(August 16, 2015 at 2:56 am)robvalue Wrote: Pyrrho: I didn't mean to blaspheme your GodI agree, drinking in moderation is fine and can increase happiness without loosening the hold on reality. As it happens, I can't drink at all due to my medication.
I was referring more to getting so drunk that I forget my problems.
It is too bad about your medication preventing you from having a good life. In the case of drinking, one can enjoy a bit of a buzz without getting fall-down drunk. I have never had enough that I have blacked out or had extra memory loss about what I did the night before. I do not recommend that for a couple of reasons, but one can still enjoy drinking.
I also happen to like the taste of alcohol with certain kinds of food. For example, I hardly ever have pasta with tomato sauce without washing it down with red wine. The food tastes better with a good red wine. (Also, the tomato sauce tastes better if one pours some red wine into the sauce when making it, though one needs to be careful not to put so much in that the sauce becomes runny. Since the alcohol in that cooks off when properly made, you could have sauce made that way even if you cannot drink alcohol.) I also like red wine with pizza. With sandwiches, I generally go with beer, especially ales and wheat beers (though, of course, it depends on the type of sandwich). The right drink can greatly enhance the dining experience. I once did an experiment with good beer, drinking some while eating takeout from Taco Bell. Washing it down with good beer almost made it seem like real food. The beer dramatically improved the enjoyment of the food, though, of course, it was still not a great meal. (With Mexican food, I generally like a good lager.) Getting the right drink with food really makes quite a difference in how enjoyable the food is, and it can greatly enhance the dining experience.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
