Tutorial: Drunk vs. Depraved

Mark Foley is off to rehab, to join Bob Ney and Mel Gibson. This seems to be developing into standard operating procedure for every publicly disgraced figure, and if that's going to be the case, I think we'd better get something straight about booze and behavior.

We are all familiar with the drunk email. Let's be honest, we've all done it. You know -- a late night, the easy access to the computer, the email you don't remember sending but that ruins the next day as its awful repurcussions become clear. For a while there, I had an even worse habit: the drunk Amazon. I would go out for drinks after work, come home, go on the computer and, because I was way too wise to email anyone, having learned that lesson the hard way, I'd go on Amazon.com and buy stuff. I can so vividly recall that sick feeling of coming home a few days later to find an unexpected, unremembered package on the front porch. That pit in the stomach. That "oh shit" moment. What the hell is in that box? What have I done?

In the box was almost always music. Punk music, to be specific. I've never liked punk music, but I've always wanted to be the kind of person who was literate in punk music. Someone familiar with the Sex Pistols' finer moments. Someone capable of distinguishing between the Sex Pistols' finer and lesser moments. Someone who would voluntarily listen to The Hives, even if no one was there to see it. Someone cool. Hence, the drunk Amazoning, and the shelf of unopened CD's, and the regrets.

But here's the thing -- when you drunk email, you email someone and tell them something a little too true. When I used to drunk Amazon (I've managed to quit, thank god), I ordered stuff I want but would, in sober mind, decide against. All of which is by way of saying, there are things that no number of Sidecars could get me to do. A short list:

1. Blame the Jews for all the wars.
2. Call another human being "sugartits".
3. Accept illegal kickbacks in exchange for earmarks to Indian tribes.
4. Go on any kind of trip with Jack Abramoff (and especially not a golf trip).
5. Engage in cybersex with teenagers.


I would not do these things because I have no desire to do them at any time. For the last time, alcohol doesn't make you do things you don't want to; it persuades you to do things that you would ordinarily think better of. The desire is in you -- you just wouldn't usually act on it. Booze didn't make Mel Gibson a bigot; it just let him act like the bigot he already was. Ditto for Bob Ney being a crook. Ditto for Mark Foley being a perv. In vino veritas, my friends.

Of course, I don't buy for a hot second that Ney or Foley is actually a drunk. Even Gibson is only a maybe. This is all public relations, and it's really insulting for these people to suggest that alcohol rehab is going to fix their moral failings. It's insulting precisely because it's so gutless -- if they were serious about pretending that a controlled substance was the root of their problems, they'd go to rehab for crack addiction. Now, that I'd believe -- that shit will make you do anything.