Devil Drink

by Sarah Watson

I've often wondered why they call alcohol "spirits." I can only assume this goes back to the idea that, when you drink, you allow lesser beings to enter your body: devils, if you will.

This is something that you saw in "Othello," where Cassio gets drunk, gets in a fight, and then blames it on the demons of alcohol, as it were some outward force possessing him.

Anyone who's ever gone to college -- and wasn't a member of Teetotallers United -- probably knows what I'm talking about, if not from your own experience than from observing others.

When you see someone toddling around like a weak-kneed puppet, spurting obscenities or announcing to the world, "I love you," like some sort of possessed ventriloquist's dummy, it's easy to believe spirits invade when you drink the spirits.