Why Do People Drink Alcohol? His Question Left Me Speechless

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Sarthak, my 9-year-old son, and I had just finished watching a movie together. As we relaxed, he turned to me with a question that caught me slightly off guard—not because it was unexpected, but because of where it led.

“Papa, why do people like to drink alcohol?” he asked with innocent curiosity.

An AI image representing thoughts in Sarthak’s mind

I could guess where the question had come from. The movie we’d watched had a few scenes showing alcohol, and this wasn’t the first time such imagery had popped up. It was natural that he’d want to understand.

Still, I was prepared for this one.

“People like the feeling they get after they drink it, Beta,” I replied. “Once they drink it the first time, they can become addicted to it. So it’s bad.”

He stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. Then came the follow-up:

“What is that feeling like?”

Now I was in a fix. This wasn’t something I could brush aside or answer half-heartedly. I had to be honest, but careful.

“They feel lighter,” I explained. “They get an illusion that their problems are fading away. The more they drink, the more they lose their sense of reality. They just get this feeling—but at the cost of their health.”

Sarthak listened intently, still curious. I could see he was processing what I had said, probably piecing it together with stories he’d heard from school—about classmates’ fathers who drink, about habits he didn’t fully understand.

After a moment of quiet, he said something that truly stunned me:

“Oh! Losing the sense of reality! Then why don’t they just… just die? It’s the same feeling, right!”

He looked at me, genuinely waiting for an answer.

And I had none.

It hit me hard. If a 9-year-old child can connect the dots and grasp the gravity of escapism through alcohol, isn’t it a pity that so many grown-ups still fall into its trap—damaging their health, hurting their families, and losing themselves in the process?

Sometimes, the most innocent questions reveal the deepest truths. And they leave us, as parents and as people, speechless.