What’s in it for me? Find out why we evolved to get drunk.
It’s happened for millennia.
It’s happened across cultures, across geographic regions, and it continues to happen to this day.
Humans have poured an immense amount of time, money, and resources into getting tanked, soused, blasted, ruined, hammered, plastered, wasted – or, for the Brits out there, trollied, trousered, and pissed.
In short, since time immemorial, people have been getting drunk.
But why?
Sure, a cocktail or two is great – it leaves you feeling giddy and sociable, in back-slapping high spirits, ready to befriend strangers, set aside differences, and maybe hand out a few hugs.
Add to this a cocktail or two more, though – and your cognitive control becomes impaired, which can lead to incoherency and aggression and vomiting, not to mention bad tattoos.
And when we really overdo it, alcohol becomes a force of devastation: we crash our cars into telephone poles, we die of liver damage, we inflict violence on our loved ones.
That brings us to the question we’ll answer in these blinks: Why did we start getting drunk in the first place – and why have we kept it up for thousands of years?
In these blinks, you’ll learn why impairing the prefrontal cortex helps us get along; why we probably discovered alcohol before agriculture; and why people in Italy and Spain have a lower rate of alcoholism.
Why do we get drunk? Hijack or hangover?
So we know that drinking can have devastating effects.
Because of this most scientists agree that our taste for alcohol is an evolutionary accident, a sort of misstep on nature’s part, a behavior that has stuck around even though it offers no real benefit to the species.
But why would such a behavior even exist?
Well, as you probably know, there are other behaviors like this – things that humans do even though doing them serves no purpose or, in other cases, maybe used to serve a purpose but doesn’t really serve that purpose anymore.
These behaviors fall into two categories: hijacks and hangovers.
Let’s start with hijacks.
A hijack is a behavior that reaps a reward that was originally meant to be generated by another behavior.
A great example of a hijack is masturbation.
The act of masturbating serves no evolutionary purpose.
It’s pleasurable, and it can lead to orgasm, but orgasm evolved to reward an entirely different behavior – sex, which does serve an evolutionary purpose; it’s how we pass our genes down to the next generation and perpetuate the survival of the species.
We human beings – clever creatures that we are – figured out that we could hijack this pleasure, that we could have orgasms without engaging in a species-perpetuating behavior.
So that’s what a hijack is.
A hangover, in contrast, is a behavior arising from a drive that was once adaptive but isn’t anymore.
For example, we love fatty, sugary snacks – things like french fries and potato chips and candy bars: junk food.
The jolts of pleasure we get from eating junk food were originally meant to motivate our hunter-gatherer ancestors to go forth and find sustenance.
The problem is that, today, you’ll still get those jolts of pleasure from eating sugar and fat, and this might cause you to overindulge even if you’ve got plenty of healthier food at your fingertips.
In short, you’re hungover – acting in a way that benefited people thousands of years ago but doesn’t necessarily benefit you.
So – hijack or hangover?
Or could our fondness for intoxication best be explained by another theory altogether?
Why do we get drunk? It’s not an accident.
The author, Edward Slingerland, argues that it is not an accident that we continue to get drunk, that it’s neither a hijack nor a hangover.
But it’s worth exploring why many scientists think it is and why they’re wrong.
Let’s poke some holes in the hijack argument first.
According to this argument, alcohol hijacks our brain’s natural chemical rewards system.
We’ve evolved so that when we engage in an activity that is beneficial to our species – like eating a nutritious meal or having sex – our brain rewards us by releasing chemicals, chemicals that we register as pleasure.
Alcohol – or so the argument goes – hijacks this system, triggering the release of chemicals that were supposed to be triggered by actions conducive to our survival.
In other words, drinking is like masturbating.
Both provide a reward – pleasure-giving spurts of brain chemicals when you drink; orgasm when you masturbate – but these rewards are supposed to encourage different actions, like healthy eating and procreation.
On the face of it, this argument seems solid.
But when you look a little closer, the cracks become apparent.
For starters, masturbation is relatively harmless.
Natural selection hasn’t eliminated masturbation because it poses no existential threat to humankind.
In evolutionary terms, it may be a waste of time and energy – but the waste is negligible.
Masturbation is a harmless hijack.
Drinking, however, is far from harmless.
So why – if drunkenness is a mere hijack of the brain’s pleasure system – hasn’t natural selection eliminated it?
The obvious answer is that evolution is slow and human innovation is fast.
But this doesn’t quite hold water because evolution isn’t that slow.
It only took a handful of generations for adult pastoralists to adapt to drinking milk, for example – and we’ve been drinking alcohol for tens of thousands of years.
So much for the hijack theory – but what about the hangover theory?
The most popular hangover theory is called the “drunken monkey” theory, and it goes like this: long, long ago, humans were drawn to the powerful scent of ethanol that emanated from – and therefore helped them find – overripe fruit.
Fermented foods are high in calories, so if you developed a taste for this boozy snack, you’d be at a caloric advantage.
Hangover theorists argue that we developed our taste for alcohol not because alcohol offers any benefits to our species but because we were searching for calories.
But this has a glaring weak spot.
Primatologists and human ecologists point out that wild primates seem to avoid overripe fruit.
And humans certainly prefer ethanol-free fruit to the overripe and ethanol-packed variety.
So if it’s not simply a hijack and it’s not simply a hangover – if it’s not an accident – why do we get drunk?
Why do we get drunk? Because our extreme ecological niche imposes unique demands on us.
The only plausible answer is that drinking must benefit our species in some way.
And we know that the cost of getting drunk is massive.
So the benefits must be even more massive!
But what exactly are they?
To move toward an answer, we have to look at the unique survival challenges that humans face.
And that means examining our ecological niche.
Every species occupies a particular ecological niche, and we humans are no exception, so what is it?
Well, it’s the position we occupy in the world relative to other species.
It also refers to the methods we’ve devised for maintaining that position.
It includes things like how we find food and shelter, and how we deal with other animals and other humans.
Our ecological niche is culture – and we’re extremely dependent on it.
Without culture and its myriad technologies, we’d be as helpless and vulnerable as a fish out of water.
To make it crystal clear how this works, let’s look at an example of a basic cultural technology: fire.
Before we discovered fire, we had huge teeth, powerful jaws, and complex digestive systems that could handle our rough diet of raw meat and plants.
But once early humans started to cook food, physiological resources were directed to enhancing other parts of their bodies – like their brain.
Our teeth shrank, our jaws weakened, our digestive system became less robust – but we became smarter.
This made us more efficient, but it also made us dependent on fire.
Today, we depend on countless cultural technologies – agriculture, refrigeration, clothes, computers, you name it.
It took millions of years, but one innovation after another eventually led to our current ecological niche, our current culture – where we live among throngs of non-relatives and strangers.
As mentioned, this didn’t happen overnight.
When small bands of hunter-gatherers slowly began to settle down and merge, eventually forming agricultural societies, they had to learn how to work together, to cooperate with each other.
Put slightly differently: to meet the demands of their new ecological niche, our species had to become creative, communal, and cultural – what the author refers to as the three C’s.
Those three C’s – culture, creativity, and community – set us apart from other species.
Most animals tend to solve problems alone.
We humans do things differently.
We look for solutions provided by the accumulated insights of our culture.
In the primate world, this makes us complete outliers.
Unlike other apes, we’ve built so much trust that we can work together, like ants or bees, to achieve goals that would be unattainable if we were alone.
We adhere to social norms, we labor collectively, and sometimes we even sacrifice our lives for the common good.
This doesn’t mean that we’re not hyper aware of the dangers of manipulation and deceit.
We are.
But we desperately want to connect with others.
We want this even though we’re also suspicious of their motives.
In short, we’re still selfish apes.
But we’re selfish apes with a contradiction.
We don’t totally trust other people – but we need them.
So how do we overcome our selfish impulses and access our more generous, emotional, community-oriented side?
Well get to this in the next blink – but you’ve probably guessed the answer.
It’s .
.
.
alcohol.
You’ve probably heard of the prefrontal cortex.
Evolutionarily speaking, it’s the newest part of the human brain.
Why do we get drunk? It helps us access our community-oriented side.
It’s the site of rational thinking – which is to say it’s what makes us unique as humans, allowing us to focus on long-term tasks, process complex information, and engage in abstract reasoning.
From here on out, I’ll be referring to this invaluable bit of anatomy as the PFC.
OK, but here’s the thing about the PFC.
It’s wonderful, we’d be lost without it, but it’s not great for collaboration and creativity, qualities that – as you know – we need in order to occupy our ecological niche.
It’s not great because being purely rational, which is what the PFC is all about, often results in being purely selfish.
To get a better handle on this – on how the rational side of our brain is in conflict with the collaborative side – let’s look at two Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus.
Apollo, the god of the Sun, personifies order and self-control.
If a deity ruled the PFC, it’d be Apollo.
Then there’s Dionysus, the god of wine.
Dionysus is a sort of anti-PFC deity – he’s the god of emotion and disorder and abandon (as well as drunkenness).
He’s the god that helps us embrace the three C’s: our creative, communal, and cultural sides.
You’re probably familiar with the prisoner’s dilemma – but it’s worth looking at it again because it does a great job of demonstrating why we need to let Dionysus take over every once in a while.
Here’s the dilemma: Imagine you are one of two prisoners.
You’ve both been detained and accused of committing a crime.
If you rat out the other prisoner, but the other prisoner keeps their mouth shut, you’ll get a short sentence – let’s say one month – and they’ll get locked up for a long time – say, four years.
If you both snitch, you’ll both have to do two years.
If you both refuse to talk, though, you’ll each get six months for obstructing justice.
And if you keep quiet and the other prisoner rats you out – well, you’re getting the four-year sentence and the other prisoner will get a month.
The best option is for both people to keep quiet and take the six months.
But the rational option, which ensures that you don’t get the maximum sentence and that you have a shot at the minimum, is to rat the other prisoner out.
Apollo – a purely rational being – can’t win at the prisoner’s dilemma.
But Dionysus could – because he’d be motivated by his emotions (the shame he might feel if he snitched) as well as his loyalty to others.
So how do we access our emotional, Dionysian side?
Well, one method is to temporarily suspend the site of rational thinking in the brain, to suppress our Apollonian side, to take the PFC offline.
And the simplest way to do that is to get drunk.
But let’s look at a more concrete example.
How, exactly, has drinking and a Dionysian approach to life benefited humankind?
Well, you’ll remember that our species has developed a unique capacity to trust.
But we don’t do so indiscriminately.
We make immediate, gut-level assessments of others’ trustworthiness based on reading micro-facial expressions and interpreting body language and tone of voice.
We’re pros at differentiating between genuine and forced emotions, and we generally recognize when emotional displays are authentic and spontaneous.
In short, we’re extremely good at detecting lies.
But we’re also extremely good at telling them.
And liars are an existential threat to any community.
But it’s more difficult for people to lie when their cognitive control is weakened – say, via a PFC-disabling truth serum.
So it’s no surprise that in ancient and medieval societies all over the world, any gathering involving a group of potentially hostile people was softened with intoxicants.
We’ve long known that the sober, calculating mind obstructs social trust.
Even today, no Fijian village counsel can begin deliberations until everyone is high on kava.
When everyone has disabled their PFC together, they can move past their suspicions and achieve social cooperation.
As the Latin proverb goes, In vino veritas – “In wine there is truth.
Getting drunk isn’t the only way to disable the PFC.
Why do we get drunk? It helps us be creative.
It can be disabled by many intoxicants.
But alcohol is the undisputed king.
It’s easy to consume, easy to make, easy to store, easy to dose.
It’s also easy for our bodies to break down and eliminate.
And as though all those perks weren’t enough, it pairs deliciously with food.
What’s more, unlike other intoxicants – like, for instance, cannabis, which usually produces a more introverted high – alcohol promotes extroversion and group cooperation.
Furthermore, it’s biphasal.
That means that, at first, it instills a sense of mild euphoria – similar to the effects of cocaine.
Then, as blood alcohol levels peak and start to descend, the PFC goes offline.
That’s when we stop processing fear and other negative emotions, and we’re less affected by abstract consequences.
In other words, we release our inhibitions and let our minds wander.
Intoxicants provide a brief rupture from our everyday reality, a break from our Apollonian mind.
As you know, ditching Apollo and embracing Dionysus can help us set aside our purely rational, purely selfish impulses, making it easier for us to access our emotional side.
This is important for making human connections, for building community.
But this isn’t all it can do.
It can also drive cultural innovation by making us more playful and creative.
Exactly how does drinking accomplish this?
Well, have you ever wondered why children are so open, creative, and trusting?
Here’s the answer: their PFC isn’t fully developed.
The PFC is the part of the brain that takes the longest to mature.
And there’s a reason for that.
From birth, most other species are perfectly programmed for survival.
But not us.
Other animals might appear to create things – maybe you’ve seen those crows that are able to fashion a hook from a stick, which helps them catch worms – and, yes, this looks like a form of ingenious creativity, but, really, they’re following a script that’s in their DNA.
We humans invent truly new things, things that transform the world.
If a crow was like a human, it wouldn’t be satisfied with a hook.
It would invent worm farms.
Unlike other species, our survival is dependent on our insights and innovations, on our creativity.
We’d be helpless without it.
This is why the development of the PFC is so slow.
As children, we have to acquire a lot of accumulated culture before we can stick it out in the real world as adults.
So the PFC takes its time to mature, allowing us to remain cognitively flexible and open for as long as possible – so that we can absorb a staggering amount of information from the people around us.
Thanks to their immature PFCs, children are terrible at planning and they’re not very rational or efficient.
But openness and out-of-the-box thinking?
That’s where they shine.
These are also the qualities that keep our species growing, evolving, and innovating.
So how can we channel our inner child and tap into our creativity?
Well, one study showed that adult subjects performed better on creativity tasks when their PFCs were temporarily zapped into submission with a transcranial magnet.
But transcranial magnets are recent inventions.
Plus, they’re unwieldy, they’re expensive, and they’re not exactly party-friendly.
So, for now, we’re stuck with the PFC-disabling technologies we discovered thousands of years ago – foremost among them, alcohol.
Creativity is what drives cultural innovation, and so the ideal human is a person who can remain on task and delay gratification – but who can also take on, for brief periods, the mind of a child.
In other words, the ideal human is an adult who sometimes gets – whether literally or figuratively – drunk.
So drunkenness drives creativity and creativity drives cultural innovation.
Why do we get drunk? It enhances social solidarity, which helped early humans build civilization.
That’s great, but what’s an example of this in action?
Well, I’ve got a fun one for you.
It’s an innovation that’s as old as agriculture itself – well, actually, it might even be a little older than that, but I don’t want to give too much away.
It’s the story of how we discovered beer.
About 10,000 years ago, some of our especially canny hunter-gatherer ancestors began to experiment with planting seeds from wild grains and legumes.
Over time, this eventually led to the development of settled agricultural communities.
Then, at some point, early farmers with surplus yields realized that if they left grain mashed up in water, it would transform into something else – something kind of funky, but not unpleasant, a concoction that produced mild, enjoyable psychoactive effects if consumed: a concoction that we know as beer.
This is how the standard story goes: after humans mastered farming, they discovered beer.
In this telling, beer is incidental.
Beer is just a minor character in this evolutionary drama.
Agriculture is the star.
OK, so here’s where things get interesting.
In the 1950s, some scientists began to raise their eyebrows at this timeline of events – pointing to evidence of large-scale gatherings from the tenth to eighth millennia BCE.
These communal feasts – which included dancing, religious rituals, and sacrifices – were almost certainly fueled by alcohol.
There’s also evidence of a 14,000-year-old bread and/or beer making site in Jordan.
Agriculture wouldn’t emerge for another 4,000 years, which means bread was still thousands of years away from becoming a dietary staple.
That means the site was most likely where our hunter-gatherer ancestors brewed beer for their parties.
Scholars who advocate for the beer-before-bread theory believe it was our desire to get drunk that gave rise to agriculture – not the other way around.
The Neolithic transition to agriculture was stressful.
We had to form new communities, work with other people, collaborate, adjust to a totally new lifestyle.
It was stressful!
And stress – according to many studies – can be relieved, especially in social situations, by consuming alcohol.
So people drank.
But drinking didn’t only help people handle stress.
It also helped them bond with each other, strengthening the social ties in these incipient communities.
So there you have it: alcohol may well have fueled the demise of the hunter-gatherer way of life and ushered in the era of agriculture and settled communal living.
So, drinking.
Thousands and thousands of years ago, some hapless, apish ancestor of ours discovered the pleasures of drunkenness, perhaps after eating one too many fermented fruits.
Summary – and why we must approach alcohol mindfully.
This was an accident.
But the fact that we’ve continued drinking for millennia is no accident at all.
Drinking has benefited our species in many important ways.
It helped us become creative, communal, and cultural – the three C’s that enable us to occupy our ecological niche.
In fact, drinking may have fueled the formation of our ecological niche, both driving the transition to agriculture and easing that transition’s attendant stresses.
Since then, it’s helped us access our more playful, emotional, Dionysian side, which is good for community bonding and creativity, the cornerstones of cultural innovation.
In short, alcohol has played a complex social and cultural role throughout human history.
And it continues to play this role.
However, there’s no denying the harm it can inflict.
Today, 15 percent of the population is susceptible to alcoholism – although some countries have more of a problem than others.
The rate of alcoholism is lower in countries like Italy and Spain, where alcohol is a part of everyday social life.
In these “Southern drinking cultures,” a glass of wine or beer is a normal element of mealtime, and children are exposed to alcohol at a young age – so there’s no taboo surrounding it.
Binge drinking is frowned upon, as is drinking alone, and distilled spirits aren’t especially common.
Meanwhile, in “Northern drinking cultures,” like that of Russia and Finland, people drink less often – but when they do drink, they binge.
Drinking is considered a primary activity, and distilled spirits are common.
Drinking alone is not as stigmatized – and the rate of alcoholism is high.
Alcoholism is also rampant in the United States, with its culture of extreme individualism, and scattered, suburban living.
Unless you reside in a big city, having a local bar or cafe is rare.
Social drinking is inconvenient or impossible for many Americans; it’s much easier to pick up booze at your local convenience store and drink it at home.
This privacy around drinking encourages taboo – which makes young people more likely to abuse it.
Alcohol balances a fine line between order and chaos.
So, when it comes to certain situations, it might be time to replace it with other PFC-disarming tools.
Microdosing psychedelics could provide the creativity boost we need without causing addiction or liver damage.
And maybe office holiday parties would be better off as breakfast affairs with one-mimosa maximums.
Making the case for alcohol in the modern age is complicated, considering how it can ravage individual lives and communities.
But since it’s probably not going anywhere for a while, we must at least ensure that our debates about its role are informed by our best scientific and anthropological scholarship – not moralism and debunked science.
By acknowledging both the dangers and benefits of alcohol, we can practice getting drunk mindfully – so we can continue to thrive as the bizarre, successful species of ape that we are.