# What exactly is "suicide by alcohol poisoning"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-suicide-by-alcohol-poisoning/915273>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 14, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-suicide-by-alcohol-poisoning/915273 "2020-07-14T02:48:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-suicide-by-alcohol-poisoning/915273/21 "2020-07-16T05:35:51Z")

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> [@brossa](#):
>
> I’d like to point out how wrong this is. _Depending on the alcohol concentration in what one is drinking_ , it is easy to ingest a lethal amount of alcohol in a short period of time, before the effects are such that further drinking stops.

Of course it is. But in practice, I think only about 2,000 people die of overdose on alcohol alone per year, which is about as many opioid deaths combined with alcohol–IOW, not counting benzos, etc… So yes, obviously it is very possible to drink a lethal amount of alcohol all at once, if that is what a person really wants to do. I was referring to inadvertent deaths. And yes, how alcohol–alone–really kills is by all the other associated behavior (e.g., driving), or just the long-term destruction of so many of the body’s critical organs.

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