"It was through reading that I discovered the crucial, even sacrosanct place the rituals of drinking held in the American imagination - the ingenious way alcohol seemed to lubricate everything from onerous chitchat to self-conscious sexual advances."

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When under the influence of certain (or some) reasons (or causes) (alcohol, war, etc - added Spir here) the low instincts are unbridled (or unrestrained), the brute appears (or come forward, "apparait", Fr.) and rule over (or dominate), stifling every ("toute", Fr.) noble, generous impulse; it is then the ruin (or downfall or decline) of any humanity in man.

— African Spir