What's perplexing?! It's alcohol!
Remember when Kitty Dukakis drank rubbing alcohol? Here's the NYT, November 9, 1989 (a year after Kitty's husband Michael lost the presidential election):
Kitty Dukakis's doctor said today that she was hospitalized after drinking a small amount of rubbing alcohol....A "small amount"... "intensive care"...
''Kitty has suffered from chemical dependency and struggled with depression for many years,'' the statement said. ''These two problems are often related. Autumn has been a particularly bad season for her.''
Dr. Plotkin said Mrs. Dukakis was now ''completely out of danger,'' and was moved out of intensive care and into a private room today.
The statement did not say how much rubbing alcohol Mrs. Dukakis had consumed. Dr. Plotkin, reached by telephone tonight, declined to elaborate on his statement and refused to say what her motive might have been....So is hand sanitizer made with ethyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol? Don't take my word for it, but Wikipedia says Purell is ethyl alcohol and "Purell purposely adds an unpleasant bitter taste to its product to make it undesirable to drink and to discourage ingestion."
Rubbing alcohol differs in its chemical structure and reactions from ethanol, which is the form of alcohol contained in standard beverages. Rubbing, or isopropyl, alcohol is also contained in after-shave and hand lotions and many other products. Isopropyl alcohol irritates the lining of the stomach and intestines, and ingesting three to four ounces of it can cause severe symptoms like bloody vomiting, diarrhea and flu-like symptoms. A relatively small amount of isopropyl alcohol can produce an extreme hangover. It can also produce changes in the blood similar to those produced by severe diabetes or starvation.
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38 comments:
A "small amount"
If you are an oceanographer that means "less than a gallon".
There's a product you can add to dog food that "gives feces an unpleasant taste."
Back in the mid 80s, I came upon two bums sitting on a park bench near Judiciary Square in DC who were laughing as they shared a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. I tried to tell them that it was poison & that they needed to stop drinking it. Needless to say, my advice went unheeded.
I imagine that they ended up later that day in some nearby emergency room. I hope they survived.
What else are you going to wash your Tide PODS down with?
Would Drano let you hurt your pipes?
Virginity testing lobbyist Nonkanyiso Conco, 24, probably doesn't drink soap.
It was grossly irresponsible of Dukakis to run for Prez with a wife with those problems. Governor was bad enough. Horrible for her and dangerous for the country if he's distracted by her crises.
Cheap vodka is less expensive, but won't make your breath smell like Purell does.
-sw
During Prohibition drinking denatured alcohol was a thing. One Christmas my great-uncle drank up all my flapper aunt's perfume.
A friend used to work in a pharmacy located near an Indian Reservation in Canada. The staff were forbidden to sell ANYTHING with alcohol in it to Indians - Aftershave, Mouthwash, Rubbing Alcohol, whatever.
I was about two years old, and was at the home of a relative. I found a bottle of rubbing alcohol. At that time in the early 60's the rubbing alcohol came in a glass bottle. I was thirsty, and thought it was water. I chugged it down. Big mistake. Ended up getting my stomach pumped. I remember it so vividly. Not at all a pleasant experience.
Hand sanitizer, now with firewater.
When I was a freshman in high school, we had an after-school freshman team basketball game at some school in our mostly-rural county. As we were riding there in the school bus, I looked around and saw a fellow freshman in the near-back of the bus open his gym bag, pull out a bottle of Williams 'Lectric Shave and take a surreptitious swig from it. I told no one but it shocked the hell out of me.
Dude went on to become an Army Ranger, and in a murder-suicide took the life of himself and his wife a few years ago.
WOOD ALCOHOL or wood grain alcohol is METHANOL. Methanol (methyl alcohol, CH 3 OH) is the simplest of the alcohols. It is the natural by-product of wood distillation—an older method of producing drinking alcohol.
My grandfather died as a result of drinking wood grain alcohol.
Google for your edification: US government + Prohibition + Wood grain alcohol.
“'Kitty has suffered from chemical dependency and struggled with depression for many years,'' the statement said. ''These two problems are often related. Autumn has been a particularly bad season for her.''”
Was she chemically dependent on drinking rubbing alcohol? That kinda seems like a poor substitute for Vodka or good old fashioned whiskey.
holdfast said...
" A friend used to work in a pharmacy located near an Indian Reservation in Canada. The staff were forbidden to sell ANYTHING with alcohol in it to Indians - Aftershave, Mouthwash, Rubbing Alcohol, whatever."
I once worked at a place where the receptionist ( a pretty and pleasant young woman) smelled very strongly of mouthwash. I was a smoker at the time and so my sense of smell was not that great and even I could smell it. It wasn't just a matter of having minty fresh breath all the time; it's as if Scope or Listerine was coming out of her pores. That's exactly what was happening. Her boss caught her swigging Listerine in the ladies room. She was called on the carpet and asked to go to AA. I left that company soon after that and don't know if she stayed sober. Actually, I thought it was rather clever of her; if you're an alcoholic you don't care about the taste, just the effect. She must have reasoned that while gin on the breath at 9 am would make people suspicious, Scope would not. She probably didn't realize she reeked of it.
That also explained the constant cheerfulness. I've known one other alcoholic like that - her goal was not to become falling down drunk, but to be slightly buzzed at all times. I don't know, but I would guess that that state becomes harder and harder to maintain as one get older.
"Bay Area Guy said...
Was she chemically dependent on drinking rubbing alcohol? That kinda seems like a poor substitute for Vodka or good old fashioned whiskey."
It's not uncommon for alcoholics to drink products with alcohol in them when they are denied booze by family, or claim to be "on the wagon" but needing a fix.
Tommy Duncan said...
A "small amount"
If you are an oceanographer that means "less than a gallon".
Nope, less than a cubic kilometer.
Because beverage alcohol is a big source of tax revenue, governments require manufacturers to "denature" alcohol sold for non-beverage purposes by adding a distasteful ingredient.
Alcohol addicts may accept the bad taste to relieve the urge.
"Was she chemically dependent on drinking rubbing alcohol? That kinda seems like a poor substitute for Vodka or good old fashioned whiskey."
If a drunk is being watched and there is no booze in the house, I imagine anything with alcohol will do.
A bottle of Stoli would be tastier and she could use it as hand sanitizer, if necessary.
Why’s Althouse reading a US News article from 2016?
Sanitary hands are the Devil's playthings.
I have always considered denaturing of ethanol morally reprehensible.
If memory serves, from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”:
GEORGE: Rubbing alcohol for you?
MARTHA: Never mix, never worry.
And some of you liberals and libertarians want to make alcohol legal.
I much prefer my Costco mouthwash. It has 21.6% ethanol, and a fresh minty taste.
Original Vicks Formula 44, wonderful cough syrup, was about 30% alcohol. The interaction of dextromethorphan with alcohol induced dizziness and nausea in too many people, so the alcohol content was decreased to limit that side effect. Now Vicks 44 has only 10%, with a 44M having 20%. Nyquil is at 25% alcohol. Yay, Nyquil!
And people who drink non-ethyl alcohols, or denatured ethyl, deserve our pity and some education.
I've always wondered why teens just don't drink vanilla extract. I mean there's no age limit on the purchase, it's cheap, and it's very high proof. I guess it would taste vile straight, but that seems a secondary consideration for the given use case..
Everclear is as pure an ethyl alcohol as one can buy in a liquor store, at 95% or so.
Yet watering it down to vodka-level concentration does not result in vodka like taste, according to my college friends. Highly potent punch is where Everclear comes into its own. Drown out the taste of alcohol with sweet fruits or spicy citrus, and the party will rock!
Original Vicks Formula 44, wonderful cough syrup, was about 30% alcohol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK-NJOjqiBE
Too bad most of the connoisseurs of bum's drinks are dead.
There's actually a site for "bum" wine:
Call them bum wines, street wines, fortified wines, wino wines, or twist-cap wines. Whatever you call these beverages for the economical drunkard, this page explores the top five. So curl up on a heating duct and enjoy...
The Enlisted Mens Club at the base where I expiated my time in Purgatory used to serve a drink of Mogen David Concord Grape Wine and Vodka. This was overseas and real Mad Dog 20/20 was not available, so it was a fair substitute. Eventually the Old Man put the kibosh on it because too many sailors were going crazier than usual, and there was too much purple barf messing up the ship.
Unknown,
Great link! The Internet is a wondrous place.
As I remember from college, M/D 2020 tasted like cough syrup. Or maybe it was cough syrup. Like Sebastian Flyte, I was unused to wine.
I've always wondered why teens just don't drink vanilla extract. I mean there's no age limit on the purchase, it's cheap, and it's very high proof. I guess it would taste vile straight, but that seems a secondary consideration for the given use case..
? $31 or so in bulk, for a qt at Costco today. For $31 I can get a very nice bottle of something else that was meant to be drunk.
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