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Originally Posted by Nodrog
However, the shy person who uses alcohol to boost his confidence is treating the symptom rather than the disease. They would probably be better off working out why they were shy, and doing something about it directly.
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This is probably true although curing something like shyness doesn't seem trivial (I've not heard of anyone do it in a "repeatable" or conscious fashion). Especially when it's quite domain specific - I can easily stand up in front of a room of people and talk about Stock Condition surveys or Lenin's "What is to be done?" (and indeed have done and felt pretty good afterwards) but on a one-to-one basis I find it quite difficult.
Self-medication is a tricky subject but it seems possible that in some instances supressing the symptoms are enough to beat the "disease". I've certainly heard of instances where people used Viagra (say) the first couple of times with a new partner and then had the self-confidence to never need it again. Obviously with other drugs it can fairly quickly go to the other way towards total reliance.
It's unlikely that booze ever "cures" shyness, but I'd imagine there's quite a few situations where it supresses awkwardness for long enough for you to get to know someone and thus past any shyness. At least, that's been my experience. Obviously I realise that's only specific to that situation / group of people, but that's generally all I need.