Alcohol Myths

With the holidays upon us, there is a frequent tendency to eat and drink in excess of our normal routine. New Year's Eve has always been a traditionally terrible time to work in the ER— I can vividly remember more than one December 31st night filled with alcohol-induced tragedies and mayhem. This month's column will hopefully make you think twice about some aspects of alcohol use. Who knows? The life you save may be your own.

MYTH #1- You get drunk a lot quicker with hard liquor than with beer or wine.

The type of alcohol in beverages is called ethanol. The ethanol content is very similar in a can of beer, an ounce of hard liquor, and glass of wine. In other words, in terms of alcohol content, a glass of wine = a drink of vodka= a can of beer.

Your body has no idea where the alcohol came from—just how much there is. So a wine drinker who has six glasses of wine will get the same amount of alcohol as the backyard BBQ drinker of a six pack of beer. Don't fool yourself that you are okay to drink and drive just because you aren't drinking hard liquor. I estimate that at least half of the drunk driving victims I saw in the ER were beer drinkers.

Additionally, drinkers notoriously underestimate the amount of alcohol they have consumed. An average-sized person, who drinks four to six beers in an hour or two will be above the legal limit. My ER patients are genuinely amazed when their blood alcohol levels come back from the lab above 0.08%. "But I only had two beers," is a common refrain. (Hmmm . . . I don't think so)

MYTH #2- Cold showers or coffee will sober up a drunk.

Whoever invents a method to sober up a drunk will be amazingly rich. But as of today, there is NO method to speed up the sobering process.

Cold showers? No.
Coffee? No.
IV fluids? No.
Specific medicine or drugs? None exist.

The only factor is time, pure and simple. Giving coffee to a sleepy drunk simply converts the sleeping drunk into an awake drunk.

MYTH #3- Alcoholics are homeless and jobless.

Many of the homeless are alcoholics or drug abusers. But so are many employed, hard-working mother and fathers, husbands and wives. There is no amount of daily or weekly alcohol consumption that defines an alcoholic. Rather, it is detrimental effects of alcohol use that creates the definition.

Do you have DUI's and alcohol related offenses?
Does your alcohol use adversely affect your family life?
Is your work performance negatively affected by your drinking? 
Have you been unsuccessful in trying to cut back or stop drinking?   

To summarize: If your drinking is affecting your life in a negative fashion, and you are unwilling or unable to change—you are probably an alcoholic.

MYTH #4- A drink or two makes me a better driver.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Study after study has shown that even a couple of drinks (corresponding to blood alcohol levels less than 0.08) decrease coordination and judgment. Such subtle lapses can cause a fatal or crippling accident. 

About 40% of all fatal motor vehicle accidents are causes by drinking drivers. Not to mention that other fatal accidents such as drownings, electrocution, and falls are all dramatically associated with alcohol use.

Drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol makes you a dangerous driver, diver, swimmer, climber, and handyman.

MYTH #5- If a person passes out from alcohol, put them to bed.

Why not just put them on an ice floe and shove them out to sea? If a person passes out from alcohol, they are at risk for a multitude of life-threatening problems. Foremost, they have likely lost their gag reflex. A single vomiting episode could kill them. Heart arrythmias, low blood pressure, and oxygen deprivation are additional alcohol-related conditions that may be afflicting them. 

Follow this rule: Take unconscious people to an emergency room.  Neither you or the patient will be reported to the police (unless there is violence involved or the patient is a minor.)

Alcohol deaths are such a tragedy, most of which could be averted with some common sense.

Final comment: We tend to treat drinking and driving with such acceptance in this country. But it is reprehensible for anyone to get behind the wheel of a 3,000 pound killing machine in an impaired state. Make a promise to yourself to never drink and drive, and never let anyone around you do it either. If you could see what I have seen—the mangled, dead and dying victims of drunken drivers—you would appreciate the passion of my plea.

Mountain Gorilla image on banner by Steve Sainsbury. It will interest you to know that this particular one is Steve's favorite gorilla, a friend from one of his stays in Rwanda.