Acharya Prashant explains that all addictions are nothing but the tendency of the mind to jump to the opposite state of where it is right now. If you keep the mind bored, it wants excitement and parties. If you keep the mind suppressed, it wants to drink and act like a free man. People give themselves the license to be a totally different personality after drinking. If they have been very suppressed persons, they will act like wild people after having drunk. This opposite personality is just the opposite of what you have forced yourself to be throughout the day or week. For example, in the office, you are 'Mr. Nice,' and in front of your wife, you are 'Mr. Submissive.' Then in the bar, you will be the most raucous and unmanageable drinker, breaking bottles and throwing tantrums. The mind knows that it is suffering in one condition, but it is not intelligent enough to know that the opposite condition is no better. Because the mind lives in dualities, if it does not like 'A', the only option it has is to move to the opposite of 'A'. The mind does not have the option to move beyond 'A'. So, it jumps between two states, feeling equally suffocated in both, and this is what we call life. The option to sublimate, to rise beyond both 'A' and 'B', somehow does not come to the mind. For instance, if you are living at a place where you cannot have your way for financial or emotional reasons, you act docile, pliant, and cultured. Then you take your car and hit the road, and on the road, you are the most outrageous driver, picking up fights and driving like a maniac. You are doing this just because you have been suppressed at home. When you hold the steering wheel, you are in a suppressed condition. You could not say what you wanted to your father or wife, so now you take it out on the streets. If you die in a tragic accident, it's not an accident; it's suicide. It's not even suicide; it's actually murder. You have been murdered, and you have allowed yourself to be brought to this.
