# Sooo I accidentally consumed alcohol... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 9, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640 "2015-07-09T04:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GiJoe007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b4bc9f/32.png) [@GiJoe007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiJoe007)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/1 "2015-07-09T04:31:59Z")
Hi, I’m 17. A few months ago, I went on a school trip to Europe. As a wrap up event, our group stopped in England for only a brief day before we planned to fly back to North America. Unfortunately, during that day in England, I had such a headache, I was practically debilitated by pain and dizziness (exhaustion). In the evening, our group went to see a play in a traditional English theater (which was cool), and my friend finally noticed I was ill. She went and asked her dad for a Tylenol (which I might have liked sooner if I had known he had one) and I gladly took it whole. My headache dissipated early into the show, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. At intermission (about 30-45 minutes in) I decided to order myself a drink at the bar above the theater. I don’t drink alcohol (nor desire to), so when I walked up to the bartender, slammed down five pounds (money) on the counter and demanded a lemonade… I thought I was joking. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the lemonade the bartender brought me was alcoholic because a) it came in a glass bottle which she poured into a cup with ice, b) it both smelled and tasted like alcohol (I’ve sampled infinitesimal amounts). I wasn’t sure though… so I drank it (guess, I was just thinking, ‘heck, this tastes disgustingly British.’) After the play, another friend of mine came up to me with the same drink as what I had ordered in her hand. I asked her why she hadn’t drunk hers, and she said “Oh no, I can’t. It’s alcoholic”. I think I probably paled… though I didn’t feel any after effects. (Mind you, I was so tired already…) My real question is: I found out later that Tylenol and alcohol consumed at the same time can be dangerous for my health. I’m having some health problems right now (which I’ve posted about in a different thread), and I guess I’m just wondering: that stupid incident in England wouldn’t be affecting me now, would it? (I so seriously doubt it, but I’m scouring for answers right now.) Any Opinions? Any Humble Opinions? ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/2 "2015-07-09T04:43:53Z")
Alcohol and Tylenol both work on the liver, but you have to take a lot of Tylenol and drink a lot of alcohol for it to be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/3 "2015-07-09T04:47:02Z")
Yes, the small amount you took is of no consecuence ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/4 "2015-07-09T05:12:53Z")
Just got back from England myself. While there and friend and I were in a pub for a bit. He ordered a half beer and a half lemonade. I forget the name of the drink but he implied that this was a common drink for folks driving. Being half and half you aren’t over the limit if pulled over. Maybe that’s what the the bartender thought you wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/5 "2015-07-09T05:15:16Z")
Sandy, it’s a shandy. ---
**Author:** ![nicole1912](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9de0a6/32.png) [@nicole1912](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicole1912)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/6 "2015-07-09T05:27:46Z")
Why on earth do you think that if you asked for (and paid for) a lemonade, you’d get anything other than a lemonade? Most drinks in bars come in glass bottles and are served over ice. Including water, coke, lemonade, ginger beer, tonic, pretty much everything I can think of, unless it’s a mixer on tap. Lemonade in the UK is an entirely non-alcoholic drink. There is no chance that a theatre bar would serve you alcoholic lemonade - the way you order drinks with lemonade as a mixer is, for example, “archers and lemonade” (though who knows what 17 year olds drink these days…) - and if the barman thought you’d asked for that, he’d probably have checked he’d heard the right spirit and probably asked for ID. If you want a shandy (which is beer and lemonade mixed), you’d have to ask for one - no one will hear a drinks order involving lemonade and serve beer, certainly not without checking exactly what the customer wants. I don’t think you have anything to worry about on the drinks front. Though you might want to see someone about your anxiety. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/7 "2015-07-09T06:15:42Z")
Unless you have a damaged liver, it will have no problem handling one tylenol and one glass of alcoholic lemonade. It would take your liver less than a day to metabolize that. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/8 "2015-07-09T11:43:32Z")
Definitely zero chance of one drink and one Tylenol causing you any problems then, now, or ever. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/9 "2015-07-09T11:53:06Z")
When I first read the thread title I thought of those situations where “accident” is the reason for the necessity of a cucumber extraction. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/10 "2015-07-09T12:28:28Z")
I can’t recall ever seeing lemon flavoured alcopops, what you got was probably a [Fentimans](http://www.fentimans.com/soft_drinks). The drinking age here is 18 so if you are at all young looking the barman would have carded you before selling you alcohol. Alcopops are usually only 4-5 percent ABV so you’d not be able to smell nor taste any alcohol in it. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/11 "2015-07-09T12:43:01Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > I can’t recall ever seeing lemon flavoured alcopops, what you got was probably a [Fentimans](http://www.fentimans.com/soft_drinks). The drinking age here is 18 so if you are at all young looking the barman would have carded you before selling you alcohol. Alcopops are usually only 4-5 percent ABV so you’d not be able to smell nor taste any alcohol in it. 😕 That’s a typical alcohol level for a crappy lite beer. Why would she be unable to smell or taste it? Even an O’Doul’s at .4% has tasteable alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/12 "2015-07-09T12:49:51Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > I can’t recall ever seeing lemon flavoured alcopops, what you got was probably a [Fentimans](http://www.fentimans.com/soft_drinks). The drinking age here is 18 so if you are at all young looking the barman would have carded you before selling you alcohol. Alcopops are usually only 4-5 percent ABV so you’d not be able to smell nor taste any alcohol in it. I can taste alcohol in that much quantity…can’t you? Especially since I don’t drink a lot in the first place. Plus you’d feel it, if you weren’t a drinker - it goes right past the blood brain barrier and if you don’t drink much you feel differently in seconds. To the OP, everyone is right. You need lots and lots of Tylenol and alcohol to be sickened by it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/13 "2015-07-09T12:57:21Z")
> [@GiJoe007](#): > > Hi, I’m 17. A few months ago, … If you’d done any material damage you’d have been dead a few months ago. Since you’re not dead, you didn’t do any material harm. Nor would any be possible from the trivial dosages of both drugs you took. Relax! But based on your ultra-uptight attitudes, I suggest you don’t use drugs of any sort to promote that relaxation. You’ll just make yourself more uptight if you do. ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/14 "2015-07-09T13:20:42Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > I can’t recall ever seeing lemon flavoured alcopops, what you got was probably a [Fentimans](http://www.fentimans.com/soft_drinks). The drinking age here is 18 so if you are at all young looking the barman would have carded you before selling you alcohol. Alcopops are usually only 4-5 percent ABV so you’d not be able to smell nor taste any alcohol in it. Lemon flavoured alcopops are very common. Usually Smirnoff Ice, but there is also lemon flavour Bacardi Breezer, and Hooch which was all the rage years ago but has made a recent comeback. However, there are a few very important points here: 1. if you asked for lemonade, and no further conversation ensued, you got non-alcoholic lemonade. “Lemonade” in the UK is different to the US, and is more like 7up or Sprite. If you look under about 25, you would have been carded before being served alcohol. 2. if you can get any lasting health effects from taking a single Tylenol and have a single alcoholic drink, I hereby declare that I am, in fact, immortal, because I clearly should have died from the effects ages ago. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/15 "2015-07-09T14:12:18Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > 😕 > > That’s a typical alcohol level for a crappy lite beer. Why would she be unable to smell or taste it? Even an O’Doul’s at .4% has tasteable alcohol. You have far better taste buds than me, as I can’t taste any alcohol at the .4% level, but I agree that 4-5% should be generally detectable, I’d think, especially if you’re not used to having it. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/16 "2015-07-09T14:57:00Z")
[Shakes cane] Kids these days! No longer know how to party! ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/17 "2015-07-09T15:54:35Z")
> [@GiJoe007](#): > > Any Opinions? Any Humble Opinions? Yeah. Have a drink. Then another. It’ll help you relax when you pull that stick out of your ass. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/18 "2015-07-09T16:26:59Z")
> [@GiJoe007](#): > > Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the lemonade the bartender brought me was alcoholic because a) it came in a glass bottle which she poured into a cup with ice, b) it both smelled and tasted like alcohol (I’ve sampled infinitesimal amounts). When I was 17 and in Europe, I traveled through several countries enjoying [Pschitt](https://leculentrelesdeuxchaises.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/pschitt-soda.jpg) – both lemon and orange, served in glass bottles. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/19 "2015-07-09T16:32:54Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > [Shakes cane] Kids these days! No longer know how to party! Back in my day we “accidentally” drank our Dad’s bourbon. Straight. In the snow, without shoes. But you tell these kids that and they just don’t believe you. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640/20 "2015-07-09T16:47:58Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > I can’t recall ever seeing lemon flavoured alcopops, what you got was probably a [Fentimans](http://www.fentimans.com/soft_drinks). The drinking age here is 18 so if you are at all young looking the barman would have carded you before selling you alcohol. Alcopops are usually only 4-5 percent ABV so you’d not be able to smell nor taste any alcohol in it. [Mike’s Hard](http://www.mikeshard.com/en/home) is one. (“Hard” being relative. You can’t even taste any booze. It’s not bad on a hot day, though) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sooo-i-accidentally-consumed-alcohol/724640.md?page=2)