Musings on Intoxication
When I was a boy, the married couple from England who lived down the street from us often quarreled when they drank too much; which seemed to be about every night. Their shouting matches were something of an embarrassment to the neighborhood and I remember their being held up as an example by my parents of the shame one can bring upon their family’s name by abusing alcohol.
Human beings seem to possess an innate craving for intoxication. Nevertheless, in many Latin cultures like the one that shaped my family’s perspective, alcohol is considered a food more than it is a drug, and wine is in particular is regarded as both art and a common facet of civilization. In other cultures, public displays of intoxication that would be viewed as shocking elsewhere are an unremarkable part of everyday life, and the relationship of people toward alcohol in these cultures seems to vacillate between the disproportionate and subsequent feelings of remorse.
I have spent hours reassuring stressed out heart surgeons and airline pilots they were not making a mistake in choosing chardonnay instead of sauvignon blanc for their dinner; these masters of responsibility who literally hold the very lives of others in their hands fall apart at the very thought of trying to understand wine.
