Do you think being drunk is a good excuse ?

Oh yes!......NOT!

Pull up a seat love…

My ex cheated on me with my best friend when i was out of town. Their excuse “we were drunk” I have no idea why being drunk caused each others clothes to fall off and for him to accidentally trip and fall on to her and somehow his dick got stuck in her. It has to be one of the worst excuses and really ought to not be classed as an excuse at all…Utter bullshit springs to my mind.

It was bye bye to both of them…idiots!

Of course being drunk is a fabulous excuse.

However, it is not a very good reason.

Yeah.
what’s the excuse for getting so drunk and out of control though?

I would have to say that is the worst excuse, I can’t stand when people use it and expect to be let off the hook.

Lame excuse, for sure!

Only if you agree with people being drunk in the first place, in which case you should be willing to accept the consequences of their intoxicated state.

alcohol is a disease, but if it is that far and hurting you that bad…..run.

i dont date drunks anymore.

For looking like a dick? Sure. For acting like one? No way Pedro….I mean Jose.

On average, I think it’s an excuse that makes sense. So I guess I would say that it is a good excuse. That doesn’t mean that it’s always good enough. But alcohol lowers inhibitions. A lot of it can lower them a lot. And you may very well make decisions you’re barely aware of that you would never make sober. Whether the excuse is good enough is going to change each time it’s given. I would say that if the behavior is sufficiently out of character, the apology sufficiently profound and honest, and the damage is nothing that causes permanent loss, try to forgive.

What is not okay is someone giving the excuse, and EXPECTING forgiveness because of it. Rare is the situation where I think you really shouldn’t be held responsible for your actions. If this is the excuse, the person has no right to be upset if the other person won’t accept it. If they do, well…I would probably check out of that situation ASAP.

It’s a lame excuse, and what’s their excuse for getting that drunk? If someone has so little self control when they’re drunk they shouldn’t be drinking so much. Alcohol is good at revealing what a person is really like. I wouldn’t date someone who gets that drunk.

NO!! Never. Unless you were force fed alcohol against your wishes.

This one time an employee didn’t pitch up for work without any notice and his excuse was that he had a hangover. WTF.

@downtide “Alcohol is good at revealing what a person is really like.”

I would disagree with that. Part of what defines a person are their conscious inhibitions.

Having been married to an alcoholic for several years I’d have to say “no.”

no it isn’t an excuse, Alcohol isn’t a magic tonic that unmasks the persona to reveal the true personality either. Alcohol can accentuate mood and mood isn’t a constant.

It shouldn’t be a “Get out of Jail Free” card, either.

When i was younger, had a few occasions to drink too much, but always knew in my mind, right from wrong. There is no excuse for cheating.

Being drunk is a ridiculous excuse. Thankfully, I’m dating one of those wonderful people who doesn’t turn into a cheating, lying asshole when he’s drunk. He just gets extremely bubbly, cheerful and loud which is teeny bit disconcerting because he’s so quiet normally. ~

@chocolatechip: I’m confused by your first comment. Are you saying that if you hang out with someone who drinks at all, you should be expected to be treated badly and if you are, it’s your own damn fault for hanging out with someone like that?

It’s a very good excuse. Sometimes it is the only reason why something has happened. That doesn’t mean that it’s very excusable or even good grounds for forgiveness.

@jazmina88 Alcohol is definitely not a disease.

People choose to drink to excess, and are therefore choosing the consequences of their actions. They should own it.

@KatawaGrey No, that’s not what I meant. @jfos said it well.

Yep it is a good excuse for being stupid and a great reason to get their AK!

Being intoxicated is not a defense in Tennessee. and, it should not be a defense in your relationship. OOps! does not get it. needless to say, you need someone else.

Oops! i got her pregnant. run….do not walk away from this idiot.

It seems that most of the people who say “No” are claiming that being drunk is never an excuse for any stupid and harmful action. Are people generally focusing on the idea of cheating? I am reading Oops! as a hypothetical who just happened in one of the scenarios to have a real nasty mouth when drunk. So is Oops! SOL in every scenario?

It’s not a good excuse, but it’s definitely not something they would usually do sober, so it obviously changes people temporarily. I know that I change somewhat when I am drunk, even when I’m buzzed. Everyone has done something that they normally would not do sober, so if you laugh really loud when you’re drunk is that a good excuse for laughing really loud?

I don’t think it excuses what they did at all. They made the decision to drink as much as they did. With as much as we know about the effects of alcohol, making a decision to put yourself in that situation means you have to own up to what you did. Wether I would forgive the person would depend on their history. If this was the first time it ever happened, I’d be more likely to forgive than if this was the 10th time it’s happened. People make mistakes, that’s natural. What the do after the mistake and what they learn from the mistake is what matters.

I think @Seaofclouds has it right. Inevitably, I think the first question that I want an answer to whenever I hear this as an excuse is “Okay…how many times has this happened before…?”

Of course drinking is not a valid excuse. But I do agree with @Blackberry. Alcohol or any inhibition-reducing drug can cause people to behave differently than when sober.

I went through a brief drinking period in my ‘30s, and I recall driving home drunk one night, weaving all over the road. I was totally aware that I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, but I didn’t care in the least—I felt powerful and invulnerable. During that same period, I dozed off briefly while driving home from work and rammed another car. Nobody was hurt, but it scared me so badly I totally changed my drinking habits.

It’s not a good excuse, but if it’s a one time thing I’d forgive them.

@isuppose

If it was the first time, what might make it unforgiveable?

Yes. Being drunk is a good excuse, the alcohol made you do it. But, being drunk doesn’t excuse your negative actions and their repercussions.

It is NEVER an excuse. FOR ANYTHING.

@ChazMaz

So you don’t think there’s any situation where a mistake made while intoxicated should be forgiven?

I said there is no excuse.

Forgiving is another thing all together.

@iamthemob I agree with @ChazMaz – it’s never an excuse for anything at all, and i’m much more likely to forgive someone who did something while sober, than i am to forgive someone who’s done something while intoxicated. You choose to become intoxicated and therefor beforehand accept responsibility for anything you may do while intoxicated, so i agree with @BarnacleBill. Becoming intoxicated is an irresponsible thing to do, and therefor anything done while intoxicated is much less excusable.

if you cannot control yourself while drinking, you should not drink.

@NaturallyMe

Sure, it’s irresponsible. But sometimes it happens when you don’t intend it at all. And you don’t have to be BLASTED to make a bad decision while intoxicated…it’s easy to tell when you’re DRUNK. It’s sometimes more difficult to tell when you’ve maybe had a little too much. It seems a bit intolerant, therefore, to claim that it’s never an excuse for anything at all. I would be much more inclined to forgive mistakes if the person was drunk when they happened (barring those that put people at risk) than if they were sober – if they did something unacceptable while sober, they made the conscious decision to do so. I’d rather keep someone who was drunk that one time than someone who is mean, stupid, and insensitive sober.

@BoBo1946

Sure, if you have evidence that you really can’t. Unfortunately, the only way to figure that out is to get too drunk often enough and do something stupid often enough to recognize the pattern. Most of us learn when it’s time to stop by having that one time when we didn’t stop when we should have.

@iamthemob agreed….good point!

@iamthemob – I’m not tolerant of intoxicated people at all and i don’t owe them the benefit of the doubt. Intoxicated people often ruin other people’s lives and sometimes even take lives due to their intoxication.

@NaturallyMe

But that doesn’t mean that all situations where someone does something damaging while intoxicated are of equal culpability. We’re talking about someone you know, potentially, and who isn’t known for getting wasted, having an incident and then when sober trying to apologize for the fault. There’s a broad spectrum of bad behavior to consider aside from that which ends in ruin, right?

@iamthemob There are lots of unforgivable things, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re drunk or not. If someone was mean to me when they were drunk, I’d let it go. But if they cheated, it’s unforgivable either way. Just depends on the level of severity I guess.

No, it’s not a good excuse in that I’d never think ‘oh that’s okay then’ – I hate people that drink to that extent anyway.

@iamthemob Yes there is a broad spectrum, but it’s often difficult to draw the line in saying when it’s ok and when it’s not. Someone who knows how alcohol affects them has no excuse, period – if they don’t want to be held responsible for things they do under intoxication, they should stay away from alcohol, end of story. A one time accident for a first time drinker is slightly more excusable in that they may not know how alcohol affects them, but i’m not letting anyone off that easy. Everyone knows that alcohol can make you drunk, and those who choose to take it to that level where they actually become drunk are still responsible for that and the resultant actions they take that affect other people.
That being said, there are small things that can be forgivable, but things like cheating and other similar things are not forgivable no matter what. Drunkenness makes me angry because of how irresponsible people can get, and it’s all well and good to say that there are so many degrees of drunkness and so many degrees of “wrongs” to be done during intoxication, however what stops someone from crossing that fine line from doing something under intoxication that is forgivable, to doing something that ruins someone’s life forever? It’s too easy to cross this line and not even be aware of it.

So i still stand by my opinions.

@NaturallyMe

As well you should. :-) I myself don’t understand when people claim “in all cases of X” or “I would never accept Y.”

For my part, I don’t think there’s much that can’t be forgiven if forgiveness is honestly sought. It’s too much work, in the end, the other way around, and not healthy for me.

Being drunk is not a good excuse for anything. There are some things I can forgive a drunk if they apologize and take action to not affect me with drunken mishaps but cheating and abuse aren’t on the list, in my experience then verbal abuse has been a sure relationship killer.

Fact fro fiction, truth from diction. Being drunk is one of the poorest of excuses. It is tried to be used as they were unable to know what they were doing, true some people rape, kill and steal when they are drunk but most don’t, they still know not to kill another person even if they hated them while drunk. No matter HOW drunk you get most still have a point of no return, they would not chow down on a big streaming pile of dog s*** because someone told them it was prime rib eye, etc. People just abuse it to get a pass for Boorish behavior.

@Hypocrisy_Central

Legally, to some extent, intoxication is a defense to criminal liability. It seems too extreme to generalize the conditions under which and the extent to which people get drunk – a lot of factors will come into play.

I may not be responsible for acting out when I am drunk or in a blackout but I should be held accountable. I have done things I would NEVER have done sober when I was in a blackout but it doesn’t excuse it. However, don’t think that the person who wronged you was acting with all their “senses” either… had they not had their inhibitions lowered they would have acted differently. I know it still doesn’t wipe the hurt away or make it okay though.

@gravity So, would it be fair to say that there are times when it can be offered as part of an explanation for behavior, but not as an excuse?

The only thing I could think of being drunk as an acceptable excuse for is sleeping out on the front lawn, or throwing up on yourself. It might be an excuse for peeing in bed as an adult.

@Pied_Pfeffer yes, it may explain uncharacteristic or bad behavior but the action has been completed and you can’t take it back. That can suck too! It is often as devastating to the one who commited the horrible act as it is to one who may have been hurt by the act.

@gravity I agree with you on that as well.

When I was 22, I met up with my older brother and his friends for drinks and dinner on a Friday after work. I ordered a gin & tonic, and they kept replacing them. After the 3rd, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I threw up in my brother’s new BMW on the way home. He was furious, and I was mortified. He now laughs when he tells the story, and I still feel humiliation and apologize again, even after 25 years.

@iamthemob we also have intoxication as a mitigating factor in some crimes here in SA, but i find that wholly unacceptable. The defence of intoxication is even used in serious assault crimes and the like – it is just not acceptable. By doing this, the law is telling everyone that if you get drunk before attempting to commit some crime, you’ll be let of with a lighter punishment than had you been sober at the time of committing it – that is sending all kinds of wrong messages to society. Consciously getting inebriated and then (maybe slightly less consciously) committing a crime, does NOT qualify as a mitigating factor, nor a defence, IMO.

@NaturallyMe

Oh, I think it’s totally a tricky thing to deal with (legal intoxication defense) and am always concerned with its use – not actually saying anything about it. I’m using it more as an example of how a general dismissal of intoxication as part of the reason, and thereby making less culpable (POTENTIALLY :-)), is and has been accepted at a lot of levels. So one should always take it into consideration, and then they can decide whether that’s enough. Saying that it’s never an excuse precludes that, and then puts you in a position of cutting people out of your lives that were really good people who just made a mistake, or even good people that might need your help.

@iamthemob i hear ya. :) But what i think of is….sure, maybe what they did this time was a small mistake, but how easily could it have been a bigger mistake that could have cost lives? If they are only let off with a small slap on the wrist for a small mistake done due to intoxication, will that ever prevent them from doing it again, and next time the mistake may be bigger? Intoxication has a serious effect on society and innocent lives. Maybe i’m more biassed about it, but i’m not tolerant of intoxication unless it’s done in very controlled instances (ie when at home with responsible people with you and at least someone shouldn’t be drunk so that they can take the lead, so that others don’t get injured by some accidental actions of an intoxicated person).

@NaturallyMe

That sounds a little hard line, but understandably so. I am always of the mind that whatever happened cannot be looked at in a vacuum, and whether a person was intoxicated factors into how to judge what was done and how bad it was.

@iamthemob Well, when it comes to unnecessary things and behaviours that are potentially harmful to any innocents, it makes my ass twitch and i just can’t find myself able to say something in it’s favour. :)

@gravity I have done things I would NEVER have done sober when I was in a blackout but it doesn’t excuse it. Which is probably a very good illustration not go get drunk or inebriated in any capacity. That makes about as much since as smearing Vaseline over your windshield and putting bald tires on your car then racing down a winding road with 200ft drop offs on either side. You should want to be in control of your body even more so than you would your car.