People come down from an alcohol high.

Just as heroin and meth users experience a miserable "coming down" from their high,  drinkers experience an uncomfortable period of "coming down" as their body brings their  blood alcohol back to zero.  As one's blood alcohol level goes up, one feels good. As it  goes down, one feels icky. There are two ways to avoid this feeling. The first is to keep  drinking, and the second is to fall asleep. 

This is borne out in my after-party  experience: Half of the people want to go hunt down more booze, and the other half  want to go to bed.  No one wants to experience the come-down. Experienced alcoholics  will carefully manage their alcohol intake, so that even when they start early, they can  steadily increase their blood alcohol level until it is time to go to bed.

Previous - Menu - Next