New at Reason

Jacob Sullum goes on a hypocrite-bashing bender, debunking dinks who want to blame all of their problems on the drink.

Comments

David | October 11, 2006, 9:59am | #

I guess they try to use it because the figur that most people have a least one stupid thing that they did when they were drunk and can relate. The trouble with Foley, and Bob Ney using this excuse is that the things they were doing require some thought, planning, or deviousness, and they did them repeatedly.

Being drunk doesn't help people do those things. It just makes you more likely to do things like jumping from one level to another in a parking garage or running through a bonfire on a dare. Things that if you were thinking right, you wouldn't try.

ralphus | October 11, 2006, 10:23am | #

So you're saying I'm not an alcholic, I just like having sex with fat chicks, pissing in public and getting punched in the face by strangers.

ralphus | October 11, 2006, 10:34am | #

I mean Alcoholic. I'm not really a bad speller. It was the booze typing.

Dan T. | October 11, 2006, 10:39am | #

In a way, doesn't the effects of alcohol pretty much prove that people really are not responsible for their actions?

We can all agree, I think, that the presense of a certain amount of alcohol in a person's bloodstream will cause him to behave in ways that he ordinarily wouldn't.

So if the presense of a chemical affects your behavior, then who's to say that all your behaviors are not simply the result of the chemical cocktail found in your blood and brain at any given point?

dhex | October 11, 2006, 11:10am | #

the rub is in how they got there.

and that, for me, is where responsibility lies.

kevrob | October 11, 2006, 12:40pm | #

The thing is, "I was drunk" is dead, as far as diminished capacity defenses go. I don't even think that's necessarily a bad thing. If a person isn't responsible for things he would never do sober, but that he does do when plastered, still he can be held to account for getting liquored up in the first place. "I'm an alcoholic" retreats from this responsibility one more step. The untreated alkie, perhaps unaware that he's hooked on demon rum, can be said to be less than a moral actor when he gets smashed, as he is in the grip of A Disease. Meanwhile, non-alcoholics who indulge to the point of inebriation but rarely are hit with the full impact of the law when they get caught doing something stupid while soused. If a poor soul like that has little or no record and can afford a lawyer, prosecutors may not charge to the hilt, but assessment for a drug or alcohol problem is often part of a plea deal, and mandatory counseling or treatment a condition of an otherwise soft sentence.

Criminal activity when under the influence is one of the markers for addiction, even if not every perp who offended while high is an addict or alcoholic. There are other types of abuse, like binge drinking.

Kevin
(who is neither a lawyer, an AODA counselor, nor a rummy.)

ed | October 11, 2006, 3:33pm | #

God grant me the serenity to text-message the pages I can boink; courage to forget the ones I can't; and wisdom to know the difference.