President Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles says he has an "alcoholic personality." He doesn't drink liquor, yet he thinks he can do anything regardless of how unrealistic.
Booze gives at least temporary courage and confidence. Ernest Hemingway called it "a giant killer." The three greatest American novelists of the previous century, Fitzgerald, Hemingway himself, and Faulkner, were all drunks.
Shakespeare had his drunken porter in Macbeth say that drink has a peculiar relationship with sexual performance and desire. It provokes the desire but retards the performance.
Alcoholism involves a paradoxical, toxic blend. It's sort of the 8th wonder of the world, but you might be better off just visiting there rather than living there.
Note: This is not a direct transcript of the audio.
