Intoxication is odious, and the Sages illustrate through an anecdote that the craving for alcoholic drink is so powerful that it is apt to overcome any logical considerations.

There was a pious student whose father drank a lot of wine. Whenever he would fall in the street, people would come and pelt him with stones and pebbles, and shout after him: Look, a drunkard! Whenever his pious son would see this, he would be ashamed and would wish to die. Every day he would say to him: Father, I will send messengers and they will bring you home, away from all the wine that they have in the city, and you will not go drinking wine in the pub, as you are making a mockery of both me and you. The son would tell him this once or twice each day, until his father told him that he would do as his son says and not go drinking wine in the pub. And this is what the pious son did: He would prepare food and drink for his father each day and night, and he would put him to sleep in his bed, and then he would go. One day it was raining. The pious son went out to the street on his way to the synagogue for prayer, and he saw a drunkard lying in the street with a stream of water falling on him. The young men and the lads were pelting him with stones and pebbles and were casting mud on his face and into his mouth. When the pious son saw this, he said to himself: I will go to my father and bring him here, and I will show him this drunkard and the mockery that the young men and the lads are making of him. Perhaps then he will refrain from drinking wine in the pub and from becoming intoxicated. He did so. He brought his father there and showed him. What did the elderly father do? He went to the drunkard and asked him in which pub he drank the wine with which he became intoxicated so that he could drink of that same wine. His pious son said to him: Is it for this that I called you? I called you only so you could see the mockery they are making of him, as they do to you when you drink, and perhaps you would refrain from drinking in the pub. His father said to him: My son, I take an oath by my life that I have no pleasure or paradise other than drinking. When the pious son heard this, he went away bitterly disappointed. (Tanĥuma, Shemini)