A Satisfying Sadness

I've been trying to find better information about the effects of alcohol use and came across something called the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, a comprehensive study of the lives of some 10,000 individuals from 1994 to 2008, including consumption patterns and level of satisfaction with life. According to the survey, people who drink report greater satisfaction with their lives than non-drinkers.

It's probably true. Ask a homeless alcoholic if he's satisfied with his life, he might very well reply that he is. Alcohol, I think, makes us satisfied with less. In particular, it makes us satisfied even though we're unhappy.

But if you're satisfied, isn't that the same thing as being happy? No, they're different things. Satisfaction you can have by yourself, but happiness comes only from sharing your life with others.

In Aldous Huxley's famous novel "Brave New World", everyone takes "soma", a drug that keeps them satisfied in an emotionally bankrupt future society that discourages "inefficient" feelings. Inhabitants of that lonely world are satisfied but not happy.

Alcohol use is like soma, trading the happiness that is possible from love of friends and family for mere "satisfaction". When I was in school, "satisfactory" was not a good report card, at least not in my family. You shouldn't accept a grade of "satisfactory" for your life.

Can you measure happiness scientifically? I said in an earlier blog that I believe I see sadness in the eyes of drinkers, what I call "alcohol eyes". The psychologist Paul Ekman specializes in the study of facial expressions.  His work is the basis of the recent TV series "Lie to Me", and he consulted on the 2001 BBC series "The Human Face" hosted by John Cleese. He coined the term "micro expressions", meaning subtle clues about a person's emotional state that are revealed in facial expressions and which you can learn to read, to tell if someone is feeling suppressed anger for example, or is lying, or, I suppose, bluffing at poker. I believe that if a person is chronically sad, you can learn to see that if you pay attention. 

Sometimes it's very profound and easy to see, sometimes it's more subtle.  I suppose it depends on how much a person drinks and how long they've been drinking.  What's truly revealing though is to look at the eyes of non-drinkers. If you move mostly among drinkers, the non-drinkers will stand out.  They look like they're not from this world.  They have a "puppy dog" happiness about them that may seem bizarre. 

"Happiness is a warm puppy," according to Charles M. Schultz, the author of the Peanuts comic strip. It's spending pleasant moments with people (or animals) you love. Drinking diverts you from that, substituting sad self-indulgence for the simple joy of loving those you care for.