For a long time, I wondered where drinking started in society and why. Of any activity to do when hanging out with friends... why did mankind pick drinking?
...because it's fun. ...done. ..ha.
There are a lot of fun activities, though. Many activities feel just as good. My question was always that, of all of those activities, we picked drinking?
It's definitely not new or confined our culture. Alcohol's been here since the beginning. The Egyptians first brewed beer. The Greeks loved wine so much that they devoted a God to it. Since the advent of our modern mind, we've been finding ways to alter it.
And therein lies the answer. Our minds are bullshit! haha. We can't stand them. Most of the time, we don't notice that the voice in our heads is talking, let alone what it's actually saying or emoting. We think that this voice is who we are, but really it's the mind trying to keep the attention of some other part of us... implying there's something to a person beyond his or her mind...(consider that)
Alcohol suppresses our thinking. It shuts up that voice in our heads. We stop analyzing the situation, comparing it to past events, and generating emotions to motivate our actions for continued survival (the subconscious is busy). Fear and anger fade... we stop worrying... and we're left with the present moment, whatever part of us is outside our thoughts, and the people we have around. ...And a certain joy comes out of that.
It's that joy we're really after. We think it comes from the alcohol, but really it's always in us. It just needs to be let out. And I've come to realize that we don't need drinking to do that. That voice can stop on its own (with practice), and what's left feels like a really good conversation or a hard set at the gym.
