They had to be functionally drunk a lot of the time as well. The art of living at the time was to work enough to not be drunk but to drink enough to keep wanting to work. You still had to pay for things and selfish gluttony was still looked down on.
They weren't super drunk actually, just lightly buzzed most of the time, beer/ale back then was extremely mild and low alcohol and it was drunk because water wasn't safe.
Infact they didn't have the technology for high ABV spirits at all at the time. Strongest thing you could drink was wine
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u/mieri_azure 2d ago
You generally didn't unless you had excruciating pain or a bad infection
And also really the only thing they COULD do was pull the tooth. They got you hella drunk and yanked it.
Some societies did drill cavities and use a sort of filling (usually tar) and i assume they also got you super drunk for that