Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience has been similar to yours, but I am not confident that there isn't enough variation in human cognition and physiology that wouldn't still wind up with a lot of drunk drivers if every instance of driving drunk was as described above. This is not inconsistent with the notion that the predominance of effects of drinking on personality/behavior have more of a social basis than a chemical one (as studies hav…
Oh, I definitely think that there are people for who might tend to drive drunk after drinking. I'm just saying that "but I made the decision to drive drunk while drunk" doesn't get any sympathy from me. Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. T…
As a person who drinks socially and is well-aware of my limits, I've rarely moved past a slight buzz. So, when I see a person state that they've repeatedly been drunk to the point of losing consciousness, I think, "now, why would a person do that?" I would have to think that there is at least some impairment when an already extremely inebriated person decides to continue drinking to the point where the only thing that stops him is that he physically cannot continue because he is unconscious.
Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle.
I just don't see the difference except that, of course, you can claim moral superiority in that you are presumably only endangering yourself vs. others. But, therein lies the rationalization. And, of course, if you repeatedly drink to the point wherein you literally lose control of your body, then perhaps it's only a matter of time before you endanger someone else somewhere along the continuum of inebriation.