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CALIFORNIA, United States?I still remember the very first time I got drunk. I was about 14, and foolishly, recklessly, downed one glass after another of Ginebra gin (also known as gin bulag) with shrimp crackers as pulutan.
I was wasted within a couple of hours, throwing up in my high school classmate?s living room. My friend?s house was within walking distance from my own home in Cubao. But I remember hearing one of my classmates say, ?We can?t just leave him like this. We have to take him home.?
And they did.
They even helped me with an alibi for looking like a wreck, yelling out as I staggered into our house, ?Good basketball game, Boying. Don?t play too hard next time.?
I didn?t get in trouble, and, like any typical Pinoy, even got better at drinking. The inuman, the drinking session, after all, is part of our way of life.
Ah, and there?s nothing like it. The spirited conversation, the hearty laughter. Of course, there?s the pulutan?roasted pusit or panga ng barile, or the tasty (and surely deadly) sisig. (I was still a smoker then, so I have to mention cigarettes too.) And the beer bottles slowly accumulating on the table as the night wore on.
Drinking, and getting drunk, is how we celebrate, commiserate, talk about dreams, pick apart a problem, try to squeeze a bit more life out of a long tough day.
I?ve never been in a brawl, though I?ve seen my share of drunken fights and squabbles. That?s also supposed to be part of the inuman tradition. The thinking has always been that people who get drunk lose control and their sense of reality, becoming disinhibited to the point of engaging in bad, outrageous behavior, including violence.
I?ve always thought this to be the case, though that?s never been my experience.
But it?s not always that simple, according to a fascinating article in a recent issue of New Yorker magazine. The article, ?Drinking Games,? by Malcolm Gladwell, is about the work of anthropologists and sociologists who probed the psychological and cultural facets of drinking and drunkenness.
It talks about the widely held belief that alcohol ?gradually unlocks the set of psychological constraints that keep our behavior in check, and makes us do things that we would not ordinarily do.? But it?s more complicated than that, anthropologists found.
?Drunkenness is not disinhibition,? the article says. ?Drunkenness is myopia.? That is, a drunk doesn?t become totally insensitive to what?s going on around him. Instead, ?the drinker is, in some respects, increasingly sensitive to his environment: He is at the mercy of what is in front of him.?
The article cites the example of a stressed-out drinker who becomes more relaxed in a bar where he is watching an exciting football game. ?But put him in a quiet bar somewhere, all by himself, and he?ll grow more anxious,? Gladwell writes.
This theory leads to even broader insights into the impact of culture on drinking. The article tackles two communities: the Camba people of Bolivia and the Italians.
The Camba have a weekly drinking tradition, which sounds like an elaborate version of the Pinoy tagay. People gather around in a circle and take turns drinking alcohol which, by the way it was described, sounds like an ultra-powerful version of Tanduay. Participants eventually get super-drunk and simply lie down on the ground. But everything is civil. It?s a social event, a way for people to kick back on weekends as a community.
Then there are the Italians, who apparently drink more in terms of quantity, and they do so every day. Wine is part of their regular meals, including breakfast.
But while ?the Camba got drunk every weekend on laboratory-grade alcohol, the Italians ?drank wine, in civil amounts, every day.? ?The Italian example is healthy and laudable,? the article says. ?The Camba?s fiestas were excessive and surely took a long-term physical toll. But both communities understood the importance of rules and structure.?
As a father of two boys who, I fear, will likely experiment with alcohol (I hope it?s just that), I am wary of any attempt to romanticize and belittle the effects of drinking and drunkenness. But the article, which is based on decades of sociological study, raises an important point.
Society, Caldwell writes, is quick to focus on legal, medical, and moral issues related to drinking, especially when it comes to young people. ?But we are reluctant to provide [them] with a positive and constructive example of how to drink. The consequences of that failure are considerable, because in the end, culture is a more powerful tool in dealing with drinking than medicine, economics or the law.?
So true.
And for my sons, my hope is that, if they?re going to drink at all, they become exposed to the positive aspects of the drinking culture that ushered me into young adulthood. One that was generally-violence free, full of laughter and camaraderie, and where drinking buddies watch each other?s back and make sure you get home safely after a fun and friendly inuman.
