ABSTRACT
[I]f people have been brought up to believe that one is “not really oneself” when drunk, then it becomes possible for them to construe their drunken changes-for-the-worse as purely episodic happenings rather than as intended acts issuing from their moral character. So construed, not only can the drinker explain away his drunken misbehavior to himself (“I never would have done it if I had been sober”), those around him can decide, or be made to see, that his drunken transgressions ought not – or at least, need not – be taken in full seriousness (“After all, he was drunk”). We are arguing, then, that the option of drunken Time Out affords people the opportunity to “get it out of their systems” with a minimum of adverse consequences.
