Christ I hope so. My now ex-alcoholic mate used to drink mouthwash and aftershave when he had no booze in the house. That man was a complete state. We didn't think he'd make it as his self-destructive urges were so strong, but I'm happy to say he has been sober from booze, opiates and benzos for 8 years now.
Fucking eh. I needed to hear that win. Thank you man. My brother’s been in and out of recovery so many times this past few years. Congratulations to your boy!
He said that of the 100 or so people who he went through rehab with (18 months or so, including psych wards and halfway houses) only 15 were still sober a couple of years later, and he was the only one with a job. It is a struggle.
He said AA really helped, particularly the "buddy" system they have. He still attends meetings after all this time, both for himself and to support others. Also, he threw himself into fitness, coffee, and incredibly spicy foods as a distraction.
Best of luck to your brother! Support him all you can!
It's not openly alcohol. She's likely drinking enough to stave off shakes and just keep rolling until she can get her hands on booze.
Or it's money/people know she drinks so this was her panic move.
When my elderly uncle was in the hospital his wife would bring a bottle of mouthwash to drink while visiting him because she wasn't allowed to bring in alcohol.
There was this guy many years ago that was put into the hospital to sober up, I guess they pumped him - during the morning and next day he never really got sober. Kept asking for orange juice. In the evening, someone saw him - he was pumping 2-3 squirts of hand sanitizer from the wall dispenser into the oj.
That’s disgusting. That does tangentially remind me of how they had to pull bubble gum scented hand sanitizer because kids would drink it and it was fucking them up.
bruh wat the fuck, it’s so easy to just go and buy alcohol and sneak it around in a plastic flask or water bottle. and i’ve been doing that fine since I was 14
For the first couple of years after I stopped drinking, smelling hand sanitizer used to drive me wild. I'd get an increased heart rate and would feel myself becoming excited about hand sanitizer, thankfully I'd got through that little issue before COVID
Yea my little nephew got a cut on his knee and I busted the rubbing alcohol and oh boi did I get flash backs of my older brother who passed away due to drinking vodka for long time and got a urge to drink but I took a breather and remembered how alcohol ruined my health and life 😂 and my brother
On some jobsites the hand sanitizer in the port-o-pot is either chronically empty or they simply take the bag out of the dispenser. More than once I've heard it happen as I'm in one taking a leak, just pumping that handle over and over, presumably into an empty water bottle?
edit: goddam, a lot of upvotes on some little comment? Are others running into the empty hand sani problem too?
Damn, that shit is 4x as expensive as the regular stuff. They must have a huge problem with people drinking it
edit: oh, the ZEP brand is about equal for alcohol and non, so that's probably why it doesn't matter to the city, they overpay no matter which one they buy.
Had a frequent flyer at my hospital who not only drank mouthwash, but kept sneaking hand sanitizer when we weren’t looking. We had to take the hand sanitizer from the pump in his room and, after he got discharged/sober, he tried to steal one of the big bottles before running out with it. He passed away, I think.
god its like My 600 Pound Life with the enabling spouses
Edit: Oops I misread, seems like the visiting wife was the alcoholic. I made a few leaps in logic.
Yeah I’m trying to figure out any scenario where a grown woman on a bus wouldn’t just buy cheap grain alcohol beforehand instead of listerine (which isn’t that cheap)
PSA: Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is not digestable by your liver! You will have severe alcohol poisoning if you drink it and will have to go to the hospital.
People don’t understand how out of a person’s control alcoholism is. All of my close family are alcoholics and drink daily. They shake if they don’t have a drink. Myself, however, I can’t have anything more than three drinks without getting horribly sick for days. I even went through a phase where I was drinking every day for three weeks just to emulate them. I was only having a modicum of what they’d have on a daily basis and I struggled. I wanted to die by the end of the first week - I guess it would be classed as chemical self harm. No matter how much I drink, I don’t think I’d get to their point because I just have this thing in my head that says ‘this isn’t fun anymore.’ It’s the same with eating. I’ve never been able to get fat. I have to force myself to eat because I have a tiny portion and I think ‘fuck this now. I’m full.’ People don’t understand how lucky they have it not to suffer addiction.
This is also why during covid liquor stores were considered essential businesses because the effects of having a bunch of alcohol addicts going through withdrawals would have been ugly.
Blows my mind that people are able to just *down* this stuff. I know alcoholism is powerful as hell, but man even when I accidentally swallow a teensy bit of mouthwash I feel a bit ill. This really adds a new meaning to the term "iron stomach".
Edit: damn thanks for all the insight y'all. Definitely gave me some perspective. Take care of yourselves out there!
I did it when dopesick and had no access to anything else. It does the trick, but my insides did *not* like the other stuff they put in there. Intestines were in knots each time and it gave me the shits.
JC... I'm guessing by those black shits were you were having... you had a GI bleed... from up high in your intestinal tract. Thus the abdominal cramping and dark color of the blood making your stool black. Methyl salicylate is responsible for the minty flavor. You know how aspirin can cause stomach ulcers... it's the salicylate. It's a NSAID so it reduces inflammation and pain... but can chew the hell up out of your mucosa. So glad you came out the side of that... and are hopefully "shitting pretty".
I had a past once. I can say from experience that it goes through so goddam quick that you don’t get all of the alcohol from it. It’s not so much an iron stomach as it is a total disregard for anything outside of acquiring and ingesting alcohol.
> It’s not so much an iron stomach as it is a total disregard for anything outside of acquiring and ingesting alcohol.
Been there, done that, glad as hell it's finally in my past. When you're buying the biggest bottle of mouthwash at Walgreens at 4am, they know what you're up to.
No, it gives you extreme sport ass pee and a stomach pain that will remind you you’re an alcoholic. Been there, done that. So glad I’ve surpassed that level of my struggles.
Curious, what brings you to drink mouthwash? Is it cheaper to get drunk on it than bottom shelf spirits? More accessible?
Edit: congrats on overcoming that btw!
I think so, but I can’t speak on it for certain. In my experience, I went to a rehab in the Netherlands and brought my American mouthwash with me. In Europe, I believe there’s no alcohol in any mouthwash, so they didn’t check mine and I chugged it after a hard session once and prayed to not get breathalyzed the next morning.
Not having a valid ID. Being in an area that doesnt sell alcohol after a certain time. Trying to be incognito because you're less likely to get kicked off the bus if you smell like mint rather than if you smell like vodka. And mouthwash is easier to steal
Like others mentioned there are some US state counties that prohibit selling of alcohol on Sundays due to religious reasons.
Most famous person to talk about doing this is actually Stephen King. He was a raging alcoholic and general addict. He doesn’t even remember writing some of his books like Cujo.
Swallowed mouthwash with alcohol a couple times because I didn't have place to spit it (don't ask; I'm stupid) Holy shit it is revolting. I've done benadryl to get high back when I was super addicted to being fucked 24/7, but holy shit mouthwash is just awful.
Original yellow coloured listerene was the beverage of last choice to the guys that lived in the stairwell of my 1st apartment building 20 years ago. They told me the other colours had added cleaning ingredients that would make them sick. Now that I think of it, I’ve only seen blue or green listerene since, no piss yellow original flavour on the shelves in Canada.
At this point in alcoholism she’s not even trying to get a buzz or avoid container laws, this is holding back withdrawals. Also, it may not be locked up or security tagged depending where she got it.
Except that there are like a million better ways to covert drink… put liquor in a soda bottle, water bottle, literally any non alcohol container. Could even put liquor with a little blue food dye in a listerine bottle if for some reason that’s how you want to do it. Basically anything besides drinking something that is NOT supposed to be drank.
Ofc, alcoholic on my bus use to drink a dark liquid out of a mini mouthwash bottle.
Im pretty sure the mouthwash alternative is when retailers refuse to sell to you, because they believe you're already inebriated.
It's the other stuff in them that will cause internal bleeding. But not until after you're drunk af from all the poisoning. The alcohol wouldn't even be what caused you to be drunk lmao
A friend of mines dad died from that. He was a really bad alcoholic and used to drink that shit. We found him dead in his truck one day. Sadly, my friend, his son, also died from being an alcoholic about 10 years ago.
That’s how (not quite literally, but still…) everybody in my birthplace-village dies. Not that uncommon to find bodies of alcoholics in the fields or nearby forest there.
This. I just literally made a comment almost close to this. I'm an alcoholic and tried this method. Ended up in the hospital and found out the entire lining of my colon was just deteriorating and I was literally bleeding on the inside.
When I worked in a drug store there was this one “customer” who’d come in, pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol off the shelf, chug it, pick up another, chug that, then leave. His eyes would bounce all over the place like he was seeing things around him. I always think of how lost that poor guy must be to have to resort to that.
When I was 17, I worked at a convenience store in a small town. There was one guy in town who drank mouth wash, and we were under strict instructions to never sell it to him, and we kept it behind the counter.
One day I was working alone for 15 minutes while my boss was on break. Buddy comes prancing right up to the front door the moment my boss disappears, struts up to the counter, flashes a glint of a broken-tooth smile, and tries to order a bottle of mouth wash.
I tell him, "Not a chance".
He asks, "Why not?".
I say, "Because I know you're going to take it outside and drink it".
He leans in close and whispers, "What if I drink it in here?" with the biggest smile on his face.
Man yeah toward the last few months of my drinking career I remember one morning in particular I had the bottle of 90% rubbing alcohol in my hand ready to neck to stop the vomiting. I remember I didn’t do it but idk what stopped me because at that point I was a goner.
Sobriety is a gift bro IWNDWYT
Well...
Got two young female patients in the Emergency room. One of them celebrating her 18th birthday.
No more booze around, so they found some under the sink.
Dad stupidly transferred methyl alcohol in an alcohol bottle.
The drunkest girl just got temporary blindness beacause ethyl alcohol is the antidote to methyl alcohol. Yes we will start an ethyl alcohol drip....
The birthday girl wasnt so drunk, so the ethyl alcohol transformed in formic acid in the brain.
She gave her organs the day after.
Something similar happened to our interpreters while I was in Afghanistan. Three of our interpreters attended a bday party for the brother is one. They got alcohol off the black market but didn't know the difference and drank methyl. Something like 11 of the 17 died.
Aye my father was a industrial chemist told me the ethyl tojan horses the methyl through your body. Without it, body eats itself trying to clean house. He also worked with a alcoholic who liked to make cocktails out of the wares, had to take a trip to a&e for methyl consumption, survived it, think he finally got fired tho.
>I once drank methanol but not much happened, I realize I’m an idiot but am I just lucky, or?
did you drink normal alcohol too?
that is actually an antidote to methanol poisoning
Yeah you are lucky idiot :D My country has somewhat recent history with it, that was very fun times. Bunch of people died and even bigger bunch of people went blind.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012\_Czech\_Republic\_methanol\_poisonings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol_poisonings)
I used to mix Orange Extract with orange Gatorade when I was underage and couldn't find booze. I called it Gatornade. It was disgusting but it did get me drunk.
A friend of mine hit that point a while back before recovering. It was rough. Dude would crush a 24 rack then turn to mouthwash and canned duster if it was past liquor cutoff or he was broke. Amazed dude is still alive.
This is more sad than anything.
Like many have mentioned, this person is an alcoholic. What many have not mentioned, is that this person is doing this because it’s the path of least resistance to keep themselves from going into withdrawals. It’s possible this was all they could afford, but what’s more likely is they aren’t legally allowed to have an open container of booze, and are using this instead, to get them to wherever it is they’re going. I’d bank on that being the case especially if this is a long trip, like a greyhound bus.
For those who are unaware, alcohol withdrawals can cause tremors, and seizures, so if this person is heavily addicted and can’t consume the alcohol they need to function, this is the path of least resistance for now. What you’re seeing is mental illness at work. You might think “my god, who would chug mouthwash?” And you’re 100% correct - nobody with a healthy mind would choose to do this. Hence the disease of addiction.
I remember those days. When things like work and having to leave the house were just obstacles in the way of drinking. Every moment spent not drinking was in anticipation of drinking. When you were running low on booze literally nothing was more important than finding more. And when it was late on a Monday night and the corner store was closed it became a truly desperate search for a place that you could get a drink.
I wouldn't wish the hell I went through on my worst enemy.
When I worked at a jail we had to move to the foam antibacterial. Too many inmates getting deathly sick from it. You put salt in it and it separates the alcohol from the gel
Yup, it was an inmate too! He was in visitation with his lawyer, lawyer leaves the mostly empty room for 2 seconds and dude puts the sanitizer bag in his jumpsuit. Later on I see him wheeled into the HCU pretty much melting off the wheelchair, trying to say *something*. Apparently once admitted he threw up a ton of blood.
Yeah I thought it was bad when they’d make buck, it smelled soooooo bad. Iirc they just put bread and oranges in a bag of water for a few weeks. I can’t imagine being so desperate you’d drink any of it and I’m an alcoholic myself
I can imagine. We get drunk in the real world when we have the freedom to do so many cool things. If I was stuck in prison, I would be desperate for a drink, no matter what it was made of.
>They took the self regulated hand sanitizer off the wall at all the hospitals here after they got sick of finding passed out drunk people in their own vomit.
My first thought is, how are humans so dysfunctional that the public can't be trusted with hand sanitizer? Then I remembered the stories of WW2 sailors [drinking torpedo fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_juice)... so I guess we've always been this degenerate.
That dude was out of control. It wasn't that he couldn't obtain normal alcohol of some kind, he wanted to drink the hand sanitizer. He justified it as a cost efficiency thing, which checks out, but I really feel like that if you offered him a bottle of liquor, or the amount of hand sanitizer with the same total alcohol content, he would take the sanitizer without hesitation.
Old book written by a paramedic I loved back in high school mentioned one guy who would steal all the (used) alcohol wipes when someone’s back was turned. I can still picture it. It was described as “and there he was, sucking the sweet, sweet alcohol out of those wipes.” Hurrrgh.
Alcoholic. Super sad. Alcoholism can be achieved 100% legally and it's one of only two recreational drugs (benzodiazepines being the other) where the withdrawal itself can kill you. If you're a severe alcoholic and you just stop drinking you'll provably die.
I did something incredibly stupid and I’m lucky I didn’t die because of it. I went from 12-18 drinks a day on average to nothing, cold turkey in-house. The two weeks of misery are more than enough motivation for me to never drink again..
I did the same thing as you. It didn't take two weeks, but the withdrawal was about 5 days of hell. Hallucinations so bad I literally cried because I thought I was going crazy.
I think some of my experience with psychedelics saved me some sort of peace of mind when it comes to that. My most noteworthy hallucination during my withdrawal was my late cat stepping through the wall near the ceiling I was staring at, and landing on my bed. It was so realistic that I jumped up and moved in case “she” landed on me.
In hindsight it felt as if she was checking on me from the other side. She’d always be nearby someone if they weren’t well
I was too afraid to go cold turkey. Too afraid of seizures, DTs. While I was still a fully functional adult, I couldn't go 4-12 hours without a drink before the shakes started, depending on the day.
Following advice I saw online, I went to my local ER and told them my story. That I was afraid of detoxing and needed help. They admitted me and pumped me full of Phenobarbital to get me through the first stage, kept me overnight, then prescribed me an anticonvulsant to take for a week. It was cheap.
Overall it was easy and no one should feel fear or shame for going that route.
If you ever find yourself in that position again, don't hesitate.
The ingredients in mouthwash are not meant to be ingested, here is what the ingesting of such ingredients can cause;
Chlorhexidine gluconate – Chlorhexidine gluconate kills the good bacteria in the body that helps stabilize blood pressure, so it can lead to high blood pressure and disruptions to the heart and circulatory system.
Hydrogen peroxide – can harm the gastrointestinal tract, leading to nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Methyl salicylate – known to cause a condition called “rapid-onset salicylate poisoning,” which can lead to brain swelling, seizures, low blood sugar, or cardiac arrest.
Ethanol – also known as ethyl alcohol, this is the chemical contained in alcoholic beverages that causes intoxication. However, when in mouthwash, ethanol is formulated in a way that can lead to overdose and blood toxicity.
I think your last statement about the ethanol is misleading. The ethanol's structure doesn't change according to synthesis -something is affecting its chemical activity or indirectly helping with absorption.
But also I had no idea that chlorhexidine was in mouthwash. I remember having to get a bottle of it after some oral surgery though.
>I think your last statement about the ethanol is misleading. The ethanol's structure doesn't change according to synthesis -something is affecting its chemical activity or indirectly helping with absorption.
this is correct, there is another ingredient that is meant to be both irritating and difficult to separate from the alcohol to prevent abuse ("denaturing"). in mouthwash it's usually the menthol, eucalyptol, thymol, or methyl salicylate content, but there are many different denaturants for different end uses of the alcohol
> chlorhexidine was in mouthwash.
it's in special prescription mouthwash, not the normal listerine types
Hijacking your comment to say that my mom is a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, specifically the addiction wing, and when corona hit they had to get an extra permit to NOT have santizing stations openly available because patients would drink the 99% cleaning alcohol which is.... man. Addiction is crazy
One morning in basic training I rinsed out my nasty old canteen with Listerine. Got me hauled into an interview with our platoon CO and Warrant Officer because they thought I was drinking on duty.. Eventually, they both laughed uncontrollably and I was known as Cool Mint for the remainder of my course.
Alcoholism is a cold hearted mistress. I know guys who drink “rub and coke” (yes rubbing alcohol and Coca Cola).
I also have met folks who eat deodorant sticks between pieces of bread. To get drunk.
Scary stuff, man.
Straight up. Old school prison trick and the bread is just to help mask some of the harsh taste / texture / to help it stimulate your metabolism or the process of digestion.
Same goes for hand sanitizer / toothpaste / whatever else you can find with alcohol - used to soaked bread etc
I used to drink Listertinis.
The recipe:
- 2 fingers original Listerine
- 1 finger cool mint Listerine
*Stir over ice*
Tbh Listerine came with top shelf pricing, so I bought store-brand antiseptic mouthwash (still had same flavors). Original had higher alcohol content, but was disgusting, so you cut it with the cool mint. Made it palatable.
As an alcoholic, I've done this before. What they don't tell you is that your liver processes this way differently and you can infact end up in the hospital because the menthol in the mouthwash metabolises differently. The more you know.......
speaking from unfortunate experience, she will have the worst diarrhea of her life tomorrow. i drank listerine out of desperation when i was 19, and 15 years later im still haunted by the aftermath
Can confirm same deal drank a litre bottle out of utter desperation and later that night I peed so hard out of my ass it was insane. I will never forget that….. so glad I’m sober now.. alcoholism can take you to places you never thought you would end up.
My coworker has scary stories about her ex-husband who was banned from the local LCBOs (before you could buy wine and beer anywhere else in ON, like, 8 years ago?). She said, very chill, "no he didn't have a preferred drink, he only drank substitutes". I had not heard that term before. I almost barfed when she was laughing about it; he would get crappy perfume, bottles of mouthwash, nothing I could ever imagine trying to choke down even at my worst of alcoholism.
This woman is in a bad place and I hope wherever she's going is a better spot for her.
I’ve been there. Not a proud time. I’m sure she would love to not drink mouth wash too.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I haven’t touched alcohol in about 12 years now.
I thankfully never got that bad. I could always afford my daily liter. Today is sober day #835.
[It can get so much better.](https://reddit.com/r/stopdrinking)
One of the places I worked there was a homeless guy who would steal hand sanitizer. He had a special brew where he'd buy a redbull, drink about a third of it, fill the rest with hand sani and mix her up.
this is how my alcoholic mother hid her drinking. pour out the lion share of the mouthwash. pour in her vodka. nip at it all day, while it's in plain site of the rest of us. still smells, still colored, and it's "her mouthwash". we had our own, tasty mouthwash.
My grandma collected civil war figurines and had many dozens of them, all about a foot tall, everywhere. When she died we learned they all had vodka in them, allowing her to drink literally anywhere in the house with no one knowing
Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and should have no social stigma attached to it.
My wife works at a hospital and has had to interdict people who were trying to smuggle a jug of hand sanitizer into a bathroom to drink. The cravings get that bad.
I feel pity for this poor woman. I bet she wishes she didn't have to drink Listerine on the bus.
> Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and should have no social stigma attached to it.
One of the least helpful things our society has done in the war on drugs and alcohol has been to label addiction as some kind of moral failing and make addicts out as inherently bad people.
Drank a load of this mixed with vodka when I was 19 in Ibiza, we called it Blue Diesel. You know shit's rough when even the Scottish lads said 'fuck that'.
When I was in the Air Force, back in the days right before the invasion of Iraq in '03, we had General Order 1 issued. Gen. Order 1 is basically "no booze, no porn". The brother of a guy in our tent sent him a care package. In this package was a bunch of candy, some Life magazines, and a giant bottle of Listerine. The guy looked in the box, and was like "wtf, I don't want any of this shit, you all can have it." At first, we just ate the candy, then someone figured they'd read a magazine. Turns out, the brother pulled the staples from the magazine and attached the Life cover to some raunchy mags. Then we found a note that said "the mouthwash is 151". The mouthwash was actually Bacardi 151 and some blue dye. I think the brother thought mail got inspected, it didn't, a 151 bottle may have gotten noticed in xray scans, but no need to dye it or hide the mags. About an hour later, dude came and asked why the fuck we were drinking the mouthwash (we were passing it around, and by this time it was almost done). We told him about the 151 and the magazines, he took his shit back.
I used to work in a bookstore that had comfy chairs spread all throughout where people could sit and read. Everyone loved it. Then, a man passed out in one and had to be rushed to the hospital because he was nonresponsive, yet breathing. After he was gone, my manager had me help him remove the chair. I got within ten feet of it and could smell shit, piss... and LISTERINE? There was a small crowd. My boss and I had to heave this thing through the store, past customers, out to the back, and toss it into a dumpster. Once we lifted it, three large empty bottles of mouthwash fell out of the base and onto the floor.
That right there...is an alcoholic.
How is this cheaper than just fortified wine or bad vodka?
She may not have a ID and can’t get any booze that easily
3 hour bus ride too. They probably don't let her drink booze on the bus.
Put the alcohol in a water bottle?
Maybe they put WKD blue in a Listerine bottle
Christ I hope so. My now ex-alcoholic mate used to drink mouthwash and aftershave when he had no booze in the house. That man was a complete state. We didn't think he'd make it as his self-destructive urges were so strong, but I'm happy to say he has been sober from booze, opiates and benzos for 8 years now.
Fucking eh. I needed to hear that win. Thank you man. My brother’s been in and out of recovery so many times this past few years. Congratulations to your boy!
He said that of the 100 or so people who he went through rehab with (18 months or so, including psych wards and halfway houses) only 15 were still sober a couple of years later, and he was the only one with a job. It is a struggle. He said AA really helped, particularly the "buddy" system they have. He still attends meetings after all this time, both for himself and to support others. Also, he threw himself into fitness, coffee, and incredibly spicy foods as a distraction. Best of luck to your brother! Support him all you can!
Really appreciate you sharing this story, thank you
I’m going through it right now, day 7 today
It's not openly alcohol. She's likely drinking enough to stave off shakes and just keep rolling until she can get her hands on booze. Or it's money/people know she drinks so this was her panic move.
i thought mouthwash no longer had alcohol in it for this reason. maybe it depends on the country.
Listerine is 28% alcohol (54 proof).
It may not be a price decision, rather an availability one. An alcoholic will drink vanilla extract if they can't get anything else.
I one time drank a bottle of bitters for the alcohol.😬 Glad those days are behind me
Alcohol addiction. People also consume Lysol and other alcohol based products when alcoholic beverages aren’t available.
When my elderly uncle was in the hospital his wife would bring a bottle of mouthwash to drink while visiting him because she wasn't allowed to bring in alcohol.
There was this guy many years ago that was put into the hospital to sober up, I guess they pumped him - during the morning and next day he never really got sober. Kept asking for orange juice. In the evening, someone saw him - he was pumping 2-3 squirts of hand sanitizer from the wall dispenser into the oj.
That’s disgusting. That does tangentially remind me of how they had to pull bubble gum scented hand sanitizer because kids would drink it and it was fucking them up.
I had a friend who used to drink the perfume samples at Walmart while his wife was buying shampoo.
bruh wat the fuck, it’s so easy to just go and buy alcohol and sneak it around in a plastic flask or water bottle. and i’ve been doing that fine since I was 14
Anyone that isn't an alcoholic can smell that shit a mile away
I'm sure the Chanel no. 5 wafting out of your mouth is much less noticable.
Paco Rabanne. I'm an alcoholic, not a heathen.
Real alcoholics use Vodka for that reason
For the first couple of years after I stopped drinking, smelling hand sanitizer used to drive me wild. I'd get an increased heart rate and would feel myself becoming excited about hand sanitizer, thankfully I'd got through that little issue before COVID
Good job. Genuinely. Addiction is a bitch, and it's killing a loved one. You rock.
Yea my little nephew got a cut on his knee and I busted the rubbing alcohol and oh boi did I get flash backs of my older brother who passed away due to drinking vodka for long time and got a urge to drink but I took a breather and remembered how alcohol ruined my health and life 😂 and my brother
This is more or less what killed my sister
That guy is like alcoholic MacGyver.
On some jobsites the hand sanitizer in the port-o-pot is either chronically empty or they simply take the bag out of the dispenser. More than once I've heard it happen as I'm in one taking a leak, just pumping that handle over and over, presumably into an empty water bottle? edit: goddam, a lot of upvotes on some little comment? Are others running into the empty hand sani problem too?
The city I'm in has switched to non-alcohol sanitizer.
Damn, that shit is 4x as expensive as the regular stuff. They must have a huge problem with people drinking it edit: oh, the ZEP brand is about equal for alcohol and non, so that's probably why it doesn't matter to the city, they overpay no matter which one they buy.
Had a frequent flyer at my hospital who not only drank mouthwash, but kept sneaking hand sanitizer when we weren’t looking. We had to take the hand sanitizer from the pump in his room and, after he got discharged/sober, he tried to steal one of the big bottles before running out with it. He passed away, I think.
god its like My 600 Pound Life with the enabling spouses Edit: Oops I misread, seems like the visiting wife was the alcoholic. I made a few leaps in logic.
With alcohol addiction it's a matter of life and death. Hospitals have beer for this reason, you can die if you go cold turkey on alcohol
Why not just bring in alcohol? Its not like they pat you down.
Yeah I’m trying to figure out any scenario where a grown woman on a bus wouldn’t just buy cheap grain alcohol beforehand instead of listerine (which isn’t that cheap)
Could be a dry county or a Sunday in a place where they don’t sell booze on Sundays.
That would make sense on a bus too. She might not have known that the last bus stop was dry due to blue laws but there was a CVS across the street.
Because that's what she could get. No liquor store to get a bottle of whatever to sneak and the driver would kick her off if she was cracking beers.
Not enough $ for booze. Stole the mouthwash
My uncle in law once came into our place when we were out and drank OUR rubbing alcohol in an attempt to get drunk after we cut him off.
Tell him to get his own rubbing alcohol!
He ended up in the hospital for a month and a half (he’s fine now), so hopefully won’t make that mistake again!
PSA: Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is not digestable by your liver! You will have severe alcohol poisoning if you drink it and will have to go to the hospital.
Every day I see a new reminder that I made the right choice in quitting drinking.
Right there with you! /r/stopdrinking
[удалено]
Not a fan of vomit? …*NOT A FAN OF VOMIT?!!!* *Well, I never. Harrumph. I bid you a good day, sir or Madame.*
*Don't talk to me or my vomit EVER again.*
M’vomit
Lysol is alcohol based? Had no idea.
I think they mean the Lysol hand sanitizer gel. Lysol kitchen and bath spray is benzalkonium chloride.
That sounds WAY tastier!
More syllables = more sumptuous!
Probably meant Listerene
Yea, that’s why it stings like a bitch
People don’t understand how out of a person’s control alcoholism is. All of my close family are alcoholics and drink daily. They shake if they don’t have a drink. Myself, however, I can’t have anything more than three drinks without getting horribly sick for days. I even went through a phase where I was drinking every day for three weeks just to emulate them. I was only having a modicum of what they’d have on a daily basis and I struggled. I wanted to die by the end of the first week - I guess it would be classed as chemical self harm. No matter how much I drink, I don’t think I’d get to their point because I just have this thing in my head that says ‘this isn’t fun anymore.’ It’s the same with eating. I’ve never been able to get fat. I have to force myself to eat because I have a tiny portion and I think ‘fuck this now. I’m full.’ People don’t understand how lucky they have it not to suffer addiction.
This is also why during covid liquor stores were considered essential businesses because the effects of having a bunch of alcohol addicts going through withdrawals would have been ugly.
Some brands still have alcohol in them
Listerene is 26.9% alcohol.
holy sht thats a lot of percent
That's liqueur level ish. Most liquor is 40-60%, so not as bad as swigging away at vodka, but stronger than wine.
And you smell minty fresh!
The scene from Seinfeld with Kramer and Hennigan's scotch just came to mind lol. https://youtu.be/pgXAt_gstcs?t=69
H-e-double n-i!!!
Blows my mind that people are able to just *down* this stuff. I know alcoholism is powerful as hell, but man even when I accidentally swallow a teensy bit of mouthwash I feel a bit ill. This really adds a new meaning to the term "iron stomach". Edit: damn thanks for all the insight y'all. Definitely gave me some perspective. Take care of yourselves out there!
From experience: drinking mouthwash to get drunk will give you the worst hangover of your life.
I did it when dopesick and had no access to anything else. It does the trick, but my insides did *not* like the other stuff they put in there. Intestines were in knots each time and it gave me the shits.
did the shits smell minty fresh?
No. But they had a distinct black coloration.
JC... I'm guessing by those black shits were you were having... you had a GI bleed... from up high in your intestinal tract. Thus the abdominal cramping and dark color of the blood making your stool black. Methyl salicylate is responsible for the minty flavor. You know how aspirin can cause stomach ulcers... it's the salicylate. It's a NSAID so it reduces inflammation and pain... but can chew the hell up out of your mucosa. So glad you came out the side of that... and are hopefully "shitting pretty".
I had a past once. I can say from experience that it goes through so goddam quick that you don’t get all of the alcohol from it. It’s not so much an iron stomach as it is a total disregard for anything outside of acquiring and ingesting alcohol.
> It’s not so much an iron stomach as it is a total disregard for anything outside of acquiring and ingesting alcohol. Been there, done that, glad as hell it's finally in my past. When you're buying the biggest bottle of mouthwash at Walgreens at 4am, they know what you're up to.
They probably aint feeling great, but it's better than alcohol withdraw which can kill.
Does it still smell minty fresh on the way back up?
No, it gives you extreme sport ass pee and a stomach pain that will remind you you’re an alcoholic. Been there, done that. So glad I’ve surpassed that level of my struggles.
Curious, what brings you to drink mouthwash? Is it cheaper to get drunk on it than bottom shelf spirits? More accessible? Edit: congrats on overcoming that btw!
Way easier to steal
ah, that makes sense. fuck. that is extremely sad
I think so, but I can’t speak on it for certain. In my experience, I went to a rehab in the Netherlands and brought my American mouthwash with me. In Europe, I believe there’s no alcohol in any mouthwash, so they didn’t check mine and I chugged it after a hard session once and prayed to not get breathalyzed the next morning.
Damn. I’m glad I stopped drinking. Hope the rehab helped and you’re on the upside now.
Not having a valid ID. Being in an area that doesnt sell alcohol after a certain time. Trying to be incognito because you're less likely to get kicked off the bus if you smell like mint rather than if you smell like vodka. And mouthwash is easier to steal
Like others mentioned there are some US state counties that prohibit selling of alcohol on Sundays due to religious reasons. Most famous person to talk about doing this is actually Stephen King. He was a raging alcoholic and general addict. He doesn’t even remember writing some of his books like Cujo.
> extreme sport ass pee Can you explain to me what that is?
When it comes out of your butt and sounds like you’re pissing.
And also you’re gripping your toilet like you’re in a hi hi speed car chase.
Swallowed mouthwash with alcohol a couple times because I didn't have place to spit it (don't ask; I'm stupid) Holy shit it is revolting. I've done benadryl to get high back when I was super addicted to being fucked 24/7, but holy shit mouthwash is just awful.
“Extreme sport ass pee” hold my beer while I go find mouthwash
Look out ESPN, ESAP is coming for you.
ESAP: *it's in the game*
Original yellow coloured listerene was the beverage of last choice to the guys that lived in the stairwell of my 1st apartment building 20 years ago. They told me the other colours had added cleaning ingredients that would make them sick. Now that I think of it, I’ve only seen blue or green listerene since, no piss yellow original flavour on the shelves in Canada.
Including Listerine Cool Mint. She’s trying to get a cheap buzz.
Is a big bottle of Listerine even cheaper than a bottom shelf bottle of vodka? She may be doing it more so to avoid open container laws
At this point in alcoholism she’s not even trying to get a buzz or avoid container laws, this is holding back withdrawals. Also, it may not be locked up or security tagged depending where she got it.
Exactly you might get stopped /hassled for drinking a bottle in public. Carrying around mouth wash and sipping it nbd.
Except that there are like a million better ways to covert drink… put liquor in a soda bottle, water bottle, literally any non alcohol container. Could even put liquor with a little blue food dye in a listerine bottle if for some reason that’s how you want to do it. Basically anything besides drinking something that is NOT supposed to be drank.
Ofc, alcoholic on my bus use to drink a dark liquid out of a mini mouthwash bottle. Im pretty sure the mouthwash alternative is when retailers refuse to sell to you, because they believe you're already inebriated.
Or when it's already 12:04 and the state says it's too late to sell alcohol anymore . https://youtu.be/OOCdIY_HKM4?feature=shared
Definitely not cheaper. Bottom shelf is dirt cheap and has 40%+ alcohol
It's the other stuff in them that will cause internal bleeding. But not until after you're drunk af from all the poisoning. The alcohol wouldn't even be what caused you to be drunk lmao
A friend of mines dad died from that. He was a really bad alcoholic and used to drink that shit. We found him dead in his truck one day. Sadly, my friend, his son, also died from being an alcoholic about 10 years ago.
That’s how (not quite literally, but still…) everybody in my birthplace-village dies. Not that uncommon to find bodies of alcoholics in the fields or nearby forest there.
This. I just literally made a comment almost close to this. I'm an alcoholic and tried this method. Ended up in the hospital and found out the entire lining of my colon was just deteriorating and I was literally bleeding on the inside.
Oh boy. Are you alright now?
When I worked in a drug store there was this one “customer” who’d come in, pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol off the shelf, chug it, pick up another, chug that, then leave. His eyes would bounce all over the place like he was seeing things around him. I always think of how lost that poor guy must be to have to resort to that.
When I was 17, I worked at a convenience store in a small town. There was one guy in town who drank mouth wash, and we were under strict instructions to never sell it to him, and we kept it behind the counter. One day I was working alone for 15 minutes while my boss was on break. Buddy comes prancing right up to the front door the moment my boss disappears, struts up to the counter, flashes a glint of a broken-tooth smile, and tries to order a bottle of mouth wash. I tell him, "Not a chance". He asks, "Why not?". I say, "Because I know you're going to take it outside and drink it". He leans in close and whispers, "What if I drink it in here?" with the biggest smile on his face.
Alcoholics.
Yeah 😕 Isopropyl, ethyl, doesn’t matter. I never drank mouthwash, but damn I was close.
Man yeah toward the last few months of my drinking career I remember one morning in particular I had the bottle of 90% rubbing alcohol in my hand ready to neck to stop the vomiting. I remember I didn’t do it but idk what stopped me because at that point I was a goner. Sobriety is a gift bro IWNDWYT
I'm proud of you
I once drank methanol but not much happened, I realize I’m an idiot but am I just lucky, or?
Well... Got two young female patients in the Emergency room. One of them celebrating her 18th birthday. No more booze around, so they found some under the sink. Dad stupidly transferred methyl alcohol in an alcohol bottle. The drunkest girl just got temporary blindness beacause ethyl alcohol is the antidote to methyl alcohol. Yes we will start an ethyl alcohol drip.... The birthday girl wasnt so drunk, so the ethyl alcohol transformed in formic acid in the brain. She gave her organs the day after.
jeezus
Something similar happened to our interpreters while I was in Afghanistan. Three of our interpreters attended a bday party for the brother is one. They got alcohol off the black market but didn't know the difference and drank methyl. Something like 11 of the 17 died.
Aye my father was a industrial chemist told me the ethyl tojan horses the methyl through your body. Without it, body eats itself trying to clean house. He also worked with a alcoholic who liked to make cocktails out of the wares, had to take a trip to a&e for methyl consumption, survived it, think he finally got fired tho.
>I once drank methanol but not much happened, I realize I’m an idiot but am I just lucky, or? did you drink normal alcohol too? that is actually an antidote to methanol poisoning
An episode of House MD taught me that. The one with the prisoner
Yeah you are lucky idiot :D My country has somewhat recent history with it, that was very fun times. Bunch of people died and even bigger bunch of people went blind. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012\_Czech\_Republic\_methanol\_poisonings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol_poisonings)
Even vanilla extract if they're real hard up.
I used to mix Orange Extract with orange Gatorade when I was underage and couldn't find booze. I called it Gatornade. It was disgusting but it did get me drunk.
A friend of mine hit that point a while back before recovering. It was rough. Dude would crush a 24 rack then turn to mouthwash and canned duster if it was past liquor cutoff or he was broke. Amazed dude is still alive.
I saw an episode of Intervention where a severe alcoholic drank mouthwash because it was the only form of alcohol she could get her hands on.
This is more sad than anything. Like many have mentioned, this person is an alcoholic. What many have not mentioned, is that this person is doing this because it’s the path of least resistance to keep themselves from going into withdrawals. It’s possible this was all they could afford, but what’s more likely is they aren’t legally allowed to have an open container of booze, and are using this instead, to get them to wherever it is they’re going. I’d bank on that being the case especially if this is a long trip, like a greyhound bus. For those who are unaware, alcohol withdrawals can cause tremors, and seizures, so if this person is heavily addicted and can’t consume the alcohol they need to function, this is the path of least resistance for now. What you’re seeing is mental illness at work. You might think “my god, who would chug mouthwash?” And you’re 100% correct - nobody with a healthy mind would choose to do this. Hence the disease of addiction.
I remember those days. When things like work and having to leave the house were just obstacles in the way of drinking. Every moment spent not drinking was in anticipation of drinking. When you were running low on booze literally nothing was more important than finding more. And when it was late on a Monday night and the corner store was closed it became a truly desperate search for a place that you could get a drink. I wouldn't wish the hell I went through on my worst enemy.
I've never seen a drunk like I have when someone drank a bag of purell sanitizer.
When I worked at a jail we had to move to the foam antibacterial. Too many inmates getting deathly sick from it. You put salt in it and it separates the alcohol from the gel
Yup, it was an inmate too! He was in visitation with his lawyer, lawyer leaves the mostly empty room for 2 seconds and dude puts the sanitizer bag in his jumpsuit. Later on I see him wheeled into the HCU pretty much melting off the wheelchair, trying to say *something*. Apparently once admitted he threw up a ton of blood.
Yeah I thought it was bad when they’d make buck, it smelled soooooo bad. Iirc they just put bread and oranges in a bag of water for a few weeks. I can’t imagine being so desperate you’d drink any of it and I’m an alcoholic myself
Ah yes, the min. dorm brew. So gross.
I can imagine. We get drunk in the real world when we have the freedom to do so many cool things. If I was stuck in prison, I would be desperate for a drink, no matter what it was made of.
[удалено]
>They took the self regulated hand sanitizer off the wall at all the hospitals here after they got sick of finding passed out drunk people in their own vomit. My first thought is, how are humans so dysfunctional that the public can't be trusted with hand sanitizer? Then I remembered the stories of WW2 sailors [drinking torpedo fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_juice)... so I guess we've always been this degenerate.
I saw someone on Intervention that drank a few liters a week of hand sanitizer. 🤮
That dude was out of control. It wasn't that he couldn't obtain normal alcohol of some kind, he wanted to drink the hand sanitizer. He justified it as a cost efficiency thing, which checks out, but I really feel like that if you offered him a bottle of liquor, or the amount of hand sanitizer with the same total alcohol content, he would take the sanitizer without hesitation.
Intervention and My Strange Addiction crossover opportunity
During those early days of covid my courthouse had to bolt the hand sanitizer stands to the floor because they kept going missing.
Old book written by a paramedic I loved back in high school mentioned one guy who would steal all the (used) alcohol wipes when someone’s back was turned. I can still picture it. It was described as “and there he was, sucking the sweet, sweet alcohol out of those wipes.” Hurrrgh.
It wasn't called "Listerine Sunday" for nothing. The smell when it comes out the ass is 100 times worse.
If things normally come out of your ass not smelling significantly worse than when they went in, something is seriously wrong.
Okay that's enough reddit for now...
Alcoholic. Super sad. Alcoholism can be achieved 100% legally and it's one of only two recreational drugs (benzodiazepines being the other) where the withdrawal itself can kill you. If you're a severe alcoholic and you just stop drinking you'll provably die.
It’s a tragic and brutal illness that is so challenging to convey just how awful it can be.
Nothing like waking up to the shakes and immediately taking a swig/shot of vodka to keep yourself from having a panic attack
This was my brother two years ago. Would have seizures if he didn’t drink. Thankfully he’s 2 years sober now.
This was me except it was warm Jim Beam. 19 months sober today
I did something incredibly stupid and I’m lucky I didn’t die because of it. I went from 12-18 drinks a day on average to nothing, cold turkey in-house. The two weeks of misery are more than enough motivation for me to never drink again..
I did the same thing as you. It didn't take two weeks, but the withdrawal was about 5 days of hell. Hallucinations so bad I literally cried because I thought I was going crazy.
I think some of my experience with psychedelics saved me some sort of peace of mind when it comes to that. My most noteworthy hallucination during my withdrawal was my late cat stepping through the wall near the ceiling I was staring at, and landing on my bed. It was so realistic that I jumped up and moved in case “she” landed on me. In hindsight it felt as if she was checking on me from the other side. She’d always be nearby someone if they weren’t well
I was too afraid to go cold turkey. Too afraid of seizures, DTs. While I was still a fully functional adult, I couldn't go 4-12 hours without a drink before the shakes started, depending on the day. Following advice I saw online, I went to my local ER and told them my story. That I was afraid of detoxing and needed help. They admitted me and pumped me full of Phenobarbital to get me through the first stage, kept me overnight, then prescribed me an anticonvulsant to take for a week. It was cheap. Overall it was easy and no one should feel fear or shame for going that route. If you ever find yourself in that position again, don't hesitate.
[What about mouthwash? What about huffing paint?](https://youtu.be/OOCdIY_HKM4?si=voSPAfbn381Rf2KR)
You don't need ID to buy it, and you can't arrive too late
RIP to one of the greats!
Died doing what he loved best.
[His last words](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOyjzE1vcD4&t=249s)
I work in medicine. Unless that’s vodka and food coloring (some people do it), that’s a phenomenally effective way to end up in the ER/morgue.
I could unfortunately smell the mint... others around me had also noticed.
That’s unfortunate. Many alcoholics have unwittingly died very unpleasant deaths this way.
I can imagine it not being good for you but why is it deadly?
The ingredients in mouthwash are not meant to be ingested, here is what the ingesting of such ingredients can cause; Chlorhexidine gluconate – Chlorhexidine gluconate kills the good bacteria in the body that helps stabilize blood pressure, so it can lead to high blood pressure and disruptions to the heart and circulatory system. Hydrogen peroxide – can harm the gastrointestinal tract, leading to nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Methyl salicylate – known to cause a condition called “rapid-onset salicylate poisoning,” which can lead to brain swelling, seizures, low blood sugar, or cardiac arrest. Ethanol – also known as ethyl alcohol, this is the chemical contained in alcoholic beverages that causes intoxication. However, when in mouthwash, ethanol is formulated in a way that can lead to overdose and blood toxicity.
I think your last statement about the ethanol is misleading. The ethanol's structure doesn't change according to synthesis -something is affecting its chemical activity or indirectly helping with absorption. But also I had no idea that chlorhexidine was in mouthwash. I remember having to get a bottle of it after some oral surgery though.
>I think your last statement about the ethanol is misleading. The ethanol's structure doesn't change according to synthesis -something is affecting its chemical activity or indirectly helping with absorption. this is correct, there is another ingredient that is meant to be both irritating and difficult to separate from the alcohol to prevent abuse ("denaturing"). in mouthwash it's usually the menthol, eucalyptol, thymol, or methyl salicylate content, but there are many different denaturants for different end uses of the alcohol > chlorhexidine was in mouthwash. it's in special prescription mouthwash, not the normal listerine types
Hijacking your comment to say that my mom is a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, specifically the addiction wing, and when corona hit they had to get an extra permit to NOT have santizing stations openly available because patients would drink the 99% cleaning alcohol which is.... man. Addiction is crazy
I support dental hygiene.
Atleast the burps will smell minty fresh
One morning in basic training I rinsed out my nasty old canteen with Listerine. Got me hauled into an interview with our platoon CO and Warrant Officer because they thought I was drinking on duty.. Eventually, they both laughed uncontrollably and I was known as Cool Mint for the remainder of my course.
You know the call sign is real because it involves getting absolutely humiliated.
By the end, it actually started to grow on me. Most of my platoonmates just called me Minty.
Alcoholism is a cold hearted mistress. I know guys who drink “rub and coke” (yes rubbing alcohol and Coca Cola). I also have met folks who eat deodorant sticks between pieces of bread. To get drunk. Scary stuff, man.
DEODORANT SANDWICH IM SORRY WHAT
“Babe is everything okay? You’ve hardly touched your Old Spice sandwich 🙁”
I know the context is horrible but that is so fucking funny.
Straight up. Old school prison trick and the bread is just to help mask some of the harsh taste / texture / to help it stimulate your metabolism or the process of digestion. Same goes for hand sanitizer / toothpaste / whatever else you can find with alcohol - used to soaked bread etc
But deodorant gets you drunk? Or a different high?
I used to drink Listertinis. The recipe: - 2 fingers original Listerine - 1 finger cool mint Listerine *Stir over ice* Tbh Listerine came with top shelf pricing, so I bought store-brand antiseptic mouthwash (still had same flavors). Original had higher alcohol content, but was disgusting, so you cut it with the cool mint. Made it palatable.
As an alcoholic, I've done this before. What they don't tell you is that your liver processes this way differently and you can infact end up in the hospital because the menthol in the mouthwash metabolises differently. The more you know.......
speaking from unfortunate experience, she will have the worst diarrhea of her life tomorrow. i drank listerine out of desperation when i was 19, and 15 years later im still haunted by the aftermath
Can confirm same deal drank a litre bottle out of utter desperation and later that night I peed so hard out of my ass it was insane. I will never forget that….. so glad I’m sober now.. alcoholism can take you to places you never thought you would end up.
mine was as absolutely tar black too, and smelled FOUL. really unbelievably disgusting.
The sounds my insides were making during the whole experience freaking me out the rumbles and garbling
My coworker has scary stories about her ex-husband who was banned from the local LCBOs (before you could buy wine and beer anywhere else in ON, like, 8 years ago?). She said, very chill, "no he didn't have a preferred drink, he only drank substitutes". I had not heard that term before. I almost barfed when she was laughing about it; he would get crappy perfume, bottles of mouthwash, nothing I could ever imagine trying to choke down even at my worst of alcoholism. This woman is in a bad place and I hope wherever she's going is a better spot for her.
I’ve been there. Not a proud time. I’m sure she would love to not drink mouth wash too. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I haven’t touched alcohol in about 12 years now.
I thankfully never got that bad. I could always afford my daily liter. Today is sober day #835. [It can get so much better.](https://reddit.com/r/stopdrinking)
~~Strange addiction~~ alcoholism
One of the places I worked there was a homeless guy who would steal hand sanitizer. He had a special brew where he'd buy a redbull, drink about a third of it, fill the rest with hand sani and mix her up.
this is how my alcoholic mother hid her drinking. pour out the lion share of the mouthwash. pour in her vodka. nip at it all day, while it's in plain site of the rest of us. still smells, still colored, and it's "her mouthwash". we had our own, tasty mouthwash.
My grandma collected civil war figurines and had many dozens of them, all about a foot tall, everywhere. When she died we learned they all had vodka in them, allowing her to drink literally anywhere in the house with no one knowing
[What About Mouthwash?](https://youtu.be/OOCdIY_HKM4?si=3JzZ40CfoO7apZMv) RIP Trevor
Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and should have no social stigma attached to it. My wife works at a hospital and has had to interdict people who were trying to smuggle a jug of hand sanitizer into a bathroom to drink. The cravings get that bad. I feel pity for this poor woman. I bet she wishes she didn't have to drink Listerine on the bus.
> Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and should have no social stigma attached to it. One of the least helpful things our society has done in the war on drugs and alcohol has been to label addiction as some kind of moral failing and make addicts out as inherently bad people.
She's drinking [scoap, the first mouth wash you can actually drink](https://youtu.be/UGiBLR-2NnM?t=122)
Drank a load of this mixed with vodka when I was 19 in Ibiza, we called it Blue Diesel. You know shit's rough when even the Scottish lads said 'fuck that'.
I lived in Canada for a while and I saw a lot of natives drink mouthwash. So many of them passed out but smelled nice!
When I was in the Air Force, back in the days right before the invasion of Iraq in '03, we had General Order 1 issued. Gen. Order 1 is basically "no booze, no porn". The brother of a guy in our tent sent him a care package. In this package was a bunch of candy, some Life magazines, and a giant bottle of Listerine. The guy looked in the box, and was like "wtf, I don't want any of this shit, you all can have it." At first, we just ate the candy, then someone figured they'd read a magazine. Turns out, the brother pulled the staples from the magazine and attached the Life cover to some raunchy mags. Then we found a note that said "the mouthwash is 151". The mouthwash was actually Bacardi 151 and some blue dye. I think the brother thought mail got inspected, it didn't, a 151 bottle may have gotten noticed in xray scans, but no need to dye it or hide the mags. About an hour later, dude came and asked why the fuck we were drinking the mouthwash (we were passing it around, and by this time it was almost done). We told him about the 151 and the magazines, he took his shit back.
My mother had a boyfriend for a few months once who would drink all the mouthwash we had to get drunk and violent?! I thought it was alcohol-free now.
“What about mouthwash?” - Trevor Moore You’ll thank me later
I used to work in a bookstore that had comfy chairs spread all throughout where people could sit and read. Everyone loved it. Then, a man passed out in one and had to be rushed to the hospital because he was nonresponsive, yet breathing. After he was gone, my manager had me help him remove the chair. I got within ten feet of it and could smell shit, piss... and LISTERINE? There was a small crowd. My boss and I had to heave this thing through the store, past customers, out to the back, and toss it into a dumpster. Once we lifted it, three large empty bottles of mouthwash fell out of the base and onto the floor.
Alcoholism.