Why We Drink
If you are below 18, please leave this site. If you are 19 to 99, please indulge with care.
This is not meant to advocate drinking but doctors did say that it is good to drink a little for better health. These are just some wise cracks from people which may have some truths in it. It is meant for cackles.
Why do people drink? Why do some drink so much? Do we really need a reason to drink? I remember some folks who got so turned off by drinks but now they seemed oblivious to the fact that they had to be coaxed into drinking at one time. Was it because your parents abuse you when you were young like refusing to give you some wine or locking up the liquor cabinet? How can anyone who gets so close to paradise and then turn their back? Can you trust anyone who doesn't drink or trust those who do? Do you do so to get that euphoric sense of omnipotence?
Some folks only drink during celebrations and because they are such optimists, they begin to think that everyday is a celebration. Some do so not because they have to forget or escape as they can't handle real life but they feel that whiskey is the key that sets the monkey free.
"I drink for that larger than life feeling. The feeling you’re hogging all of the fun from the night. Alcohol can get you in touch with that primal beast and make you feel truly alive. That feeling somewhere around drink number three, where the pain and annoyance of life fades away, and you just want to laugh because you are right where you need to be, with your friends, on top of the world". — Nick Smith, lead singer of Barstool Messiahs.
Man being reasonable, must get drunk. The best of life is but intoxication. —Lord Byron, English author, poet.
Some go to church, some drive their RV’s to the Grand Canyon and hold their chunky middle-aged wives close as the sun sets majestically, but for us drinkers religion is just one glass away. You see all the things in the universe that could have occurred by chance rather than by creation. There is no way that by just sheer random luck humans and plants could conspire to produce such lovely and wonderful chemicals that when imbibed it effects our brains in just the right way to give us a damn fine religious experience. —Ben Bornsztajne, writer.
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.—Tom Waits, musician.
With every drink I’m building a bridge between me and the people I like, and erecting a wall between me and all the vampires that would suck me dry. By my third drink I’m surrounded by friends, and no banker, lawyer or ex-lover can penetrate that fortress. It’s happened to you—life and all its television, newspapers, politicians, backstabbers, liars and murderers fill your mind with carnage, your muscles with acid, your blood with black bile. Things a sober mind cannot muster the courage or wisdom to face. Alcohol jars loose these demons and gives you the strength to face them, to embrace them, to erase them.—Luke Schmaltz, lead singer of King Rat, MDM staff.
If penicillin can cure those who are ill, Spanish sherry can bring the dead back to life.—Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin.
I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.—Frank Sinatra, entertainer.
During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity.—Edgar Allan Poe, U.S. author.
In a world where there is a law against people ever showing their emotions, or ever releasing themselves from the grayness of their days, a drink is not a social tool. It is a thing you need in order to live. —Jimmy Breslin, journalist, author.
A man who doesn’t drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man. —Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian author.
The use of intoxicants is one of the distinguishing marks of the higher types and races of humanity.—Winston Churchill, statesman.
After the muscle-shocking sessions we drank wine and beer and got drunk and carried on like the old-time weight lifters back in the 1800s or early 1900s. We got into this trip that we were gladiators, male animals. We swam naked out in nature, had all this food, wine and women; we ate like animals and acted like animals. Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.—Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor.
Alcohol is one of the most heavily taxed products you can buy. I love my country and buying liquor is the most cost-efficient way to give it money. —John Beebe, patriot.
It isn’t because I want to forget, I don’t want to forget anything. Although on a good night I might forget everything. And I don’t drink because I had a rough day, either. I don’t drink for alcohol’s anesthetic properties. I drink because it’s damn good fun. If the future doesn’t exist (and it can’t, by the way), and the Past serves only as biased, inaccurate fuel for memory, then there can only be the Present—and drinking keeps me feeling rooted in this moment. Boozing reminds me that there’s more to life than pointless careerism. I do it as often as responsibility allows and would encourage all the tight, bottom-line oriented, quota-meeting f**ks I’ve had the misfortune of meeting to do the same. In a perfect world, drinking would be embraced as the beautiful, centering experience it is. —Jef Kopp, tattoo artist.
Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing. —Gilbert Keith Chesterton, British author.
I drink because it gives me something to do while I’m waiting for my next drink.—Wiggy Delicious, drag queen.
After the White House, what is there to do but drink?—Franklin Pierce, American President.
Sometimes too much drink is barely enough.— Mark Twain, American novelist.
Drinking provides that delightful, numbing effect while easing my misery, worries and regrets, even if it’s just for a night or three. Alcohol is a therapeutic device. With booze as a hammer I am able to pound the unbearable weight on my shoulders deep into the pit of my liver. —Mike Mayhem, bass player for Buck Wild.
Be always drunken. Nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.—Charles Baudelaire, French poet.
Not for a love that has died, or some such passionate nonsense, but simply because, night after night, it’s the fastest way to get to temporary oblivion, and the space it brings. It’s not a one-way trip after all. It’s just a trip. —Carlo Cordova, reporter.
People tell me, ‘Oh, you just drink to escape your problems.’ Well, no shit. I’d eat rat heads if it took away my problems. —Fred R., panhandler.
We drink because we can die a little bit, be a little bit dead, dull the senses and let the spirit take us. And frankly I think hangovers are great, too. Good time for decision making. —John Lewis, website designer.
When I’m really amped up I drink to calm me down and when I’m really down I drink to amp me up and I drink during the in between times because everyone knows the middle of the road is the most dangerous place to be. —Jake Gold, DUI attorney.
A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world. —Louis Pasteur, French scientist.
Here, drinking, I deliberate, I reason, I resolve and conclude. After the epilogue I laugh, I write, I compose, I drink. If drinking could write, writing would drink. —François Rabelais, French author, evangelist.
Drinking blows my brains out. It blows out all the crap in my head and allows new and better ideas to seep in.—Michael Chan, artist.
It’s a bravemaker. All men know it. If you want to know a man, get him drunk and he’ll tip his hand. If I like a man when I’m sober, I can hardly keep from kissing him when I’m drunk. This goes both ways. If I don’t like a man when I’m sober, I don’t want him in the same town when I’m drunk. —Charles Russell, cowboy artist.
I’m a naturally high-strung person and am normally terrified of meeting women. A little booze greases the rails for that uncomfortable first meeting. I don’t care about rejection, I’m at ease. Later it will carry me through the nasty break-up. To twist a phrase from a pothead friend of mine, “Booze will get you through times with no money better than money will get you through times with no booze.” And when times aren’t tough, it’s damn good, no—wonderful—to have around.—Frank Bell, journalist.
When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have the second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there’s no holding me.—William Faulkner, novelist.
I drink because I want to make the world like when I’m writing. When I’m hepped up and typing, I’m in control, I can do whatever the f**k I like to these people on my page. Drink makes the world seem like that all the time. —Dirk Allen, novelist.
When I’m sober I’m shy, self-conscious and miserable. When I’m drunk everyone loves me. I’m happy, confident and a damn good sport. Does that make me shallow or weak? Who cares, people love me!—Dottie Mitchell, via the internet.
The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards—confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love. —Pete Hamill, writer.
The greatest joys I have experienced while drinking come from the friendships I have made during a stint at a bar. Consider asking a co-worker, new acquaintance or old friend if they would like to sit at a small table in a dank smoky room and talk for six hours straight. The answer will probably come with a strained look and a snarl. But change the question to “Wanna go to a bar?” and the answer will be a resounding “Yes, what a great idea!” When else does one take the opportunity to sit down and really explore the thoughts of a cohort? By the end of round five an acquaintance can transform into a friend. It heightens my emotions, it makes an awkward situation tolerable, the dull seem interesting, the ugly beautiful and it makes me more pleased with myself. It doesn’t necessarily make me more pleasurable to others, but that is why I’ll buy my friend a drink.—Blake Harrison, Coloradans For Alcohol Choice.
The secret of drunkenness is that it insulates us in thought, whilst it unites us in feeling.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet, philosopher.
I like the trappings of imbibing, the company it keeps—the restaurants and cafes and bars and the people who gather in them. And I drink, frankly, because I like the glow, the softening of hard edges, the faint anesthesia. I like the way my mind races, one zigzag step ahead of logic. I like the flash flood of unexpected utter joy that courses quickly through me between this glass and that one. —Coleman Andrews, author.
I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well-being that rum does? Modern life is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief. —Ernest Hemingway, American novelist.
Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where. —Omar Khayyám, Persian astronomer, poet.
The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he designed anything for, that use it should always be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said “Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with,” and it must be so. —Native American Chief Red Elk.
Trivial conversations become compelling. Whatever music playing seems really good. There’s no quicker way to get rid of stress and forget problems. And I can’t deny that for all the foolish the absurd things I do, later it can all be completely and satisfactorily justified in everyone’s mind with these four words: “Hey, I was drunk.” That works especially well if I can’t remember what it was I did.—Andy Meyer, academic.
Show me a man who doesn’t drink and I’ll show you a man who knows exactly where he’s going in life—right down to the moment they stuff him in that ugly little hole in the ground. If you know exactly where you’re going and know exactly how you’re getting there then you are already there—in the hole. The shortest line between two points is a straight one, and I intend to put as many kinks in that line as humanly possible. And what better than alcohol to expose the grander map and lend the confidence to take those strange trips down side alleys sober eyes would never see. When we’re drunk we are no longer in the gray lockstep toward the prison of death—we are brilliant, resilient men who will assuredly find our fortunes, we will pluck them out of thin air because we are pure-hearted and willing to take chances. See, that’s the true beauty of alcohol. It feeds you the beautiful and shimmering dream, then has the grace to hammer you unconscious before you can realize it is all a monstrous and terrible lie. Also, I like the taste. —Frank Rich, MDM staff.
Note: These wise cracks are probably from drunkards so do not emulate them.
Credit: Drunkard.com
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