Do People Actually Tell The Truth When Drunk?

It’s a common myth that alcohol is something of a modern truth serum. Anyone who’s spent time around drunks can tell you they tend to be loose lipped at best. But, are people more likely to actually tell the truth when drunk? The short answer, no. The long answer? It’s actually complex, highly dependent on the individual and depending on the situation.

Alcohol impacts the GABA receptors in the brain and the central nervous system, most noticeably affecting motor controls, inhibition and the risk/reward system. The result is that people will talk about anything and everything, respond quickly and without thought and otherwise immediately say whatever’s on their minds. This means that alcohol can make people share personal information and truths they might not otherwise share. But it can also make people fabricate stories, respond with emotions they don’t really feel, and otherwise simply react based on whatever they’re feeling in that moment. A drunk’s reactions aren’t really to be trusted. And, there’s a lot of science backing that up.

Evaluative Cognitive Control

What do you think of when you think of a drunk person? In most cases, the answer is likely to be someone with reduced inhibitions, reduced motor controls and reduced control over their emotions and actions. People are more likely to engage in crimes, casual sex and embarrassing social faux pas’ when drunk and that relates to the impairment of evaluative cognitive control.

What’s evaluative cognitive control? It’s the process of your brain where you evaluate actions and behavior based on past experiences and expectations to determine if you should engage in them or not. Alcohol slows or even stops neurotransmitter signals in the brain, slowing or even removing your ability to exercise evaluative cognitive control.

So, a sober person would experience something, compare it to past actions, and use Negative Effect, or memories linked to past negative experiences such as stress, embarrassment, or pain and choose not to do it. A drunk person lacks the ability to recall these memories or their associations and will simply perform the behavior, similarly to a child doing them for the first time. If they’re asked to say something embarrassing, have the opportunity to relate something to someone, or have decided not to say something to someone for whatever reason, the filter that caused them to make this decision may be turned off.

One of the easiest examples is that people often become very talkative when drunk. Most people learn, as children, that practicing moderation with sharing and with speech is socially beneficial. Others are shy and feel inhabitations related to fear or social pressure. Alcohol can reduce those inhibitions, resulting in people who are consistently more talkative and outgoing than their sober selves. However, alcohol often affects activities people are engaged with. People who drink on their own are less likely to exhibit reduced social inhibition in terms of talking, reckless behavior, etc.

However, alcohol affects evaluative cognitive control in different ways. One person may completely lack it, others may show little to no impairment.

Emotional Processing

As stated above, alcohol inhibits neurotransmitter signals in the brain. Neurotransmitters including GABA, serotonin, dopamine, neuroprotein and others are directly responsible for emotions and emotional responses. A very drunk person may simply be incapable of experiencing normal emotions until they sober up. They may experience emotions and be unable to tell them apart, they may experience emotions and misinterpret them, and they may simply not experience emotions except either happiness or rage.

This results in instances where drunks experience happiness and become bubbly, grief, or lust and they overreact when compared to their sober selves. So, someone may start a violent assault after someone else spills beer on them. They may go on a drunken rant and say a lot of things that aren’t true and that they didn’t think of until the moment, and they may relate truths in a fit of grief or guilt. They quite simply have very little control over emotions.