How to Be Intoxicated

There was another enjoyable article from The Chronicle about alcohol which was posted here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683034 (No knowledge of Greek tragedy required.)

I am about to graduate from college. I think it is sad and a bit weird that the majority of people I know here don't seem to see intoxication as similar to "being on the edge of a knife". I think most people (who are sociable and drink) view alcohol as an always-positive thing. Only when people have close personal experiences to the dangers of alcohol (or any other drug) do people seem to understand the magnitude of what intoxication can do to a person.

The article resonated with my personal experience. Drugs effect people differently, and while alcohol is nice to me I have seen it do bad things to people I care about. It really bugs me when people think "x is harmless", for any drug (including weed but especially psychedelics), because in their experience they've only seen the good outcomes.

In any case, slow articles and drinking wine pair well.

I very much miss the style of writing in which the entire point is given in the first paragraph. The remaining paragraphs then expose the story. I was taught that way and it makes it easier to understand what to pay attention to.

Writing in this style has come into vogue. It begins like NPR stories, with no foreshadowing, just a large number of mysterious statements like, "It's 3 am. I'm hearing tinkling sounds. John Wayne had several unusual hobbies. 80s arcade games had references to screen doors." Then, they pile on details until eventually, you hope, a point emerges.

I have no idea what parts are relevant and which parts are merely building suspense!

Any college with a non-religious/ideological bent already teaches "responsible drinking" and has done so for decades. But as the author notes, it's a lesson that's taught outside of the context of classrooms and professors, and is instead usually relegated to a cheesy hour-long seminar and accompanying workshop at the beginning of the fall semester.

What colleges fail to do, in the author's eyes, is address the deeper questions about intoxication. He's not talking about teaching freshmen to "never let a stranger pour your drink", or "limit yourself to one drink per hour", he's talking about teaching students to think about what it means to be intoxicated, why we do it, what we're seeking from it, and how it affects us.

Liberal arts curriculums ask students to ponder these questions in the context of socioeconomic structures, race, politics, religion, art, literature, and history, but not intoxication.

The reason the author digs into the symbolism and themes in The Bacchae isn't so he can have a pretentious backdrop in arguing for a realistic approach to college drinking; it's to show us what it looks like when someone really tries to stop and think about humanity's relationship with intoxication.

So, while I'll agree that this article isn't the best-written one I've read, I do like its style. But, since yours is currently the top-most comment, I'll assume that I'm in the minority. And, that's ok.

I would classify the piece as slightly overwrought. The author could have done just a bit more to rein in the flowery language, but as is, I found it thoughtful and engaging. The key insight is buried at the bottom of the essay, but once you can pull it out, the rest of it makes sense.

One should learn how to read this stuff. The Internet has kind of forced everyone to adopt specific writing practices that suit the ephemeral nature of the medium, and that's really a shame. I remember when I read Pride and Prejudice, once I was able to get used to Austen's style, I really enjoyed it. I certainly would not have wanted to read a modern rewrite that just got to the damned point already.

Perhaps Euripides is an even better thinker and writer. But I wouldn't have known it without the author's explanation.

That's how I remembered the quote, copy-pasted from the wrong source.

Some people do not take drugs to avoid reality. They take them to explore it. What one has to realize is that the experience we call "reality" is only a subjective image created by our minds. There is a chain of filters applied to everythings our sensors (eyes, ears, skin and so on) register. Drugs are able to influence those filters. Hence one might be able to see "reality" from a different point of view.

(Disclaimer: I've never taken any drugs besides light alcohol and caffeine use and some medical stuff, but that doesn't mean I can't spot the obvious contradiction here.)