On Drinking.

Anyone who knows me for very long will discover that I'm a drinker. I like drinking alcohol. I really like drinking alcohol, and I think it's fine to say so. Drinking alcohol makes me feel good, it makes me happier. It makes me more emotional, I feel things deeper, more immediately, more poetically. It makes me convivial, it promotes a feeling of companionship, of love for my fellow man. It makes me want to sing, to hug people, to discuss life, to laugh. If I have twelve hours to live, there is going to be drinking for at least half of that. I actively enjoy drinking.

My father likes drinking, his father before him and probably back along that line to the dawn of civilization. There is a theory, to which I subscribe, that civilization was born because of alcohol. The nomadic lifestyle in which humanity has spent most of its time on this earth takes less work than farming. Hunter-gatherers in the Serengeti work about twenty hours a week in order to stay alive. One of the things that we forget about hunter-gatherers is that the ones who are left live in the crappiest plces to live in the world for farming. The Serengeti is a desert. Imagine how hard it was to be a hunter-gatherer on the italian coastline. Why did humanity change to an agrarian lifestyle? I mean right at the beginning, the first little step. It was beer. Beer is simple, you toss grain into a receptacle and wait. But you have to wait. You have to wait too long to stay in one place as a hunter-gatherer, you will exhaust the food supply. You can't leave the beer, it will get stolen as every mammal loves alcohol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNka9369t6Y so you have to guard it. You spread seeds around while going through this process, weeding out the non-food plants. You send out groups to get food from elsewhere and bring it back to a settement. Beer is the raison d'etre of civilization.

The drinking of alcohol is nearly as universal in cultures as marriage. Until the last couple of hundred years the primary method of purifying water was with alcohol, a simple evolutionary contest between the dangers of intoxication and dysentery. For thousands of years nearly everyone has drunk alcohol on a pretty regular basis, we have evolved to be able to deal with alcohol. In moderation it is actually good for you health.

The cultural effects of alcohol cannot be over-stated. Without alcohol large portions of humanity (particlarly in my homeland of England, where shyness is endemic) would simply be incapable of meeting and talking to new people. Alcohol makes you friendly (at first), is there a place in each culture where a stranger is more likely to be welcomed than in a bar? Is there a firmer assurance of friendship than being bought a drink?

Clearly there are negative effects to alcohol. Some people like it so much they do it all day long, every day. Some people make stupid decisions and drive while drunk. Some people get angry and violent when drunk. My biggest problem has been an increase in honesty while drinking, and if being honest is my biggest problem, that's not so bad. But if you don't do those things, if you walk to the pub of an evening, have a few pints with some friends and then walk home then I see nothing but good as a result. The usual response from non-drinkers is that they "Don't need alcohol to have a good time." I don't need music to have a good time, but I still to listen to music because I enjoy it. I believe that non-drinkers simply aren't chemically organized in such a way that drinking is enjoyable. That's OK, but please stop thinking that wanting a drink is a sign of lacking something, the argument can be made in both directions.

In summary, drink is the cause of civilization, one of the pillars of culture and a great, great thing. There is nothing better in humanity than a local pub or bar, populated by the local community from young to old, drinking in a spirit of jovial conviviality, listening to music made by the community for the community and having a right, old natter.