Suicide Research: Alcohol

This method involves drinking alcohol to the point of death or to the point of unconsciousness (which is then used alongside another method). On average, a BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) level around .40 will lead to unconsciousness, with death becoming more likely as the BAC continues to rise. A good chart illustrating the typical symptoms associated with various BAC levels can be found here:

Alcohol and the Human Body

That site also gives a description of some of the factors (body weight/size, amount of alcohol, rate of consumption, etc) that affect BAC. There are several BAC calculators online that will do the math for you, but the best ones allow you to specify the actual amount of alcohol ingested. A lot of sites will just ask you to input the number of drinks/glasses/shots you’ve had but won’t tell you what those units represent. Is a shot 1 oz? 1.25 oz? 1.5? No one can seem to agree. A simple but effective calculator that lets you do that can be found here:

http://www.globalrph.com/bac.cgi

One critical factor not addressed by these calculators is the rate of absorption. Most alcohol is absorbed by the small intestines. However, the alcohol has to get there first, and this is greatly affected by the rate of stomach emptying. There appear to be a few key ways to speed up this process:

1. Drinking on an empty stomach

“Drinking anything on an empty stomach causes rapid gastric emptying, reducing the time the alcohol is exposed to the alcohol dehydrogenase in your stomach lining. Rapid emptying means that the alcohol hits your bloodstream faster and in greater concentration.”

2. Carbonation and the pylorus

“The pylorus (or ‘pyloric valve’) controls the rate at which alcohol passes into the small intestine from the stomach. Carbonation stimulates, or tickles, the pyloric valve, causing it to stay open a bit longer, allowing more fluid to pass through.”

3. Alcohol concentration

“Alcohol is most rapidly absorbed when the concentration of the drink is between 10% and 30%. Below 10%, the concentration gradient in the gastrointestinal tract is low and slows absorption, and the added volumes of liquid involved slow gastric emptying. On the other hand, concentrations higher than 30% tend to irritate the mucous membranes of the gastrointestinal tract and the pyloric sphincter, causing increased secretion of mucous and delayed gastric emptying.”

Unfortunately, since alcohol is ultimately a poison, the body is going to try its hardest to fight it. If alcohol collects in the stomach, it may become so irritated that it completely closes the pylorus. Furthermore, if the irritation continues, vomiting will likely occur in an attempt to expel the alcohol from the system. (Ironically, depending on the state of the drinker, the vomiting may actually lead to death if it ends up blocking the airways.)

Concerns/Questions:
-Depending on your own body factors, you might not need to drink all that much alcohol. However, at least for me, high percentage alcohol isn’t something I’d consider ‘gulpable’. Maybe it’s different with mixed drinks, but then with the lower concentration of mixed drinks, you’re going to have to drink a lot more total fluids. It just seems like there’s a tricky balance between drinking quickly, not vomiting, yet making sure you drink enough and are even physically capable of drinking enough. However, I did miss out on the binge drinking element of college, so maybe it’s easier than I think!
-Perhaps using this to induce unconsciousness is the more effective route?
-Loss of control. Unfortunately, at a certain point, there’s a possibility that you’re just no longer in control of yourself, and that makes this incredibly variable. Will you keep drinking to achieve the desired BAC? Will you stagger away from whatever else you had planned? Will you vomit up all your efforts?