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Subscribe to RSSBooze makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, sure. But does it actually ward off the cold weather?
That’s what Thomas Drummond, of Jackson, Mo., thought when he crashed his car into a ditch in the wee hours of the morning. He was stuck, it was freezing outside, and he just happened to have some brandy in the car.
By the time emergency workers reached him two hours later, he was “unresponsive,” but Drummond maintained he’d gotten smashed after the accident, not before.
A 12-person jury bought it, and found Drummond not guilty of driving while intoxicated, according to the Southeast Missourian. But is there any biological basis to the first-aid folk tale that tipple keeps you toasty?
Yes and no, says Dr. Sam Zakhari of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. When we drink alcohol, our blood vessels widen, causing increased blood flow, and bringing more heat to the skin. “If you’re sitting at home in a sweater and having dinner, the heat in the skin is kept in the skin, which is fine,” he says.
But if you’re outside in the cold and you drink, the heat on your skin dissipates into the atmosphere. “You’ll lose heat, and feel a lot colder,” says Zakhari. Unless, he adds, you’re dressed very warmly, or doing something physical, like skiing. (Good news for those of us who like to carry a wee flask of Schnapps on the slopes.)
What saved Drummond from hypothermia – or worse – was staying in his car, with the transmission in park and the motor running until help arrived. And while alcohol may have helped him feel warmer, it was a boneheaded move, says Zakhari. What if his rescuers were calling to him, and he was too drunk to respond?
“Drinking wouldn’t be my first choice,” he says. “Unless you’re giving up.”
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I guess somebody needs to tell this to the St. Bernards in Switzerland.
Most St Bernards don't drive.
WOW
This guy got away with DUI
My Hero.
Your hero....what kind of idiot are you?
The biggest kind of idiot there is. Hope a drunk plows into your family. Then you can throw him a big hero's party.
Yeah let's wish death on a man's family for what was obviously a sarcastic comment. Jesus Christ people are stupid.
Mythbusters did this one too a while back - you might "feel" warmer from the booze, but it's actually worse for you, as it moves the blood from being concentrated in your core (the body's natural reaction to cold - keep the warm blood around the vital organs in the center) to going back all over your body - where it can lose heat more easily, and actually make you colder.
I knew it was a matter of time before I heard the "I saw that on Mythbusters" comment..
it doesnt warm you up but you dont care. :)
This article COMPLETELY IGNORES the effect alcohol has on your mind. Alcohol INCREASES your ability to handle cold simply because you don't notice it as much.
In "A Night to Remember" - a book written by Walter Lord in the 1950's about the sinking of the Titanic - he describes one man's survival plight. When it became known to this man that the Titanic was going to sink, he went and got drunk on whiskey. He further loaded his pockets with flasks of whisky. This survivor said that when it came time for him to have to go into the freezing cold waters of the Atlantic, he noticed it was cold, but didn't really care. He made it to one of the collapsable lifeboats. Throughout the night, he drank whiskey. He could feel the cold, but didn't care. He watched men slip off the boat, dying or dead throughout the night. He obviously survived.
But it was the WHISKEY that carried him through. Cold, and surviving cold temperatures, is also a STATE OF MIND, and alcohol clearly changes your state of mind.
After the World Trade Center collapsed, which I witnessed from a pier in Hoboken (which is right across the Hudson river from Manhattan, at about the point where the Empire State building is), I went into bad shock. Slowly, my vision was slipping from me. I was losing body temperature FAST. I was trying to make it back to my apartment, when I heard the second tower collapse. My shock became very bad at this point. Some man who owned a bar on the river front grabbed me. He said "you better come in here. You don't look good." I was inches from passing out. I was looking through a tiny hole in my vision; everything else was black; I felt so cold I could die; I could not hear hardly anything.
He poured a shot of whiskey down my throat by grabbing my chin and saying "swallow!" as he poured it in my mouth. How can I describe! the effect!!! The whisky went down my throat and it was like "shwoooooooooop!" ALL OF THE SUDDEN, I could see everything, hear everything, and I felt almost hot. My mind felt STRONG and capable of carrying on!
In other words, whiskey can save a man's life. It is all powerful. And it is more than just opening your blood vessels. It's the effect it has on your mind!
your body can handle more cold than you think. What usually gets you is the unusual "feeling" of cold. You start making stupid mistakes and that's what gets you into trouble. -- Survival School. ;)
So how long have you been an alcoholic?
That is exactly how sailors hundreds of years ago would survive onboard a wooden ship sailing half way around the world. They keep themselves inebriated just enough through rationing to deal with the harsh and unforgiving elements. Once I read the diary of a Union Soldier in the Famed Irish Brigade during the Civil War. He said before every battle "I slipped a little whiskey in meself (sic) for courage." So yes, some call it just being a drunk but their are survival aspects to alcohol.
In regard to the Titanic story, it is a known fact that the head baker and both of the first class bartenders on duty during the sinking got really drunk then all three swam for over 30 minutes in 28-degree seawater before being rescued. The story of the head baker is one of the side stories in the old 1950s classic movie "A Night to Remember" too. And, one more fact about the Titanic was that she carried enough alcohol to get everyone on board really drunk too. It is a true story, it is not an old wise tale.
As I recall, among several Winter sports, the use of alcohol was a pretty normal thing in years past too.
"Known fact"?????? Surely you jest. I have read that the head baker stood on the upturned hull and was rescued with dry hair. Point is that I wasn't there but I don't think that either is true.
It's an "old wive's tale," not "old wise tale," which would be the opposite were it correct.
Guess what everyone is going to be doing now when the decide to get behind the wheel a little (or very) intoxicated? That's right - keeping a bottle of alcohol in their cars. If they get into an accident or whatever, just start chugging the bottle. Tell the cops you started drinking AFTER the crash.
The best part is, it doesn't even have to be cold. Just say you were so traumatized after the accident that you needed a drink to calm yourself.
The fact that this guy got away with it is ridiculous. What kind of message is this sending?
What ever happened to innocent untill proven guilty? Oh wait, this is america. You are guilty untill you can afford to try and prove your innocence.
Please tell me this isn't a paying gig. I could drink a half gallon of vodka and write anything with a point. Surely pointlessness is still free.
Here's the thing though, despite all the effects it's got on your state of mind, the physical bodily effects can't be denied. The fact you can now "handle" the cold and not give a @!$%# about it, doesn't negate the fact that you are in fact losing valuable heat from your organs, you know, those important thingies in your body? In a survival situation, i'd rather be cold and miserable with better chances against hypothermia, than feeling all right and slowly dying.