# In vino veritas, do drunks tell the truth?



## heidita

I suppose the story of Mel Gibson's drunk driving experience has gone around the world. He is not only accused of drunk driving but having uttered anti-semite language.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/mel_gibson/index.html?excamp=GGGNmelgibson


Now, he was declared to be far too drunk to drive and his blood test showed that the amount of alcohol in blood was far above the permitted.
Is he to be taken seriously? Was he simply drunk and didn't know what he was saying? Or did he say just what he meant because he was drunk?



Se debe de sacrificar a una persona por decir algo en estado de evidente embriaguez? 

Los borrachos y los niños siempre dicen la verdad.

Es eso cierto?


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## GenJen54

He has made other remarks, anti-gay and anti-women, in media interviews, when he was supposedly perfectly sober. 

My guess is the alcohol helped him "let loose" a bit, as it were.


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## modus.irrealis

That's an interesting question, and you often here people say that being drunk let's the real you come out, but I'm not so sure. Why isn't the judgement you have when you're sober not part of the real you? Maybe being drunk exposes more of your "psychology" (for lack of a better term) and the way (part of) your brain reacts -- in this case, maybe it shows that anti-semitic remarks pop into Gibson's head (maybe as the result of growing up where such comments were normal, if you consider some of the things his father has said), but that doesn't necessarily make him anti-semitic. To decide that, I think you'd need more than drunken ramblings, and I'd give more weight to what he says when sober (although official apologies when he doesn't want to risk the bottom line of his movie ventures are also not the best evidence). So my answer to your question is I don't know, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.


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## french4beth

No - when you're impaired, anything goes (and sometimes does). Most people feel less inhibited when drunk, but I don't think that means that what they're saying at the time is true.  I mean, how many people say "I love you" at 2am, and have no recollection of it the following day?  How many times have you heard a drunken friend say (as they're hugging a toilet) "I'll never drink again" yet they're in the same predicament the following weekend?

People lie all the time whether they're stone cold sober or under the influence of alcohol, or any other drug (legal or illegal).

Lesson to be learned: if you're going to drink, don't drive (what, Mel couldn't afford a driver?).


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## Etcetera

I've never been drunk, or at least drunk enough to loose my ability to think what I'm saying. 
Generally, everyone may say something stupid occasionally, and then feel ashamed of it. But I don't think the case is the same with drunken people. There's a nice saying: What the sober man thinks, the drunkard reveals.

But I don't know much about Mel Gibson, so I'd like to sign my name under Modus.Irrealis's words:


> So my answer to your question is I don't know, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.


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## heidita

french4beth said:
			
		

> No - when you're impaired, anything goes (and sometimes does). Most people feel less inhibited when drunk, but I don't think that means that what they're saying at the time is true. I mean, how many people say "I love you" at 2am, and have no recollection of it the following day? How many times have you heard a drunken friend say (as they're hugging a toilet) "I'll never drink again" yet they're in the same predicament the following weekend?
> 
> People lie all the time whether they're stone cold sober or under the influence of alcohol, or any other drug (legal or illegal).
> 
> Lesson to be learned: if you're going to drink, don't drive (what, Mel couldn't afford a driver?).


 
Beth, I certainly couldn't agree with you more. You have certainly hit the nail on the head. 

I really believe that people do not think what they say when they are drunk
or at the given  time they even might, but then it is not their_ real_ opinion. 
In Germany people often offer you the personal "du - Form" which is only used among family and close friend, when drunk. My  mother used to give me the good advise, never address anybody with "du" who told you so drunk. They will not even remember. I am quite surprised Mel Gibson can actually recollect what he said

And yes, why in heaven did he not have a driver?


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## maxiogee

As an alcoholic I can speak with some knowledge. Just as some people say injudicious things when sober, so too do people who are drunk.
However, I don't believe they are more prone to truth than their abstemious fellows. I was an incorrigible and inveterate liar when I had a few on. The "tangled webs" were whopping and difficult to maintain.
Maybe they reveal things which are deeply felt and hiding this may well have been gnawing at them - awaiting a chance to reveal it. In some people I know anger is as good a tongue-loosener as drink. Desperation can do it too.

So, just because your friend/father/sister was drunk when they said X, that doesn't mean it was true.


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## mytwolangs

Hmmm so this debate is not just on ogrish.
Mel just did this shit to distract from the issue of his drunkeness while driving. Publicity stunt is all it is.


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## danielfranco

I have been drunk enough to pass out stone cold. In many ocassions, as a matter of fact. But never drunk enough not to remember EVERYTHING that went on, or what I said, or whether or not I meant to say it, or how I ended up sleeping in beds that are not mine.
So I don't believe it when people say, "I wuz sooooo wasted, dude... Who did I do last night?", or "I didn't mean to call you 'beaner', really!"
But maybe I'm different from the rest of the world, eh? Maybe Mel and I are different kinds of winos, no?


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## Juri

Have respect for the  dead...languages: In vino verita*s!!*


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## panjabigator

Well, I have never lied when intoxicated!  But Beth makes a good point...there have been plenty of I Love you's said... hehe

I tend to speak my mind more so when I am drunk, but I also would inform someone I am lying (if I am) because I cannot lie at all...I'd feel bad!


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## Brioche

Actually, the correct Latin is
_in vino verita*s*_

and_ Do drunk*s* tell the truth?_


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## ireney

Well, what is impaired by drinking too much is your judgement.

For instance, you _think that you feel_ that you love a person in that state and you don't even have enough brain cells working to stop you from yammering.

You think that an insult is very grave and you smack a guy.

It's not as if you will say and do things that you would do when not intoxicated but you will never say things that you haven't thought and believed in one extend or the other when sober. You will probably exaggerate in your reactions/words but I would never i.e. say something like what M.G. said since I don't believe it. On the other hand, I am not above saying something like "all men are scum" since similar yet less generic and radical thoughts _have_ crossed my mind __


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## Everness

Mel doesn't need to get wasted to exude his anti-Semitism. Just watch his "Passion."


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## Juri

What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.


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## Fernando

I have watched "Passion" and I do not see any anti-Semitism.

He should have apologize for driving when drunk. That is the worst part to me.

Turning to the point, I have not been so drunk to not remember something I did (I ever doubt such thing is real or just a disguise of wht the drunk did).

When I have drunk (not so far to be embriagated) I have done things I would have not done without alcohol.


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## Everness

Fernando said:
			
		

> I have watched "Passion" and I do not see any anti-Semitism.



_Gibson’s problem is a matter of degree. Whereas Zeffirelli and others have emphasized that Jesus had allies among the Jewish priests, Gibson repeatedly suggests that, without their insistence, Pilate would never have agreed to the Crucifixion._

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4360578/

By the way, getting drunk --Gibson's other problem-- is also a matter of degree...

Ah, apparently Mel didn't get the memo from the Vatican. Pope John XXV in his well-known Nostra Aetate, cleared the Jews of today from the guilt of killing Jesus, demanding that Christians treat them well.


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## hohodicestu

danielfranco said:
			
		

> I have been drunk enough to pass out stone cold. In many ocassions, as a matter of fact. But never drunk enough not to remember EVERYTHING that went on, or what I said, or whether or not I meant to say it, or how I ended up sleeping in beds that are not mine.
> So I don't believe it when people say, "I wuz sooooo wasted, dude... Who did I do last night?", or "I didn't mean to call you 'beaner', really!"
> But maybe I'm different from the rest of the world, eh? Maybe Mel and I are different kinds of winos, no?


 

Believe it or not, I’ve never been drunk. So I don’t really know if people can remember things when they are at a high level of the influence of alcohol; but my friends always say that they don’t remember what they say or do when they are very drunk.  So Daniel are you sure you can recall stuffs that you do when you are drunk? Everything or part of it?
 
Thanks.


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## Fernando

Everness said:
			
		

> _Gibson’s problem is a matter of degree. Whereas Zeffirelli and others have emphasized that Jesus had allies among the Jewish priests, Gibson repeatedly suggests that, without their insistence, Pilate would never have agreed to the Crucifixion._.



Well, if I read the Gospels, I do not see much support to Christ and I do not see the film focuses on Jewish (priests or not). Zeffirelli is (apart from boring to death) far from accurate.



			
				Everness said:
			
		

> Pope John XXV in his well-known Nostra Aetate, cleared the Jews of today from the guilt of killing Jesus, demanding that Christians treat them well.



I am sure the Jews are not the only gilt of Christ's death.

Laus Deo, we have not had to wait until a future John XXV. John XXIII did the job before.


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## GenJen54

Mod Edit:  Let's please get this topic back on track.  The subject of this thread is not Mr. Gibson's anti-semetic views, it is whether or not drinking breaks down inhibitions to such an extent that the "truth" comes out.



> Is he to be taken seriously? Was he simply drunk and didn't know what he was saying? Or did he say just what he meant because he was drunk?



Thank you.


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## heidita

Juri said:
			
		

> Have respect for the dead...languages: In vino verita*s!!*


 
I heard the sentence on TV pronounced by an Italian, possibly in Italian you should add the *s, *too?


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## danielfranco

hohodicestu said:
			
		

> Believe it or not, I’ve never been drunk. So I don’t really know if people can remember things when they are at a high level of the influence of alcohol; but my friends always say that they don’t remember what they say or do when they are very drunk.  So Daniel are you sure you can recall stuffs that you do when you are drunk? Everything or part of it?
> 
> Thanks.



Well, you haven't missed much, really. Glad for you, actually. But if you ever change your mind, just give us a call! 
No, seriously, to my eternal chagrin and shame, I ALWAYS remember everything that went on until I simply pass out. Now, if people could stop scribbling on my forehead with a permanent marker, this would have had a happy ending...


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## Brioche

heidita said:
			
		

> I heard the sentence on TV pronounced by an Italian, possibly in Italian you should add the *s, *too?


 
The Latin is _In vino veritas_,
I suppose the Italian would be _In vino verità._ (with accent, please!)


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## Juri

In Italian can be of course _nel vino c'e' la verita'_. In the original Latin is "In vino veritas".


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