I firmly believe that alcohol doesn’t change who you are, it only brings out what’s already there. It doesn’t make you insane or turn you into a different person. It may bring out a side of you that you would normally conceal, but it alone isn’t responsible for your actions when you are under its influence. Alcohol can be considered as a factor when determining whether someone behaved “appropriately” (I’m assuming that, given recent news, we’re possibly hinting at someone harassing or assaulting someone while drunk and how much responsibility they should take for doing so), but it shouldn’t completely eclipse the person’s own choices and agency.
I’ve been drunk—quite drunk, in fact. I have blacked out before too. But even at my drunkest, I knew that I would never do certain things that crossed a certain personal line. Yes, I was less inhibited, I was more talkative and outgoing than I ever would have been sober, but I was still me.