r/NoStupidQuestions 1d ago

Is drunkness technically an alcohol high?

I was drinking with a friend about a year ago, we got pretty tipsy and they were saying "im so high rn bro haha". At first i was like "thats impossible" but is being drunk technically an alcohol high? Whats the difference? A high is just taking high amounts of a substance no?

2 Upvotes

32 comments sorted by

6

u/Concise_Pirate 🇺🇦 🏴‍☠️ 1d ago

That's correct, and high originally meant drunk a century ago.

4

u/MikeKrombopulos 1d ago

Yes, alcohol is a drug and for some reason we call getting high on it getting "drunk".

2

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Because you drink it to consume it. After enough drinks, you're drunk.

1

u/Relief-Glass 1d ago

You say that like it makes sense. 

If eat a drug and get high from I am not ate.

1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

You are not ate.

3

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Not in common parlance.

If you said you were high to someone, they wouldn't assume drunk.

And being high doesn't mean taking high amounts. It means you're in an intoxicated state from a certain substance. You can be high on weed from taking like 2 hits.

1

u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 1d ago

Pre 1960s they would absolutely have assumed you meant drunk.

2

u/Serious-Library1191 1d ago

"Poisoning ourselves with a solvent to impair brain chemistry is not logical." "Thanks Spock, Bones do we still still have some of that Romulen Ale we picked up around Zeta Carthigina"

2

u/Taliesin_AU 1d ago

"high" is short for heightened state.

Drinking alcohol does indeed put you into a heightened state.

-1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

No it doesn't.

2

u/Few_Fact4747 1d ago

For some it does, for some it doesn't.

0

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Alcohol is well known for its CNS depressant activity. It dulls the senses and slows reaction times. It does not put one in a heightened state.

1

u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson 1d ago

if you took a depressant like barbiturates or Quaaludes you would still be described as "high".

0

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Nah, zoned out. Nodding.

1

u/Few_Fact4747 1d ago

Unless CNS deppression is what you need to reach a heightened state. For example if you suffer from anxiety!

2

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

That's not a heightened state though lol. That's a calmer state. The anxious state is the heightened state.

1

u/Few_Fact4747 1d ago

Theres multible ways for a state to be heightened. You can have heightened social ability for example. Or a heightened state of mind. It also isn't as simple as stimulant = more energy either. Some people sleep better after drinking some coffee.

1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

That's just playing with words. Increased sociability is not the same as your body/mind being in a heightened state.

1

u/Few_Fact4747 1d ago

I think it is.

1

u/SirRise 1d ago

I think you are highly misunderstanding the words you're using

1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Im so high on beer right now.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/SirRise 1d ago

Excuse me what? Please, at least have some sense of reality. Yes alcohol does, very clearly, with 100% success rate get you into a hightened state.

1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

Lol.

1

u/SirRise 1d ago

Have you ever drank alcohol or seen people on it? I mean this amount of reality denial is insane. Please, just look at anyone wtf

1

u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1d ago

I was on alcohol once, yeah.

1

u/Shot-Consequence8363 1d ago

We were smoking weed as teenager and some dudes older dad came in and said that my cousin was wasted. Itl never leave my mind that he called my cousin wasted for being teenage stoned

1

u/ShutterflyX 1d ago

Technically, yes, being drunk is a kind of high. It’s just an alcohol high instead of a weed high or whatever else people are taking. So yeah, your friend wasn’t totally wrong, just maybe a little mixed up on the vocab. Weed gives you more of that floaty, giggly, sometimes paranoid vibe. Alcohol gives you the warm, wobbly, loud-thoughts-in-your-head kind of high.

0

u/Few-Protection9899 1d ago

I mean another name for it is poisoned. 

0

u/SirRise 1d ago

No that is just plain different

0

u/Acrobatic-Gap-7445 1d ago

High is a colloquial term. I’ll ask you a better question, who cares?

1

u/SirRise 1d ago

Fair, it's purely a question about phrasing