Lysol/mouthwash drinking shoplifters

[Alexxandra]

The store I work at is by now means in the worst part of town, but we often have badly inebriated people shoplifting (and getting caught with) mouthwash, lysol, vanilla extract, etc. with the admitted purpose of drinking such. I was wondering about how they USE these things. Do they mix it with coke or something? Or just ignore the taste and drink it?

Why always the brown listerene instead of the green? I imagine that the alchohol content is similar (there's nothing listed on the bottle, I checked), but the mint has a much less repellant flavor than the brown kind, which is what they invariably steal.

Lysol? Just smelling it is enough to tell me what it would taste like. I also imagine that it's pretty caustic, and must do horrendous damage to your digestive tract. Same goes for aftershave and hairspray. How do they get it out of the aerosol can and into a glass?

I couldn't imagine being so desperate for a drink that I would steal these products in order to get inebriated. But I am also not an alcoholic or addict, and have no idea what the driving need for a fix feels like. I am in no place to criticize or make fun, and find the situation quite sad. Where are these people's friends or families, assuming that they have either?

[Medea's Child]

Um, they're probably not drinking the hairspray, just getting high off the fumes. Though, I admittedly, know nothing, so its just a guess.

[easy e]

Medea's Child--one of my friends has a mother who's alcoholic. Just a couple months ago, she put herself in the hospital because she drank hairspray. It was probably the pump hairspray (you can unscrew the pump top) rather than aerosol.

[fireman]

I remember investigating the unattended death of an alcoholic years ago. We found several dozen empty Listerine bottles in his room. Autopsy revealed severly ulcerated GI tract and internal bleeding. He couldn't get whiskey, beer or wine, so the mouthwash was his apparant substitute.

[dwyr]

The patients who end up at this hospital just chug it. Mouthwash, Lysol, Pine-sol, you name it. We had one who drank bleach. One patient in particular always showed up in the ER drunk on rubbing alcohol. And we do get a lot of g.i. bleeds as well. It gets pretty nasty sometimes.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

well, Alexx, to an addict or alcoholic, the drug is subjectively more important than eating, or even breathing, frankly. I knew a nun who used to drink Scope by the bottle, after the Mother Superior cut her off from the sacramental and cooking wine. She was quite devout, and a wonderful teacher, but also a hopeless alcoholic until she entered AA.

[Manduck]

To drink aerosol hairspray, I believe they punch holes in the bottom of the container.