In Vino Veritas

"A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts."
—Oliver Reed

A Latin phrase meaning "The truth in the wine" (or, if you will, "In wine, [there is] truth"). Used in popular media to illustrate what happens when a character consumes alcohol and his true personality emerges. Truth in Television in that a drunk person has a much harder time keeping secrets and convincingly lying, but TV Land generally exaggerates it enormously. Symptoms include:

More often than not, this is a quick byproduct of when someone who Can't Hold His Liquor gets ahold of alcohol.

Compare Alcohol-Induced Idiocy (for when booze causes a character's IQ to drop precipitously), Drunken Master (for when booze acts as a Super Serum), Mushroom Samba (for when things just get... weird instead), and But Liquor Is Quicker. Compare the implications of Never Gets Drunk. For the Dutch Courage variant, compare Bottled Heroic Resolve. See also Ten with a Two

See also What You Are in the Dark.

Examples of In Vino Veritas include:

Anime and Manga

  • Bottle Fairy Misato from Neon Genesis Evangelion tends to turn from Team Mom and crisp military officer into an immature, somewhat selfish slob after just sniffing a beer.
    • Alcohol also causes her to undergo a more sombre personality inversion when Kaji is carrying her home. While we've seen hints of it earlier in the series, this the first moment where the alternating mask of confidence and professionalism/playfulness slips away completely and we are shown the full-extent of the fear and self-hatred that she carries inside.
  • Azumanga Daioh has strait-laced teacher Nyamo spending the weekend with the girls and drinking all the booze they smuggled in, to prevent Yukari from getting into it... and promptly telling the kids everything they ever wanted to know about sex (and probably almost certainly a few things they didn't).
    • Also earlier in the series, Nyamo and Yukari go to a restaurant. Yukari has too much to drink and undergoes a massive Personality Distillation.
  • In My Balls, the sweet, unassuming shopkeeper girl turns into a raging nymphomaniac whenever she takes a drink. Which might potentially be a good thing, except the protagonist will destroy the world if he ever ejaculates.
  • Yuno from Hidamari Sketch turns from Cheerful Teen into straight-faced Deadpan Snarker(?) ranting It Just Bugs Me about various Non-Indicative Name when drunk.
  • Muteki Kanban Musume: Crude and violent Miki transforms into a Yamato Nadeshiko when drunk, while her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing rival Megumi shows her True Colors.
  • In one Naruto Shippuuden omake, Shizune drunkenly confesses that she's jealous of Kurenai for having a boyfriend and maybe even husband while she is too busy working for Tsunade to find one. Unfortunately, Tsunade happens to hear it. (Ironically, this omake is shown a few episodes before Asuma dies and a couple months later in the manga Shizune herself dies. Temporarily).
    • Rock Lee turns from polite and formal into a cussing Boisterous Bruiser who can't tell friend from foe. Although recently, he's been able to recognize friends.
    • Another Omake has a drunk Yamato complaining to Asuma that Kakashi's been dumping his responsibilities on him.
  • England from Axis Powers Hetalia considers himself a gentleman. He isn't quite one when sober, and he's often cranky and irritable. But when he gets drunk, he will run around naked and cackling, or sometimes start crying over that one ungrateful whelp. Sometimes both.
  • InTo LOVE-Ru, it turns out that if you give the girls alcohol (or in this case, a pollen that makes them act drunk), they go through types 1 and 3 of this trope. Haruna's personality zigzags, Yui initiates Marshmallow Hell, Run tries very hard to kiss Rito but can never seem to get the right person, Mikan tries to confess, and Yami starts seeing things.
  • Both the manga and anime of Ah! My Goddess feature a comedic variation of this trope. Belldandy is completely unaffected by alcohol, but ends up getting drunk off a can of soda, and ends up getting a personality distillation; she's already a friend to all living (and non-living!) things, but this gets cranked Up to Eleven and she ends up going on a miracle spree, granting miracles and wishes for everything she comes across, including a telephone pole who was tired of standing (so she knocked it over). It wasn't this extreme in the manga, though.
    • Played for Drama in a fanfic where Bell and Sayoko end up in a bar, with Bell standing in for an ill Keiichi. When Sayoko makes a 70-proof confession on how lonely she is, Bell responds by by kissing her on the lips.
  • In the Keroro Gunso manga, Tamama confesses his love for Keroro out loud at a New Year's drinking party. Also, a bottle of sake turns Angol Mois from a quiet and polite girl to a party animal.
  • If you think Haruka Hasegawa from Moyashimon is scary under normal circumstances, you should see what she's like when drunk, as poor Misato found out. And it doesn't take a lot of booze to get her cutting your face with her Femme Fatalons and joking (we hope) about biting your nose off.
  • In the manga version of Chrono Crusade:
    • Satella convinces Rosette to try some wine at a dinner party and they both get rip-roaring drunk as a result. Satella reveals that she's a Shotacon, then starts to muse that she should give up trying to find her family's killer. Rosette's response to alcohol is to shout at Satella for giving up so easily, saying that people with not much time left to live don't have the luxury of doing so, then nearly starts to cry when thinking about Joshua...only to end up accidentally breaking an expensive vase when Chrono takes her outside to get some air.
    • In a later flashback, Aion and Chrono enjoy a drink together. Aion compliments Chrono for his prowess on the battlefield, but Chrono shows regret for the lives that have been lost, leading them to start an argument over how they should treat the memory of their fallen comrades, with Chrono saying they should be honored and remembered and Aion saying that having pity for the dead is the arrogance of the living and "the dead don't care what you do."
  • In an audio drama that takes place after the cooking episode of My-HiME, the main characters (who are underage, as Nagi helpfully points out) start drinking alcohol, and end up confessing several personal details, such as Mai talking about having to look after Takumi after her parents' death.
  • In D.Gray-man Komui even uses this for his own good. In the drama CD he feeds Allen, Lavi and Kanda a drug that should make them blurt out their true thoughts about his precious, precious Lenalee. It works. And aside of that has similar effects as alcohol. Complete with Alcohol Hic and Allen losing his temper.. Allen - high on the drug - even mentions it feels just the same when he ate a box of liquor filled chocolates.
  • In one episode of Inuyasha the gang comes across some magic mist that makes people who breathe it get drunk. Sango, who's in love with Miroku but was in the Can't Spit It Out stage, suddenly becomes brazenly sexual and flirty ... with Inuyasha!
  • In a flashback arc of One Piece, mermaid queen Otohime gets so depressed about her subjects being afraid to integrate with the surface world that she gets rip-roaring drunk, takes up a microphone, and starts calling her people out on their cowardice.
  • In the Ace Attorney manga, Turnabout Gallows has Brock Johnson, who suspects Robin Wolfe killed his brother, giving alcohol to his brother Bobby Wolfe in order to get information, but Bobby apparently passes out after one beer without divulging anything useful. It turns out that Brock's real plan was to get Bobby drunk so that he could take the fall for him murdering Robin.
  • In Hanamaru Kindergarten, Tsuchida is only able to confess his feelings for fellow teacher Yamamoto when he's drunk. The other teachers are so happy that they start up a celebratory conga line-slash-bunny hop, singing "He confessed! He confessed!" Unfortunately, Yamamoto's drunk too, so she participates in the conga line too and then promptly forgets the whole thing upon sobering up.
  • Invoked by Fumi in the Aoi Hana manga, who uses the "liquid courage" of the Christmas champagne she'd been drinking to confess to Akira. Since she has already done so several times, and they are currently dating, an exasperated Akira can only exclaim "I already know that!"
  • Saruyama-sensei from Bakuon!!, who is closeted and in denial about being a Lipstick Lesbian -- at least until she gets drunk.

Comic Books

  • Dr. Moira McTaggart is quite the mean drunk.
  • Parodied in German comic Rudi. Some cute song birds start sieg-heiling, picking fights and generally acting like most obnoxious drunks after drinking beer.

Fan Works

  • In the Katawa Shoujo fic Lilly Epilogue (Good End): Family Matters, a subtler version of this is applied. Lilly has between two and three glasses of wine when her parents visit for dinner, and Hisao notices that she's more confident than usual in dealing with her father when he suggests that she return to Scotland. When her Berserk Button has been pressed by her father insulting her boyfriend Hisao and her best friend Hanako, she calls him out on it, and after he says he raised her better than to put words in his mouth, she angrily yells “YOU HARDLY RAISED ME AT ALL, YOU BASTARD!!”
  • The Tenchi Muyo! fic In Vino Veritas by Sinom Bre is about the cascade of events that occur in the wake of the revelations made during and after one night of drunkenness... and how they change the relationships between Tenchi and the members of his Unwanted Harem.

Film

  • At the end of the movie version of The Return of the King, Sam downs a full pint of beer all at once before going up to talk to Rosie. The next scene is their wedding. However, the beer was rather incidental. Sam had realized that after going to Mordor and back, fighting off a giant spider, a half a dozen orcs, and helping to destroy the One Ring to save the world, asking a pretty girl out doesn't even rate on the difficulty scale anymore.
  • Michael from The Boys in the Band. After falling Off the Wagon, he quickly reveals himself to be a self-hating Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
  • In the movie Blind Date, Kim Basinger's character undergoes a personality inversion from mousy and nervous to brash and wild after a few drinks. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Subverted in Ratatouille when Skinner gets Linguini drunk, trying to get him to confess he's being manipulated by a rat, but he just gets an even-more-dorky Linguini. Rat patootie indeed
  • The Hangover had Stu Price undergo a classic Personality Inversion - with the bonus of not even remembering in the morning.
    • He pushes this even further in the sequel, where he even admits "There is a demon inside me".
  • In Eurotrip (that one film where Michelle Trachtenberg strips down to a bikini), the four main characters end up in a Czechoslovakian nightclub and all get smashed on Absinthe (green liquor that is very, very strong). Two of them, who happen to be twins, then promptly end up dancing together and making out....until they come to their senses mid-snogging session and scream their heads off.

Worst. Twins. EVER!

  • Charlie Chaplin's City Lights has the Tramp being talking a drunken millionaire out of killing himself. The rich sot befriends him, invites him to stay in his mansion, drive his car, etc...but then turns on him when he sobers up. This cycle keeps repeating itself throughout the film.
  • In Happy Accidents, Sam keeps his identity as a time traveler secret from everyone but Ruby...until he gets drunk at an art show and promptly tells a small group of Ruby's friends.
  • In The Maltese Falcon, Gutman alludes to this when he first meets with Spade:

"I distrust a man who says 'when'. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does."

  • In State of the Union, Mary Matthews is told to refrain from speaking her mind for the sake of her husband's political campaign. Things don't turn out so blandly between her and the delegates after she decides to have what the Lady Drunk's having.
  • Shows up verbatim in Tombstone in a conversation between Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo. Holliday insults Ringo and Earp says, "Don't mind him, he's drunk." This exchange ensues:

Doc: In vino veritas. ("In wine, truth." i.e. I mean what I say.)
Ringo: Age quod agis. ("Do what you do." i.e. Watch what you say.)
Doc: Credat Iudaeus Apella, non ego. ("Let Apella the Jew believe, not I." i.e. You're a fool to warn me.)
Ringo: Iuventus stultorum magister. ("Youth is the teacher of fools." i.e. You're young and inexperienced, and that makes you the fool.)
Doc: In pace requiescat. ("May he rest in peace." i.e. I'm about to kill you.)

Literature

  • Terry Pratchett has fun with this several times:
    • The dwarves of the Discworld are quiet, law-abiding workaholics... until they get a drink or two, at which point they become literally Ax Crazy.
    • In The Last Continent, the cowardly and cynical Rincewind turns into a boisterous optimist after a few Ecksian beers.
    • Carpe Jugulum has timid Non Action King Verence transforming into The Berserker after having a single sample of the Nac Mac Feegles' "brose," which is specifically designed to do just that. These are the fairies that consider Nanny Ogg's "sui-cider" a delicacy, after all. It's also lampshaded that giving him fifty times the brose, just because he's bigger, probably wasn't the best idea.
    • Subverted with Lord Vetinari. In Unseen Academicals he gets stone drunk. It's mentioned that men twice his size with a reputation for being able to hold their drink had been hauled home in wheelbarrows, but despite having drank just as much as they had the only noticeable difference in Vetinari's behavior is that he's a bit more talkative than usual, and it's a bit harder the next day for him to do the crosswords in the morning paper. Apparently, he's very good at acting sober. Or very, very Knurd. However, that's not really his only reaction. In one part of that scene, he seems a lot more sad and philosophical than usual, giving a short, depressing monologue on the ubiquity of evil and staring into his drink. He acts quite normally otherwise, though.
      • Played straight in that same book, where the normally strait-laced Glenda finally starts to loosen up after a few glasses of sherry.
  • A major plot point in The Three Musketeers hinges on a devastating autobiographical story Athos tells while drunk.
  • Not precisely an example of this trope, but in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion who asks for courage is given a bottle of green drink, which fans of the book take as a Stealth Pun on the phrase "liquid courage".
  • In Flowers for Algernon, the super-genius Charlie Gordon reverts back to a barely-functional moron (in the clinical sense) when he gets drunk.
  • In the second Montmorency book On the Rocks, the titular character gets addicted to opium and goes from secretive, but fun, to broody and possibly too loose-tongued for the safety of himself and others. Or so Fox-Selwyn tells us; Montmorency doesn't spend much time actually on opium, most of the time he's having withdrawals.
  • Bertie Wooster spikes Gussie Fink-Nottle's orange juice to help him get over stage fright, and in the hopes he'll have the courage to propose to Madeleine. Jeeves has also spiked the orange juice. Gussie has also found a bottle of liquor on his own. The result is one of the funniest speeches in the history of literature.
  • O. Henry's story "The Lost Blend" ends with a meek young man downing the last few ounces of the title drink, and finally finding the courage to sweep his beloved barmaid off her feet.
  • Elayne Trakand is normally a reserved, sensible person with a bit of a temper. When she gets drunk for the first time, she becomes barely coherent and spends a lot of time giggling.
  • Ovid advises men to fake this in a chapter of his Ars Amatoria. Depending on interpretation, he either says that women will believe drunk men to tell the truth about sweet and true love, or that men will get away saying really dirty things to respectable women, the woman won't mind and the men watching over the woman (father/brother/husband etc.) will assume the "advancer" is just blubbering drunk nonsense.
  • Quoted almost verbatim by Joy in The Republic Of Trees regarding the Kissing Under the Influence episode with Michael. Interestingly, she is the only teatotaller in the group...
  • In Insurrection, a politician says some extremely bigoted things to the leader of a rival party while under the influence of legal recreational drugs. When he sobers up, he remembers what he said, realizes that he meant every word of it and what that said about him, and spends the rest of the book trying to be a better person.
  • Alluded to in The Serpent's Shadow, when Maya Witherspoon brings a young man injured on the orders of one of the book's villains to the Fleet Street Clinic. The head nurse is worried about the attraction he shows to a female medical student/clinic volunteer, until Maya points out that there's just as much truth in a quarter-grain of morphine as there is in wine.

Live Action Television

  • Raj from The Big Bang Theory, who is unable to speak in the presence of a girl, becomes a regular Casanova Wannabe after a few drinks. In this case it is more of a psychological thing, as it works when he has a non-alcoholic drink and doesn't realize it (and in fact is a great deal more successful than a typical Casanova Wannabe). When told he clams up automatically as a result.
    • Get Sheldon drunk, and he'll perform Fiddler on the Roof karaoke, or do stand-up and moon the audience. Give him caffeine and he'll think he's The Flash. Give him a Valium and he'll tell you that he's Batman.
  • Henry Sellers in Father Ted.
  • Subverted in House, where House pretends to do this to break up Cuddy and Lucas
  • An episode of Lexx, when they met Oberon and Puck and Oberon's Wife (Titania?). Titania was played by a bearded dwarf in drag and Oberon seems to really hate being married to "her". Stanley asks Puck how they got together in the first place, it's explained that Oberon was very very drunk. Puck invokes the trope when Stanley is doubtful as to how drunk one would have to get to find Titania attractive: "So yer saying, he's the kind of guy who really prefers..." (cut off by Puck before he can explicitly question the Fairy King's heterosexuality)
    • Oberon actually tries to marry Stanley later in that same episode, ostensibly as an upgrade from his even more man-ish current wife, but given what Puck has told us...
  • Parks and Recreation really had fun with this in "The Fight". There was super-positive Leslie crying and babbling over her fight with Ann, Tom's inflated ego, serious Ben saying "Baba Booey" in an extremely self-satisfied tone, Andy's intense singing, April's incoherent rapid-fire Spanish, and... this [dead link] .
  • This is why Elaine in Seinfeld can't keep a secret.

Elaine: Come on, tell me! I'll put it in the vault!
Jerry: No, the vault's no good.
Elaine: Why's the vault no good?
Jerry: Because everyone knows the combination. (gestures drinking from a bottle of liquor)

  • A science fiction version occurs in Star Trek:The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now", which includes Wesley taking over the ship, Tasha Yar seducing Data, and Picard and Crusher almost admitting their love for each other. The classic Trek version was better, with Sulu rampaging shirtless through the ship with a rapier.
  • Star Trek:Deep Space Nine plays it straight, with stoic O'brien only admitting how he feels about best friend Bashir after a few drinks. The scene includes this gem of Buffy-Speak:

O'brien: You're not an in-between kind of guy. People either love you or hate you.
Bashir: Really?
O'brien: I mean, I hated you when we first met.
Bashir: I remember.
O'brien: And now...
Bashir: And now?
O'brien: Well... Now, I don't.
Bashir: That means a lot to me, chief, it really does.
O'brien: And that is from the heart! I really do... not hate you anymore.

Manhwa

  • In Dorothy of Oz, Mara Shin blurts out to Abee about her huge crush on him...all the while yelling at him that he can't be the real Abee because her Abee is a kind and gentle person. Abee is understandably confused, especially when she compares him to both a fish cake and a gourmet pastry.

Abee: Should I be flattered or angry?

Music

Doctor Jimmy and mister Jim
 When I'm pilled you don't notice him,
 He only comes out when I drink my gin.

  • The David Burns song "The Whiskey Never Lies" is all about this trope.

You said you had it bad fer me, you'd take me to the moon
 You said no other moved you so, no other made you swoon
 But when the drink was in your blood you sang another tune
 And that was when I learned the truth, the whiskey never lies

  • The Lonestar song Tequila Talkin' is about the aftermath of this. The singer spends the entire song trying to convince his ex-girlfriend (and quite possibly himself) that the only reason he told her that he still loved her and wanted her back was because he was drunk.

It was just the tequila talking
 When I told you I'm still not over you
 I get a little sentimental
 When I've had one or two
 And that tear in my eye was the salt and the lime
 Not the memory of you walking
 If I said I'm still in love with you
 It was just the tequila talking

Theatre

  • The whole plot of Bertolt Brecht's play Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti is an illustration of this trope. Puntila, when sober, is a boorish, exploitative boss, but get him drunk and he becomes the most affable and generous of men.
  • This trope plays a major role in the play God of Carnage, as well as its film adaptation. It plays out mainly in the Personality Inversion variety.

Video Games

  • The heroine of A Dance With Rogues is way, way more promiscuous when really drunk. The two times the player has the option of getting really drunk are during the scene with Pia in the first chapter and the contest with Gemli in the second; during the first if you get drunk enough you don't remember what happens but Pia implies it was really, really great, during the second if you lose the drinking contest your character, a human with relatively normal sexual tastes, will screw a filthy, stinky, hairy, dwarf.
  • In the first season of TellTale's Sam and Max games, during the fourth episode, Bosco will hawk a "truth serum" that, upon purchase, turns out to be a bottle of vodka. This seems less useful than Bosco makes it out to be, since the duo is well aware that In Vino Veritas is under no circumstances guaranteed, but they do in fact use it as such when Max needs to start a war and Whizzer is being tight-lipped to maintain peace among the brothers.
  • In one scene in Persona 4, the main cast is under the mistaken impression that they're drinking booze, leading to Yukiko telling Kid Detective Naoto everything about what the True Companions have been doing. Naoto doesn't believe a word of it.
  • One quest in Jade Empire has you getting a man named Three Sheets Dutong drunk to confess that the Imperial writ that he used to cheat Old Mother Kwan out of her tea house is fake. There are three stages of drunkenness; first he's cheerful and doesn't want to talk about something as "dry and boring" as the writ, then he's depressed and is willing to confess to faking the writ, then he gets too paranoid and must be given a sobering potion. The player must give him the right number of drinks to get him into the second stage of drunkenness to finish the quest.
  • In Dragon Age 2, we have Fenris. It is shown during a few of his more personal cutscenes between him and Hawke that he can really hit the bottle. In one scene alone there are at least two empty bottles on the table he and Hawke are sitting at and he is working on a third. Hilarity Ensues when he tells Hawke (if Hawke is a mage) that he or she is "A finer mage I've never met" which goes completely against his Mage hating usual self. He also throws a few rather sexy smiles Hawke's way, further showing how much of his usual broodiness goes away when he drinks. In Vino Veritas indeed.
  • In Eternal Darkness, Edward Roivas keeps casks of the stuff in his basement, because it helps keep him calm when dealing with the cyclopean nightmare-city under his house. During gameplay he keeps a flask on him, and drinks from it when he needs to deal with the weird happenings, but doesn't have time to rationalize or analyze it like he normally would—which he knows would just drive him insane anyway. The player can acquire some of it, which is called "Liquid Courage" and restores Sanity.
  • Brought up by an NPC in Radiant Historia when he mentions how alcohol sales are high in times of war.
  • In Hanako's route in Katawa Shoujo, when they drink wine at her party, she gets drunk and starts clinging at Hisao, telling him she doesn't want him to leave, altogether being much more open about her emotions than usual. Hisao finds this quite discomfiting and is very firm about putting her to bed before either of them do anything else.

Web Comics

  • In It's Walky!, Jerkass Mike becomes sweet and friendly after a few drinks. His girlfriend, Dina, quickly takes advantage of this and attempts to keep him perpetually drunk. Note that this is basically treated as rape (though the rest of the cast doesn't care because its Mike and they have their own problems), but when he finally sobers up he comes within an inch of killing Dina.
    • And it's back in Shortpacked, with Amber (although she just blackmails him so she can date him sober).
  • In Penny and Aggie, the normally quiet, stoic Jack gets belligerent when drunk.
    • Also, Helen tends to blurt out things she really shouldn't after she's had a few too many spiked popcicles.
    • Jack's girlfriend, the devoutly Christian Katy-Ann, seeks to understand his drinking by getting drunk herself for the first time, and reveals to her friends her repressed sexual urges for him. The scene is mainly Played for Drama, but culminates in a Played for Laughs moment where she calls out for Jack (who isn't there) to ravish her as she begins to strip.
  • Bun-Bun the Killer Rabbit from Sluggy Freelance is usually a knife-wielding psychopath with a hair-trigger temper... but give him enough to drink, and he becomes a genuinely nice and friendly fellow. His drink of choice is Rum. Which may have something to do with his past(s) as the captain (and first mate) of a shipful of the Pirates above the Oceans Unmoving...
    • The cast once shot him with a tranquilizer dart. He got really happy and friendly (like the human who'd just gotten tranqs too), and very joyfully beat them all up.
  • Scary Go Round: Milford gets Carrot, a normally shy and timid teenage boy who's afraid of fights, liquored up and encourages him to ask Sarah out on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Sarah prefers Ryan, who prefers her right back. Carrot interrupts a cuddly moment between them by punching Ryan in the face.
  • Due a tragic past Sidney Burns of Mob Ties is better kept slightly tipsy, if he isn't well, see for yourself [dead link]
  • The Girl in A Girl and Her Fed drops her cynical, world-weary persona and develops an abiding interest in fluffy kittens after drinking four screwdrivers simultaneously.
  • In PHD, Cecilia, who is often a workaholic, gets gets "drunk" on chocolate. She suddenly acts very sociable and takes her shirt off, before Tajel stops her.
  • In Something*Positive, Davan is complaining about a dating sim video game:

PeeJee: Sounds like someone's cranky because he can't even maintain his virtual romances.
Davan: At least with computer games there's a cheat code. I'd have killed for a button combination to enter that forced the women I've seen to say what they actually mean.
PeeJee: Most guys I've dated have found that "up, down, circle, circle, three shots of vodka" works well.

Western Animation

  • The Tom and Jerry cartoon "Part Time Pal" has Tom getting all chummy with Jerry after taking alcohol.
    • Columbia's "Pickled Puss", released a year later (1948), used that same plotline. A cat becomes friendly with a mouse he'd been chasing—to the point of annoying him—after eating several herring pickled in pure hootch.
  • Jared from Superjail is a neurotic, spineless wreck of a person normally, so you can imagine that he's given into vice before. It's just that as a recovering alcoholic, even being near alcohol makes him hallucinate violently.
  • Orel's dad in Moral Orel is an alcoholic who gets a whole drunken rant in the second season finale, Nature, which culminates in the line "Drunk... is... NATURE!"
  • Metalocalypse: Every single of the band's mothers, but especially Toki's, who goes from an incredibly strait-laced religious person with a high amount of restraint to a total pervert when she gets drunk on alcohol.
    • And let's not forget the band's manager/lawyer Charles Ofdensen, who is generally a soft-spoken, sort of uptight guy...until you pour enough alcohol into him. Then, he starts doing things like playing with Nathan Explosion's hair.
  • On Daria, Trent suggests that he and Jane get through a family reunion by passing out drunk. Jane points out that not only is she underage, but Trent tends to get "honest" when he's drunk and it's probably not a good idea for them to tell their relatives what they really think of them.

Real Life

  • Real Life example that may or may not be true. This is the reasoning behind a custom attributed to the Germans and Persians by Tacitus and Herodotus respectively: In their assemblies, matters are debated twice. Once sober, once drunk. Though it's more a 'too drunk to think their way through lies and subterfuge' than personality shifting.
    • The Romans didn't trust completely sober people, as they thought you could never be certain of what such man was thinking or plotting, if he never allowed wine to loosen his tongue.
    • Caesar was known for never drinking or indulging in vices of any kind, always telling the truth and his general incorruptibility. This really annoyed his rivals.
  • From the mouth of John Wayne, "I never trust a man that doesn't drink." Probably for the same reason as the Romans.
  • Real Life aversion: King Charles II of England said of Prince George of Denmark (Queen Anne's husband), 'I have tried him drunk, and I have tried him sober, but there is nothing in him.' Boring guy all 'round.
  • Queen's song "The Show Must Go On," widely considered to be one of Freddie Mercury's best performances, was recorded while Mercury was severely ill and close to death due to AIDS (the song was released a month before his death). It was originally thought that due to his illness, Mercury wouldn't be able to sing the song, but he took a swig of vodka and proceeded to nail the song. In one take.
  • Several of Mel Gibson's rants have been attributed, correctly or not, to his self-admitted problems with drunkenness.
  • Eric Clapton was apparently drunk when he launched into a racist, nativist tirade during a 1976 Birmingham concert.
  • The basic concept behind most real life Truth Serums is that they render a person more likely to talk in general and less able to come up with a convincing lie. Incidentally, the only two substances that have been proven to be fairly consistently effective as (relative) Truth Serums are alcohol and marijuana. The former was a favorite of the KGB, whose agents were able to keep cover while their Western opposite numbers started gushing. The latter was tried out by the FBI, in the form of THC-laced cigarettes, on a member of The Mafia, who spilled the beans on a heist, embarrassing the CIA's MKULTRA (which was trying to do the same thing with more exotic substances like acid) in the process.
  • Kamikaze pilots were given a shot of sake as part of an honor ceremony before they left on their suicide mission. It is most likely that this drink was included in the ceremony to dull their nerves and heighten their courage to go through with the mission.
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