of course, this cautionary adage is often conveniently ignored. And no wonder. Mignon Mclaughlin, in the 1960 book The Neurotic’s Notebook, wrote: “The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol.”

In the same vein, David J. Hanson dispels the notion that alcohol is an aphrodisiac in his article “Alcohol, Sex, and Violence.” “Research has shown that men tend to become physically more sexually aroused when they think they have been drinking alcohol, even when they haven’t. Women report feeling more sexually aroused when they falsely believe the beverages they have been consuming contain alcohol, although a measure of their physiological arousal shows that they are physically becoming less aroused,” he writes.

Bottom line: it’s all in the mind. Even so, there’s hope for the horny. Dr. David Delvin, in his article “Sex and Alcohol,” asserts, “Alcohol affects people’s sex lives in many ways. We can divide its effects into ‘bad’ and ‘good.’”

The good doctor advises, “Small amounts of alcohol oil the social wheels and reduce shyness—thereby making it easier for people to meet up. A little wine or a cocktail will often make a person feel romantic or perhaps less ‘uptight’ about sex. Also, a very small ‘dose’ of alcohol can extend the time which a nervous young man takes before he climaxes—thus combating any slight tendency to come too soon.”

So, if you’re trying to convince your partner to try out that kinky sexual position involving chocolate syrup, you’d have more success if you pay homage to San Miguel.

On the flip side, alcohol paves the way for baffling couplings. When you’re drunk, you slip into an altered state. The loser who’s known to ask his partners to foot the motel bill will seem like Prince Charming. The woman who looks like a man can look like your favorite centerfold. Hands down, booze is the main reason for mortifying morning-after scenes.

Alcohol is also major cause of impotence. If you think that chugging enough alcohol to kill a Dalmatian would make you super hot, think again. Take it from William Shakespeare, who wrote in Macbeth, “It increases the desire, but it takes away the performance.”

If your head is in the right place to begin with, beer or alcohol won’t make you go nuts.

Alcohol is supposed to drown sorrows, not cause them. Then again, maybe you want to have your 15 minutes of notoriety on the evening news or you want know what it’s like to screw someone whom you’d never take home to Mama.

For the record (courtesy of Wikipedia), the basic ingredients of beer are water, a fermentable starch source, such as malted barley, and yeast. Ethanol, the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages, is produced by fermentation—the metabolism of carbohydrates by certain species of yeast in the absence of oxygen.

In his article “Do I Drink Too Much Alcohol?,” Dr. Dan Rutherford, writes: “Present advice on safe drinking is:no more than 500 ml of average strength beer per day for women and no more than 750 ml of the same per day for men.”

Rest assured, when you begin to feel the urge to act stupid, it’s time to go home—even if happy hour isn’t over yet.