Not strictly relevant, but here is a quote from a fantastic 19th-century book about opium addiction: Drinking certainly has its dangers, but I've always found that a night of drinking is one of the fastest ways to bond with a stranger, or even to become friends with an enemy.True it is that even wine, up to a certain point and with certain men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the intellect; I myself, who have never been a great wine-drinker, used to find that half-a-dozen glasses of wine advantageously affected the faculties—brightened and intensified the consciousness, and gave to the mind a feeling of being “ponderibus librata suis;” and certainly it is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and it is when they are drinking [...] that men [...] display themselves in their true complexion of character, which surely is not disguising themselves.
- Thomas de Quincey, 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'.