# Rectal absorption of alcohol? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2006, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rectal-absorption-of-alcohol/382182 "2006-11-29T08:19:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 12
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rectal-absorption-of-alcohol/382182/12 "2006-11-30T00:37:07Z")
[QUOTE=stuyguy] Sorry, but I’ve got to hijack this thread for a moment. It could ultimately save your life. A number of years ago I was watching one of those extreme survival shows, the kind that are a dime a dozen these days but were rare back then. It told the story of a British (?) family that were stranded at sea in a life raft. They ran out of fresh water and were in danger of dehydration. Fortunately, the mom had some medical knowledge, having been a nurse or something along those lines. She gave her family seawater enimas. Apparently the lower intestines will absorb the water, but not the salt. It saved their lives. [/QUOTE] Sorry, a big **NO!!** for this one. And I am a doctor. A seawater enema would pull water out of the body via the colon. And accelerate dehydration. In fact, a standard recipe for salt water enemas is 1 tsp. of salt in 1 quart of fresh water. When given, it doesn’t overload the kidneys so much as a pure fresh water enema would, because _much less water is absorbed due to that very small amount of salt!_ Double the concentration of salt in that recipe, and it will begin to pull fluids out of the body. A quart of seawater has close to 10 times that much salt in it! Please don’t post dangerous falsehoods, **stuyguy**. We do try to uphold certain standards in GQ. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rectal-absorption-of-alcohol/382182)._