Revelling without cause can leave you low in spirit

It is testament to the dullness of so many festivals that drunkenness is a prerequisite for enjoyment. Not a glass of wine, or stubby of ale, but the beer goggles or bourbon-and-Coke blinkers. New Year's Eve becomes a night in which all minds are black.

This is not a wowser's moral panic. Civilisation and alcohol are old drinking mates. Beer gave the ancient Sumerians something safe to drink, free from plain water's impurities and an unfortunate lack of alcohol.

Classical Athenian democracy was enriched and engaged by its dramatic festivals, held in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine and divine frenzy. Socrates knocked back a few (still sober, to his seducer's chagrin), and philosophy was often at home in symposiums, or drinking parties. In short, the very beginnings of Western civilisation were boozy.

But at this end of the year, the balance between appreciation and inebriation is regularly tipped. This is one of the quirks of adulthood. Children can have fun with an empty oval, or cardboard box, scissors and sticky tape. At some point in the teenage years, this changes: for many, fun becomes impossible without a cask of cheap Dutch courage. In fact, for many, a jackhammer hangover and the parfum of bile is proof-positive of an awesome night.

This is partly because alcohol relaxes inhibitions, and makes it easier to meet and mount strangers: gregariousness in a bottle. It is also dumb habit: a trip to the bottle shop is an unquestioned part of party preparation, like ice in Eskies, and Khe Sanh on the playlist.

But at heart, it is also because many celebrations are pathologically dull. They require intoxication to be anything other than a Sisyphean boulder in a marquee. And they are duller precisely because of drunkenness. Obviously, this is nothing new, courtesy of at least 6000 years' ferment. The Roman Saturnalia festival, for example, was up to five days of pious worship and orgiastic drunkenness, and vice versa. ''Remaining dry and sober takes a good deal more strength of will,'' wrote the philosopher and statesman Seneca, ''when everyone about one is puking drunk.''

The Saturnalia festival is a clue to what fails in so many end-of-year festivals. It was publicly promoted in around 217BC, chiefly as distraction and consolation for disaster: Carthage's victory over Rome's armies.

Similarly, many drunken revels today are negative rather than positive. They are about diverting or destroying, rather than commemorating: saying ''no'' to the worst of the year, rather than ''yes'' to its best.

Seneca's philosophy, that of Stoicism, illuminates why. For Stoics, most misery was caused by a mistaken faith in the world.

They argued that happiness was not something guaranteed by other people or things. These are changeable and out of our control. All that we can be sure of is our own soul: for good or ill, all happiness is prefaced on this preparedness. It takes mindfulness, discipline, honesty.

For Seneca, drunkenness surrendered the one thing that was truly his: a honed psyche. This psyche, still sharp, was what helped him to make the best of life; to seek and seize what was valuable. Hence Seneca's steadfast refusal of Saturnine wooziness. If the conversation were odious or offensive, this was a good reason to go alone, or to find better company.

Many New Year's celebrations are popular for exactly the opposite reason: they take false responsibility for revellers' bliss.

Some go to dance, but many go to bask in the glow of popular mandate: the ''place to be''.

There is often nothing extraordinary about the company, music or interior design. Parties are remarkably prosaic. Still, party-goers flock to the semblance of a social hub: here is where it is happening.

As Seneca might reply: actually, a good night cannot be provided by strangers or celebrities. It begins with an attitude: gregarious, mindful, candid, witty. Without this, the spirit of cheer must be replaced by mumbled ''cheers'' with spirits.

In short, many end-of-year revels are a process of double deferral. First, deferral to the crowd: the ''where it's happening'', which will provide the joy missing for most of the year.

Second, and because this frequently fails, deferral to the bottle: a quick way to veil the worst, and embroider the best. Either way, it is a refusal to trust oneself to provide the conditions for happiness, and to cope when these are lacking.

There is no quick, universal remedy to this seasonal disease.

But a good start is literally sober planning: think of enjoying or enduring the revels straight. If the prospect is horrifying, perhaps another crowd is in order.

If this is impossible, this is a good prompt for solitude: a little meditation on why friends or family need the beer shroud to be bearable. Likewise for a pathological job or lifestyle: ask the heavy questions, instead of drowning them.

L'chaim, folks: it means to life, not instead of it.

Dr Damon Young is a philosopher at the University of Melbourne, and the author of Distraction.