Hey, thought I share an experience I had yesterday.
I was on my way home from a weekend event where I managed to have a pretty good time even though there was a TON of drinking going on. On the way home I went into a Bennigan's (if you don't know the chain, think Chili's or Fridays) to pick up some food to go that we had ordered. You pick it up at the bar and the kitchen was slow so it wasn't ready yet.... so I sat on the bar stool with drinks being mixed right in front of me, watching people drink and laugh and it all seemed oddly phony to me. It was like watching fake forced happiness.
Probably it was partly my frame of mind at the time and partly a true observation.
BTW, the alcohol literally smelled like chemical poison to me.