Amnesia or sleepwalking drinking would be my two thoughts. I’ve never been drunk, then forgotten that I had been drinking. But, there was an episode decades ago where I ingested some LSD, expecting an immediate effect. The source of the acid was someone I didn’t really trust, and so 15 minutes later, when there was no effect, I thought he had given me placebo. An hour later it kicked in big-time.
Friends kept asking me what I took, due to my weird behavior. I repeatedly said nothing(and truly believed it), because I had totally forgotten about what I had taken, and discredited, earlier.
The OP said that he does not have alcohol in the house. So unless the friend brought it with him or sneaked out and bought some, where did it come from?
But the friend’s behavior certainly suggests he was, if not drunk, certainly not in his right frame of mind.
I don’t know where the alcohol might have come from, but if it’s in his blood, it got there somehow. I can’t imagine how, unless he ingested it. Very odd.
I can tell you what happened with almost complete certainty. This isn’t a WAG. It is based on lots of experience with situations like you describe. It sounds bizarre until you know the reason why some people do it.
Your friend is an alcoholic and is good at covering it up. He has to drink large quantities of alcohol to be able to sleep at night and he has to do it every night. He brought the alcohol with him hidden out of sight and maybe even in a form like vodka that is easy to hide. The reason he lied about it isn’t because he drank too much this one time. It is because he habitually lies and covers up for his closet drinking so that he won’t be exposed as an alcoholic. Even an unbelievable lie can still create enough doubt for people not to put the pieces together.
This isn’t the 1st or the 100th time I have heard versions of this story from lots of different people. It is a common alcoholic behavior because they have to drink enough to be able to sleep or things could get ugly and they have to cover for it because they can’t just skip days without going into withdrawal. This presents a problem when staying with someone else so they invent ways and cover up for it.
Shagnasty, that’s what I’m thinking too. And probably the crazy side effects are from him chugging the alcohol down within a much shorter period of time than he’s used to doing, because he knew the OP was there and could catch him. Alternately, he tends to drink to puking and worse generally, but couldn’t run to the bathroom a lot because he’d be caught.
Right. If they did a blood test and found ethanol, then he obviously ingested it somehow. It appears however that breathalyzers are not 100% specific to ethanol and can give false positives for acetone or isopropanol, which can be present in the blood of diabetics and others in ketosis.
That seems like a longshot though and the more likely scenario is that he went to bed early in part to slam his hidden stash of booze.
I have to agree with Shagnasty. This isn’t a one time problem, this is the behavior of an alcoholic. He hid the booze - maybe even in something like a water bottle, or shampoo bottle, who knows - and ingested it and is lying about it.
The GQ answer: No, there isn’t anything that will give a “false positive” or elevated BAC from the *blood *test they do in the hospital. Breathalyzers, sure. But not the blood test. Whether it went in through his mouth, his anus or even his nose, ETOH went into his body, and quite a lot of it.
Do you have drop ceilings in your house? Ductwork? A crawlspace? A dumpster in back, maybe a few doors down? There are tons of places to hide booze in a normal house, especially if he poured it into an innocuous bottle first.
The ER should of caught this but the scenario you described is very likely a result of a failing intestinal organ. Very high probability for a liver or kidney. During liver failure your breath can often smell like booze, specifically it is the ammonia building up.
Some BAH test will give false results when you have organ failure because your body is producing a similar compound.
So how much does it take? Rule of thumb, 3 drinks (of 1 oz. liquor or 8 oz beer?) could put you over .08(?) so to get .32 you would have to drink 12 in a short time or 12 ounces vodka. Plus allow the metabolization over time…
SO it’s not impossible, I assume, for your buddy to squirrel away and consume a Venti of Smirnoff?
Most ETOH assays I am familiar with are enzymatic and very specific for ethanol. If other alcohols/volatiles are present in the blood (methanol, isopropanol, acetone, ethylene glycol, these are the most popular substances to ingest for a thrill) tend to bias results a smidge when high concentrations are concurrently present with ETOH but don’t, IME, cause false positives. Ammonia definitely does not cross react with the ETOH assays.
So, if we assume that your friend did not drink any booze, a couple of possibiliites come to mind:
Sample was accidentally switched with someone else’s at some point. Most labs are anal to the point of ridiculousness with respect to labeling SOPs just so this sort of thing does not happen. Nevertheless, it sometimes happens anyways.
Someone for some reason spiked the sample. Not likely.
If we assume this, then we’re left to explain his symptoms/behaviour, which from your retelling sounds like the behavior of a drunk guy.
My money’s on him being a closet alcoholic that chugged too much before bed.
The test was a blood test. I’m not sure if the ER looked beyond the first conclusion they came to (despite what we both were saying), so I don’t know if they also looked for signs of organ failure. If it was organ failure, is it reasonable that these symptoms would manifest themselves so suddenly like this? (Would these symptoms even be related?)
I’m a recovering alcoholic myself, so I’ve known many as well and know the signs. I see this guy all the time, and I’ve never seen any evidence other than that he drinks rarely, and only sparingly, when he drinks. I’ve seen him drink many times over the years and have never seen him get more than giddy.
He went to his doctor to follow up today and was given more fluids, and they drew blood again. Hopefully his doc will look a bit deeper into it and see if it’s possible that it’s organ failure. He says he feels OK now, a little sleepy. He’s back at his place now, but I told him to call if anything happens.
Rule of thumb is .02 per shot/beer/glass of wine per hour… so to get a .314 BAC, the friend had to have consumed the equivalent of a fifth of vodka (~17 shots) in an hour. Most likely when he was up at 10:30.
Since you said this was a blood test, the comment about organ failure giving a false breathalyzer result doesn’t apply.
There’s really no way that you could “accidentally” get a BAC that high from taking over the counter medicine, and there’s no other reasonable explanation except that your friend drank a fifth of vodka (or the equivalent).
OK, but there are some pieces that don’t fit. I searched for symptoms of liver and kidney failure and didn’t find anything about someone acting like flipshod’s friend did, and nothing that indicates someone would defecate all over a room.
Also, and I admit I’m out of my depth here, but to get a false BAH that high, wouldn’t he have to be in severe liver failure? Like at death’s door? I’m assuming that the more severe the organ failure, the higher the false BAH would be. I also can’t fathom how he could have gone from feeling flu-ish to going into severe organ failure so fast…and then rebound with just liquids, vitamins, etc.
I dunno, but I’m thinking if the options are severe organ failure or alcoholism, I’d start hoping for the alcoholism. Neither option sounds too sunny to me. I hope the docs find out what’s going on, whatever the problem might be.
Your friend is not lying. It is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE!!! Your friend needs to get hiss happy ass to the Dr. RIGHT AWAY! I am a Diabetic, who just last weekend was admitted to the ICU. I had not touched a drop of alcohol for 3 days and had a BAC of .26 I also, Like your friend, had not felt well for a few days, but was out of KETONE strips to test my urine. 2 days later when I started violently vomiting, I knew what it was. Normally ones blood sugar will also be elevated, which would have alerted me, but mine was not.
Fill him in and nag him until he goes to the Dr.! His KETONES were blocking the normal metabolism of sugar. Hope this helps.
I’ve looked and looked again, and can still find no substantiation for the claim that anything that isn’t ethanol - not even diabetic ketoacidosis, which is what **Stacia **is talking about - can substantially affect a BLOOD alcohol test. Breath, sure, as we’ve already covered. But not blood.
Your friend is not lying. IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE!!! He needs to get his happy ass to to a Dr. !! I am a Diabetic that just this past weekend was admitted to the ICU, with a BAC of .26. I hadn’t touched a drink! I like, your friend, had been sick for a few days. My blood sugar wasn’t elevated, which normally will alert me to test my urine for KETONES. It wasn’t until the violent vomiting began did I realize. Never pooped myself though, thank God.
Fill him in so he’ll at least know people will believe him. Then NAG him to take care of it!!! This is nothing to sneeze at. Left untreated, the damage to the organs can be deadly!
