Accurate description?

I'm reading a novel with an alcoholic character and this passage struck me as beautifully written, but almost too beautiful for the subject matter. Glorifying drinking a bit, even while ostensibly condemning it, maybe?

I'm curious to hear what you all think

"I could feel caution lights start to flash in my head, the way you do when you watch the amber light shimmer in a whiskey glass; you raise the glass to your lip and you're almost eyeball to eyeball with that protean and dancing balloon of yellow light, then its heated energy hits your stomach, surges through your chest, and rips open sealed places in your brain that you did not know existed. But the marriage is made, the hyena will have its way, the caution light is locked on red, and you can't even have the pleasure of loathing yourself because the metamorphosis to which you've committed yourself is now the only self you have."