CONTENTS

• PART 1 : UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVES FOR ALCOHOL USE
  
  • Intoxicants as symbols and rituals
    
  • Intoxication as alibi for performances
  • Intoxication as alibi for actions
    
• PART 2 : CONSCIOUS MOTIVES FOR ALCOHOL USE
  
  • Are intoxicants magical substances?
  • Do illigal drugs have pleasant effect?
    
  • What are the psychological effects of alcohol?
    
  • The chemistry of "getting high"
    
  • Do alcoholic beverages taste good?
  • Research on motives for intoxicant use in perspective
    
  • May conventional wisdom be changed?

Intoxicants have symbolic and ritualistic significance and they are widely used to provide excuses for social inaptitude, poor performance and bad behaviour. The book is also describes how the subjective influence of alcohol and other drugs, and behaviour they allegedly induce, can be changed by undermining widely held beliefs about their effects.

It substantiates the emerging view that the “Magic” or “Pleasurable” experiences commonly ascribe to alcohol and other drugs have little to do with their chemical action.

Having a glass of wine is so nice and cozy?

A lot of people say that they drink alcohol because it is so nice and cozy. WHY is a glass of wine or beer nice and cozy? Do inherent properties of the beverages or of alcohol generate a cozy mood? Does the total abstainer fail to achieve such cozy feelings?

A women married to a Chilean refugee, recalls from the first time they were together: to have a good time on the table, made pizza and served red wine in tall glasses. Full of expectations , she looked at her friend. But for the poor Chilean, no special feeling ensued. At the sight of the table, he felt nothing at all!

Why did this plot work so well for the women and not at all for the man from chile?

Symbols generate moods.

We do not observe things as objectively as we link to think. Our perception and understanding of an object is often little influenced by its innate properties. We have learned of the object in our cultural surroundings and our learning biases our perception of it. Therefore, our subjective impression of the object differs from its objective characteristics.

“Symbols are not always identified as symbols”