[HN Gopher] A lesser known mechanism for alcohol tolerance
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A lesser known mechanism for alcohol tolerance
Author : klevertree
Score : 153 points
Date : 2021-10-07 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (trevorklee.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (trevorklee.com)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| How about: folks who are drunk, just _think_ they have a high
| tolerance and are functional.
| shakezula wrote:
| There are objective and measurable differences between
| tolerances that this post points out, though.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Hm, I thought I looked for them and didn't find them.
|
| Reading again, yup nothing there. Just some generalities.
| lloydgrossman wrote:
| I guess everything is a generality if you believe hard
| enough.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That's an ungenerous remark, and un-called for. If there
| are measures in the article, then please post them.
| Otherwise lighten up, and cease the ad-hominem attacks.
| drewbitt wrote:
| Yes, but also no. Through practice alone you do get better at
| activities while drunk, like walking or driving, but I can
| assure you that what two drinks did to me when I never drank vs
| what they do now is entirely different. My rationality stays
| the same now. Note that the high alcohol content will catch up
| to you later (you're still dehydrated), but in the moment
| alcoholics are an entirely different breed a couple drinks in.
| If you ever hang out with people who drink regularly and those
| who don't, you'll quickly see the difference.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| Not sure which I fall into - maybe both
|
| but I very rarely get a hangover (yes this does encourage/ allow
| school night drinking - inc now)
|
| I have to drink either red wine or over 8 (uk - 568ml) pints of
| 5%abv lager to start to get fraction of a hangover the next day
| (starting at a slight thick head level)
|
| incedently for me, eating stuff with sugar and alchol = major
| acid reflux this took ages to figure out why sometime I was
| throwing up in the middle of the night (no other symtoms)
|
| another thing that is fairly obivious to me now is how
| proportional the effect is of the amount of food eaten before
| drinking and the speed of which you get drunk. This can be used
| to great effect for big drinking days (eg stag do)
|
| I could easily drink all day comsuming > 15 (uk - 568ml, 5% abv)
| pints if I keep a level of food in my stomache
| tk75x wrote:
| I am guessing you are less than 30 years old? give it 5-10
| years and it'll be much more painful after a heavy night of
| drinking. sugar and alcohol are both metabolized by the liver,
| and large amounts of both/either will make you feel poorly. age
| and frequent use of alcohol and junk food will just wear your
| body out sooner. the feeling of being drunk is most noticeable
| when your blood alcohol content is rising, aka when you drink
| quickly on an empty stomach. but you can have a nice buzz going
| all day with proper planning and eating beforehand.
|
| I realize after typing this out it sounds a bit preachy, but
| take it as a caution from someone who felt invincible in their
| 20s
| 123pie123 wrote:
| nope - well over 50
|
| because I understand how my body works with alcohol, I can
| now manage my alcohol better (with food/ sugar) I can drink
| very much more now
|
| forgot to mention - I ALWAYS have one month off drinking (typ
| January)
|
| and Oktoberfest is the best place in the world - make sure
| you dress up properly though
| [deleted]
| oaktrout wrote:
| The author seems confused about how BK channels relate to
| tolerance, here he notes that decreased BK channels lead to
| increased tolerance: "Exposure to alcohol upregulates microRNA
| (mir-9), which in turn modifies BK mRNA, selectively
| destabilizing certain types of BK mRNA."
|
| Then later he seems to be stating that decreased BK channels
| would lead to decreased tolerance: "The consequence of this would
| then be that the development of alcohol tolerance could be slowed
| or halted by preventing the modification of BK channels, like by
| using RNAi to degrade certain types of BK mRNA."
|
| Perhaps he meant "by using RNAi to degrade mir-9". Ignoring the
| above issues, it seems very hand wavy to say "let's just get this
| RNA interfering drug into your brain and target this specific BK
| RNA".
| atourgates wrote:
| I just want to point out the amazing amount of alcohol you'd have
| to ingest in a short time to get to the 1% BAC referenced in this
| article.
|
| Obviously there are lots of variables based on your size and
| individual physiology, but on average, each drink raises your BAC
| somewhere around .02%.
|
| So, even without accounting for an enlarged liver that processed
| alcohol more quickly, that driver with a 1% BAC in South Africa
| must have had around 50 drinks in quick succession, then gotten
| behind the wheel.
|
| Even if you were drinking liquor, that's basically downing two
| bottles of whisky in under an hour.
|
| Plenty to kill the average person, but apparently not enough to
| keep this driver from getting behind the wheel.
|
| Wild.
| dexwiz wrote:
| You have never seen an alcoholic chug liquor like its water I
| take it? Long term alcoholics, talking decades+ here not
| youthful overindulgence, become incredibly tolerant and can
| consume huge amounts in ways that would make a normal person
| wretch. These are people who have altered their body chemistry
| enough that withdrawal is deadly.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Two bottles in an hour though? I was under the impression
| that the most hardcore alcoholics consumed that much in a
| _day_.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| In the mid 90s, I worked for a grocery store doing full
| time, overnight stock to partially pay for college. One of
| my co-workers for a period of time, whose name I now
| forget, was a barely-functional alcoholic. He would show up
| to work on time most days, and work through his shift. At
| lunchtime he would disappear for a period of time and he
| would come back smelling like Listerine.
|
| Because that was his lunch.
|
| A bottle of Listerine.
|
| During the holidays they shifted some of us to a morning
| shift to continue to put items on shelves to match the
| holiday demand, and I saw him walk in on his day off, grab
| a fifth of bourbon and a fifth of vodka in the cheap
| plastic bottles, walk out, and walk back in about an hour
| later because he had consumed both bottles in his truck in
| the parking lot. He wanted a couple more to bring back to
| his apartment.
|
| And as bad as his drinking was, the reason he had sole
| custody of his daughter is because his ex-girlfriend was a
| full blown drug addict and he was good at hiding his
| drinking from CPS.
| zepolen wrote:
| I've seen an alcoholic down half a bottle of whiskey for
| breakfast. Literally.
| jessriedel wrote:
| My understanding is that serious alcoholics are drunks for
| days at a time. They go to bed with enough alcohol in their
| system to be drunk when they wake up, and they keep
| drinking throughout the day. Having zero alcohol in their
| system can be life threatening.
|
| That means they can build up to whatever BAC slowly.
| MivLives wrote:
| I was always told that you eliminate roughly one drink per hour
| from your system. So it is possible that they did that feat
| over a longer time span. Staying up all night drinking then
| hopping in the car seems much more reasonable (at least for how
| to achieve that BAC, and not as a decision you should make in
| life).
| mcguire wrote:
| Eliminating alcohol from your system reduces your BAC. One
| drink plus one hour _ought_ to give you (fairly close to) a
| 0% BAC.
| retrac wrote:
| It's truly incredible. 0.15% is quite drunk for a typical
| person and most can't stand at 0.2%. At > 0.3% people often
| require hospitalization. At 1% it's probably over the LD50 for
| an alcohol-naive person! Though it seems estimates for that
| value are rather fuzzy.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >It's truly incredible. 0.15% is quite drunk for a typical
| person and most can't stand at 0.2%. At > 0.3% people often
| require hospitalization
|
| Unless you're using insanely puritanical definitions for
| "quite drunk" and "can't stand" this doesn't check out. One
| drink is ~0.02 and there's no shortage of college kids will
| kill 10+ in an hour with no effect other than becoming drunk
| and a headache the next day.
| morsch wrote:
| College kids who routinely have 10+ drinks in an hour
| probably aren't what the GP had in mind when referring to
| typical persons.
|
| Obviously words like typical on the one hand and
| puritanical on the other hand are sort of subjective. The
| NIH, probably on the more puritanical side, considers more
| than 4-5 drinks on one occasion (not per hour!) as binge
| drinking[1], or more precisely any drinking that raises BAC
| beyond 0.08%. As for typical, some random internet page[2]
| claims that on average, male college students have 9 drinks
| per week (not per hour!).
|
| [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-
| fact-sh...
|
| [2] https://www.scramsystems.com/blog/2014/02/infographic-
| much-c...
| retrac wrote:
| I'm going by my own experiences. And I don't think I'm
| puritanical at all, but I am something of a lightweight
| with alcohol admittedly. I am male and I am a half-
| recovered alcoholic, for context.
|
| Around 0.05 I'm tipsy to the point of it being obvious.
| Feeling good, effusive. And if I'm smart I'll stop drinking
| around here.
|
| At 0.10 I'm flushed, joyous or melancholic, coordination is
| affected, I might slosh my drink on the table, and I'm
| going on and maybe making a bit of a fool of myself. I tend
| to want to go to bed shortly after. I won't have a bad
| hangover if I eat a good meal but yes, that's quite drunk
| in my opinion.
|
| And at like 0.15+, I get very sedated. I tend to pass out
| and while it's not a stupor I am hard to rouse.
|
| Above that is just passed out black-out drunk and I've only
| done that a few times thankfully, but I have, so I know
| that most of a bottle of 750 ml of 80 proof on an empty
| stomach is enough to potentially hospitalize me, and
| certainly leave me passed out in a puddle of vomit.
|
| These numbers being for when I am alcohol naive. Not having
| drunk in months. If I have been drinking regularly you
| could easily double or triple the numbers. Most people do
| not have alcohol tolerance though, which is why I assumed
| an alcohol-naive drinker.
| spicybright wrote:
| I've been a pretty bad alcoholic the past few years. I'm
| young though. And I'm fairly heavy set too.
|
| My "high score" on a breathalyzer is 0.4%, and that was
| black out barfey drunk for me.
|
| When in college, NO ONE I knew was able to reach even close
| to that. If you treat it like a math problem, sure, 1 drink
| = 0.02.
|
| But in reality, when you can't walk, your body vomits a lot
| of it out, and friends stop you from drinking, etc. A
| college aged person without much tolerance can almost never
| reach that level.
|
| In my AA, no one has gotten close to that. .6 at the most
| at their worst.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'm no saying .4 is realistically attainable with any
| regularity. I'm saying that 0.15-.2 is not a very
| exceptional "24hr high score" for anyone who is drinking
| to get drunk in said 24hr period. It's basically a
| 12-pack over 1.5 hr or a 6-pack and some shots over two,
| neither of which are keg stand type crazy levels of
| consumption.
|
| HN gets a massive stick up its ass if you suggest that
| there exists a large subset of the population who's
| alchohol consumption is not along the lines one high end
| beer per week night and two on the weekends.
|
| I'm not saying that everyone is crushing a 12pack on a
| Friday night but to say that people can't stand at .2 is
| an equally outlandish generalization in the other
| direction.
| phonypc wrote:
| 12 beers over a night is one thing, in 1.5 hours is
| another. A beer every 7.5 minutes? Just the volume of
| liquid would leave me uncomfortable.
|
| I have no doubt it happens with some regularity, but
| that's gotta be a least somewhat noteworthy.
| allturtles wrote:
| Even among binge-drinking college students, 10 drinks an
| hour is exceptional.
|
| We used to play a game in college where you would drink 1
| shot of beer per minute (so 90 oz of beer, or 7.5 cans of
| beer in an hour), and few people could make it past 30
| minutes.
|
| Source: was a binge-drinking college student.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| You're talking about a power hour. Pretty much everyone
| makes the hour. Nobody drops out after 30min unless
| they've been pregaming. Yes it gets you pretty drunk but
| many people continue drinking afterwards. The alcoholics
| do it with wine.
|
| Pretty much everyone I hung out with in college were
| weekend only drinkers, not exactly the hard drinking
| crowd.
|
| If people were regularly puking at the end it wouldn't be
| a popular game, just like if a 6-pack weren't a common
| amount to consume it wouldn't be a typical unit of sale.
| caddemon wrote:
| Power hours can definitely get you utterly trashed, but I
| think a big reason people would stop/slow down half way
| through those is that it's a bit physically
| uncomfortable. I don't think I could do a power hour with
| non-alcoholic beer right now if you paid me. I agree 10
| drinks an hour is super rare though. Just saying if I
| absolutely had to do that for some reason I'd go with
| vodka not beer.
| silexia wrote:
| 90 oz of vodka? You must mean 10 shots of vodka, not the
| other way I read it.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Binge drinking college students aren't "typical [people]"
| erikstarck wrote:
| Andre the Giant level of consumption.
| spicybright wrote:
| Maybe even 2 Andres. 1% is insane.
| MaximumYComb wrote:
| About 10 years ago I called an ambulance for a friend at a
| party. Everyone had said just to get a taxi for him, so I did.
| When the taxi arrived I realised I couldn't put him in it and
| called an ambulance instead.
|
| He had seizures on the way to the hosptial, and was blood
| tested at 0.7% BAC. He woke up 12 hours later and was still
| 0.2% BAC (which is really drunk).
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Good on you for recognizing it as an emergency and responding
| appropriately.
| silexia wrote:
| I had a similar situation in a college dorm at age 18. My
| friend didn't want to get in trouble so just tried to
| babysit me. I had severe alcohol poisoning and was sick for
| days. I am still good friends with that guy, but have
| realized I need to say no to him quite a bit.
| taternuts wrote:
| Honestly if you are in America, he _might_ have done you
| a favor as the emergency ride to the hospital costs about
| 5k (not great for college students), let alone the
| medical bill. It's always better safe than sorry though.
| markdown wrote:
| That's insane. Does the St. John Ambulance Brigade not
| operate in the US? T hey provide free services in many
| countries and have for decades.
|
| Perhaps the third world needs to send an aid mission to
| the US.
|
| https://www.stjohninternational.org/
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Part of it likely has to do with the fact that alcoholics'
| livers are often dysfunctional, so the .02% average wouldn't
| necessarily apply to the types of people who can reach 1% BAC.
| nkozyra wrote:
| The logistics of that got me thinking if there was perhaps
| instrumentation errors that led to that BAC number. It seems
| implausible, and not data-centric enough to hang your hat on in
| a blog post like this.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Depending on the incentive situation instrumentation errors
| may be the norm and not the exception. The NJ state police
| got in trouble for that in the past few years. If the
| calibration error isn't linear and someone shows up blowing a
| high number you could get a medically insane number on the
| screen.
| cromulent wrote:
| Some of these are interesting:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#Highest_...
|
| I think anyone who has played with a personal breath test
| device knows that you can get false readings quite easily, but
| blood tests are something else altogether.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I have a police officer friend and even his breathalyzer
| gives pretty dramatically different readings.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| The unspoken secret to DUI defense: pay $10k for an expert
| witness to show up and demand access to the breathalyzer's
| source code and pertinent documentation. The vendor will
| refuse and the case will be thrown out.
|
| Nobody wants to talk about the (in)accuracy of
| breathalyzers.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Nobody wants to talk about the (in)accuracy of
| breathalyzers.
|
| That's because like every other bit of tech used to
| convict people it's designed to err on the side of
| convicting people not being accurate.
|
| If you want a laugh look up the sensors they use in the
| alcohol ankle bracelets. Then look up the OEM specs,
| calibration requirements, usage environment requirements
| and accuracy claims by the vendors and try and reconcile
| the two (several research papers have been written about
| this). The whole industry is lousy.
| outworlder wrote:
| > The vendor will refuse and the case will be thrown out.
|
| I'm skeptical that a case would be thrown out that
| easily. I have seen expert witnesses getting chewed by
| the prosecution on minor details. So what if the source
| is unavailable. It can be argued that the device is
| tested and regularly calibrated, and that any
| inaccuracies found will be minor - and certainly not
| enough to exonerate the defendant.
|
| Yeah maybe there might be some inaccuracy - but then the
| defendant failed the standardized field sobriety tests.
| And the cop is saying that they were visibly drunk. Now
| what?
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| > Yeah maybe there might be some inaccuracy - but then
| the defendant failed the standardized field sobriety
| tests. And the cop is saying that they were visibly
| drunk. Now what?
|
| You pay to have a medical expert come in and explain the
| myriad conditions that can lead to failing the field
| sobriety tests. It's simply a question of funding. Even
| if the case isn't dropped the jury will almost certainly
| have reasonable doubt.
|
| This is partially why, at least in California, major
| parts of the penalties for DUI are "administrative" in
| nature and handled by the DMV.
|
| Even if you do get acquitted in criminal court, it's
| another set of hearings to get your license back ($$$),
| lose the special "I got a DUI" SR-22 insurance
| requirement, etc.
| sva_ wrote:
| > In 2004, an unidentified Taiwanese woman died of alcohol
| intoxication after immersion for twelve hours in a bathtub
| filled with 40% ethanol. Her blood alcohol content was 1.35%.
| It was believed that she had immersed herself as a response
| to the SARS epidemic.
|
| Bizarre
| Chris2048 wrote:
| IF she wanted to clean her skin, Why on earth would she
| bathe for more than 10 mins?! It must have burned!
| boogies wrote:
| Perhaps the fumes made her too drunk to leave? Is that
| possible?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'd imagine the fumes were quite bad too. Inhalation can be
| a different beast when it comes to alcohol.
| sp332 wrote:
| I thought of the fumes too. Clinical studies show that
| alcohol doesn't absorb well through skin. e.g.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596158/
|
| _the wrappings were subsequently soaked with 200 ml of
| 95% (v /v) ethanol. Although the ethanol-soaked cotton
| was kept covering the skin with rubber sheeting and
| adhesive tapes for 4-9 hours, no ethanol was measurable
| in the blood._
| satellite2 wrote:
| Some also probably entered the bloodstream via the colon
| / genitals.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Interesting. I didn't realize it was that bad at
| absorption.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| 0.02% BAC per drink is wildly underestimated. many people will
| reach the driving limit of .08 after 2 drinks
|
| there's a chart on this dmv page that shows you have to be
| 240lbs to get .02 per drink
|
| https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han...
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| It seems like this isn't the most precise chart which I think
| is likely in order to avoid underestimating intoxication.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/drinks-before-driving-if-
| bac... has me at 0.13 after 5 drinks versus 0.21 according to
| the CA chart. This is an astromical difference that I implies
| at least one source is lying via statistics.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Considering the rate of obesity, .02 per drink might be more
| common than one would think. That said, people should
| calculate it for themselves than use rules of thumb.
|
| I'm not convinced of the values in that table. I think they
| are being very conservative. My calculations using a BAC
| formula are different. For example, the .02 per drink seems
| to work for men weighing 215lbs.
| vkou wrote:
| Do note:
|
| There's a lot of beer these days that's >5% alcohol, so a
| single beer often has more than one drink.
| 0des wrote:
| I had to check wikipedia and I am very much dismay to
| report that it appears they're discontinuing what some
| may consider to be the topmost of high gravity malt
| liquor, 211 Steel Reserve Triple Export (a segment of 211
| Steel Reserve)
|
| RIP, you were taken from us too soon.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah. Standard drinks are 1.5oz 80 proof, 12 oz 5% beer,
| or 5oz 12% wine.
| ksdale wrote:
| Whenever I've looked at the BAC chart and compared it to my
| drinking, I discover that I would be _incredibly_
| uncomfortable driving while anywhere near .08 BAC, so I
| always assumed it was underestimated somehow... or else
| people are allowed to be way drunker and still drive than
| seems safe.
| yibg wrote:
| I think it's the latter. I've tried a few times with a
| breathalyzer (that I got off of amazon for pretty cheap, so
| no guarantee on accuracy. Although it was consistent) while
| drinking and I was pretty shocked at how drunk I felt while
| still being under 0.08. I always assumed the safe limit
| would be a beer or 2, after which I'd be driving under the
| influence. Turns out drinking 5 beers over an hour or 2 I
| was still only around 0.05.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| When I was drinking heavily, I bought an evidence grade
| breathalyzer. I would use it as directed (wait 15m after
| eating or drinking, etc) and find that at a .08 I felt fine
| (which means nothing, obviously) but also I could pass FSTs
| and no one around me (sober or drunk) could tell that I had
| been drinking.
|
| Not that anecdotes are data, just to say it 100% depends on
| the person and the circumstances. Alcohol hits me much
| harder now.
| ksdale wrote:
| Interesting! I've always wanted to play around with a
| breathalyzer.
| randombits0 wrote:
| There was one in a bar I frequented many years ago, coin
| op. The cops made them take it out as patrons were
| competing who could blow the highest.
| muttled wrote:
| I'm picturing it like an arcade game where you got to put
| your initials in if you got the high score.
| abduhl wrote:
| That's interesting. I just looked at this chart and would
| be incredibly comfortable driving after drinking the
| maximum number of drinks on the chart (5) which would place
| me at 0.15 minus say .04 (over 3 hours, minus 0.01 per 45
| minutes) or 0.11. Perhaps you're just not a big drinker?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I just looked at this chart and would be incredibly
| comfortable driving after drinking the maximum number of
| drinks on the chart (5)
|
| 0.11 is very definitely impaired, whether or not you
| "feel" anything.
|
| False feelings of sobriety are common in heavy drinkers
| (and users of some drugs with similar mechanisms of
| action)
|
| Please don't drink anywhere near this amount and drive,
| no matter how sober you might feel.
| abduhl wrote:
| I'd just point out that this five drinks in three hours
| is one drink more than the rule of thumb often given out
| of two drinks in the first hour then one drink per hour
| afterwards. It's the rare 200 lb person that has 5 beers
| during a football/baseball/soccer game and is "very
| definitely impaired." Sobriety limits are justifiably
| geared towards the lower end to accommodate light-weight
| drinkers. This is even pointed out on the chart by noting
| that this is a 95th percentile drunkenness/BAC (i.e., 95%
| of people are LESS drunk/have a lower BAC than shown or,
| alternatively, 5% of people are MORE drunk than shown).
| dagw wrote:
| _Perhaps you're just not a big drinker?_
|
| I think it's more of a question about risk tolerance than
| alcohol tolerance
| ksdale wrote:
| Exactly. No one I know would describe me as a
| lightweight, but when I have 2 drinks in 40 minutes, I'm
| very well aware that my reaction time and my ability to
| notice things is reduced to extent that I'd feel like a
| jackass getting behind the wheel of a car, even if
| society deems it legal.
| t-3 wrote:
| It's not legal to drive with _any_ detectable BAC. It 's
| rarely prosecuted, but you can get in trouble for just
| one.
| [deleted]
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| Random, I guess, but what does "fewer than 5 in 100 will
| exceed these values" mean? Does that mean 5/100 would be more
| drunk than what's listed there? Less drunk? "Exceed" the
| weight on the high end?
| p_j_w wrote:
| Yes, 5/100 (actually, less than 5/100) would be more drunk.
| It's their way of stating their confidence interval.
| tdrdt wrote:
| The list on Wikipedia is crazy:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content (Highest
| levels)
| rvense wrote:
| I have just under ten years of AA (and sobriety) under my belt,
| so I have heard _a lot_ of war stories. I can 't remember ever
| hearing anyone claim more than about 0.65% BAC. 1% sounds more
| than a little extreme.
| MivLives wrote:
| Most normal people pass out at around .2, so the fact this
| person could turn a car key is crazy.
| pengaru wrote:
| If you're pounding shots in a drinking game or just hitting
| the Economy-sized bottle of Bacardi rum directly, it's
| fairly easy to create a situation where you've gotten
| behind the wheel buzzed and it all catches up to once
| you're in motion.
| ksdale wrote:
| You'd have to literally take those shots and go out to
| your car in the next few minutes to get surprised like
| that, which... I guess people would do, but it's not
| _that_ easy. Pounding shots catches up with you very
| quickly.
| pengaru wrote:
| I've definitely had experiences where I managed to queue
| up a profound amount of alcohol intoxication, becoming
| realized abruptly after enough time had passed to switch
| bars on foot.
|
| In one specific instance, I promptly became incapacitated
| before even receiving my first drink at the new bar,
| falling off a bar stool and vomiting on the floor, unable
| to stand again, let alone walk. The bar-tender was
| convinced I was overdosing on some hard drug apparently
| and kicked us all out for being junkies, because I went
| from walking in perfectly normal and ordering a drink, to
| this complete disaster on the floor, in the time it took
| her to prepare our drinks... It must have been a 10-20
| minute delay spent between bars on foot that time. The
| first bar specialized in stiff sweet cocktails, where
| they mask stupidly high alcohol content with sugary
| syrup. IIRC it was called Sugar Lounge (in SF). And I
| have very low tolerance not being much of a drinker, if
| you've got tolerance I imagine you can push that time-to-
| incapacitated delay out quite a bit.
| ksdale wrote:
| Haha touche, and entertaining story, though I'm sorry it
| happened to you!
| poetaster wrote:
| I climbed over a wall in a police station to get into the loo
| to pee at .25. Drank a litre of water, climbed back over, sat
| on a bench and waited for someone to give me the drill.
| Leaving out a lot of details, wound up buying a piano. I
| don't drink and drive, though. That's mad.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I once climbed up five floors of balconies to get to the
| bathroom. No idea why I didn't take the stairs, or the
| elevator.
| adamc wrote:
| Just congratulations.
| batty_alex wrote:
| Isn't this just a really complicated way of saying that Alcohol
| is a potassium diuretic and your body is adapting to something
| flushing your potassium all the time?
|
| Not sure if it's lesser-known, though. When doing beer judging,
| we're told to load-up on foods with lots of fat and potassium to
| increase our tolerance (senses start working differently after
| you're toasted, can make judging tough)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Don't wine testers spit it out, so that their judgment remains
| unimpaired?
| poooogles wrote:
| Yes. Often you'll do 3 - 5 tastings a week, sometimes even
| two in a day so spitting really helps keep the alcohol intake
| down.
|
| The thing that really gets you is palette exhaustion though.
| Taste 40 ripe Cali cabs and they all start tasting the same
| after a point...
| [deleted]
| rzzzt wrote:
| (If someone wants to search for the term, also try "palate
| fatigue")
| tombert wrote:
| For some reason (presumably because I'm tall or because I have
| too much body fat (thanks Taco Bell!)), I have an extremely high
| tolerance to alcohol, despite the fact that I almost never drink.
| It can take upwards of 600ml of whisky for me to really "feel
| unsafe to drive" [1], which is part of the reason I don't really
| drink to begin with...If I don't have much fun with it, and it's
| not healthy for me, I don't really see the point in partaking.
|
| [1] Don't worry, I've never tested this theory, I don't even own
| a car.
| dpratt71 wrote:
| Fyi, "Alcohol distributes into water spaces, not fat"
| https://sites.duke.edu/apep/module-1-gender-matters/content/...
| leodriesch wrote:
| "See, it's all just water weight!"
| kerblang wrote:
| My understanding was that increased alcohol intake raises hormone
| levels, especially cortisol, which raises blood
| pressure/breathing/etc and keeps you from dying. Also note the
| jitters experienced as the alcohol is metabolized and things
| swing out of balance in the opposite direction.
|
| So it would just be a matter of training your adrenals to
| recognize and react quickly to the incoming booze, which for some
| people is almost like a violent allergic reaction to a bee sting,
| causing them to drink heavily in order to calm down. I don't
| really have any research to back this part up though.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "They can drink a lot of alcohol and still have a relatively low
| blood alcohol level."
|
| Any sources for this? My understanding is that an enlarged liver
| does not process more alcohol because the enlargement is
| typically fatty deposits, cirrhosis, and inflammation. I did find
| an article that says alcoholic livers can produce a different set
| of enzymes to metabolize the alcohol. But it says it produces a
| different buzz, bit nothing about faster processing.
| oaktrout wrote:
| It's well known that alcoholics are for the most part better
| metabolizers of alcohol (see
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S166526811...
| Current concepts in alcohol metabolism, Caballeria), but its
| not at all related to liver enlargement. My understanding is
| that an enlarged liver is a symptom of alcoholic liver disease,
| not a physiologic adaptation to better metabolize alcohol. The
| current consensus is that most of the increased metabolism of
| alcohol comes from enzyme upregulation in the liver.
|
| The authors misunderstanding of physiology makes me doubt any
| further conclusions he makes.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Moreover, in human studies it has been found that alcohol
| consumption produces an increase in the ethanol elimination
| rate, specially at high concentrations, which is when the
| action of MEOS take place.37 This is important since it leads
| to a greater plasma concentration of acetaldehyde as well as
| an increase in toxic metabolites which may cause liver
| damage."
|
| Ah, this is the thing I was mentioning earlier, but my other
| source didn't say that it increased the elimination rate.
| the-dude wrote:
| I could drink 1L of wine @ 12% in ~1 hour and about 2.5 hours
| later feel safe to drive.
|
| Not only did I feel safe to drive, I had to take a breathalyzer
| once and passed ( although it did have to 'think' a while ).
|
| I did have dinner in the meantime.
| mike_hock wrote:
| The dude doesn't drink wine. The dude drinks White Russian.
| the-dude wrote:
| This was in my Seattle Seven period.
| hackingforfun wrote:
| It sounds like BK channels interact with NMDA receptors, which
| are glutamate receptors. Glutamate is an excitatory
| neurotransmitter. My understanding is that inhibiting glutamate
| is partly what makes alcohol relaxing (the other is it's
| interaction with GABA). Bodies have an amazing way of keeping
| themselves in equilibrium and when someone is introducing alcohol
| into their system on a regular basis, I figured that the body
| regulates this by increasing levels of glutamate (although maybe
| also via downregulating GABA receptors), so that the person stays
| awake even with higher doses of alcohol. I do think that this can
| lead to someone having a higher "tolerance". I also think that's
| what contributes to what some people call hangxiety, i.e. there's
| still extra glutamate floating around that wouldn't otherwise be
| there.
|
| However, an enlarged liver helping someone process alcohol better
| sounds bizarre to me. I thought a liver being able to process
| alcohol faster was due to increased enzymes since the body again
| is trying to balance itself and is dealing with what is being
| introduced by upping certain enzymes, whereas in a non-drinker,
| those enzymes wouldn't be at elevated levels.
| oaktrout wrote:
| "However, an enlarged liver helping someone process alcohol
| better sounds bizarre to me. I thought a liver being able to
| process alcohol faster was due to increased enzymes since the
| body again is trying to balance itself and is dealing with what
| is being introduced by upping certain enzymes, whereas in a
| non-drinker, those enzymes wouldn't be at elevated levels."
|
| You are correct, in fact an enlarged liver could be a sign that
| you are less able to metabolize alcohol. "To this effect, the
| adaptative increase in alcohol metabolism observed in chronic
| alcoholics disappears in patients with advanced liver disease."
| [1] Liver enlargement is a sign of liver disease. I guess
| that's the sort of mistake you will encounter when reading
| posts regarding biochemistry / medicine on hacker news.
|
| [1] Current concepts in alcohol metabolism https://www.scienced
| irect.com/science/article/pii/S166526811...:
| peter_retief wrote:
| I definitely fall into the latter category, that is I have very
| little tolerence for alchohol. There are people I have known who
| can drink huge amounts and still be functional, these people
| drink steadily and regularly. I gave up completely about two
| years ago and I strongly recommend this. I was never a big
| drinker but stopping has had a dramatic effect on my weight and
| health. It is not that difficult to stop and has dramatic
| benefits.
| fouc wrote:
| I have noticed that with some intentional concentration, I can
| summon a higher degree of sobriety/functionality than I might
| ordinarily have when under the influence. I always assumed much
| of that was from the adrenal glands though.
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