Cliches ought not to be taken for granted. After all, they became cliche by being common enough for everyone to recognize them. Unless you're one of those hopelessly corny idealists, the first thing that pops into your mind when thinking of family gatherings is excessive self-medication with unholy amounts of holy libations. Why do we drink until intoxicated when we're around our extended families? I don't think it's as simple as dysfunctional behavior. There are layers to this ritual.
How we feel about our families has everything to do with how well we know them. Sure, there are a scant few among the whole of modern society who are well-acquainted with a large segment of their cousins, but the truth is that most of us see these people for what they really are: strangers with an uncomfortable amount of access to our lives.
Imagine for a moment that some random person off the street who doesn't know you from Adam all of a sudden had a lifetime of minor memories about you and your immediate family. This stranger now has access to your past, a vulnerable place for everyone who ever walked the earth. Now if you could just convince yourself to feel obligated to this stranger, if only where minor courtesies are concerned, you'll be just one step away from creating a new extended family member.
The last component is, of course, the quasi-myth of blood relation. The continued identification of extended family members is little more than a safeguard against inbreeding. If it weren't for the threat of accidentally producing a child whose eyes are way too close together, we probably wouldn't give a damn about our cousins. Yet we still encourage one another to gather together with these people every so often as if to say, "we are part of something".
But we're not. We live in different parts of the world, work in different industries and have completely different lifestyles. We didn't grow up together and we don't know anything relevant about one another aside from where we exist on a family tree. This surreal circumstance of imaginary connections, non-consensual intimacy and the pressures of obligation is nerve-wracking.
Of course, we can't act like being around a bunch of unusually knowledgeable strangers is troubling. Alcohol removes inhibitions, relaxes muscles and shuts down higher brain functions. It can be consumed discreetly and even secretly, its portions controlled down to the sip. It's the ideal mood-altering substance for short-term social anxiety. We drink around our families for many of the same reasons we consider bars good places to interact with potential sex partners. Alcohol makes us stop caring about the inherent awkwardness of experiencing intimacy with strangers.
As with any instance of using substances like alcohol to treat a problem, I'm not suggesting that self-medicating with drink around family is a good thing. At best, it's a patch-up for a bigger issue that ought to be addressed with more difficult but ultimately healthier methods. Maybe that means making a better effort to know our cousins, but more realistically it means convincing ourselves that we aren't really obligated to people just because we share a significant chunk of the same DNA code. Hell, all people are cousins if you go back far enough, though the same thing could be said for all life on Earth. Sometimes it's better to be a stranger, especially if that means the cork comes out in celebration rather than as a prescription.