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What are the Six Signs of Alcohol Poisoning?

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 10 comments

If you’ve come to this video because you think someone might have alcohol poisoning, don’t leave them alone.

Turn them on their side because one of the things that can happen to them is that they can choke on their own vomit.

So, turn them on their side and put a pillow at their back to stop them from turning back.

Don’t leave them alone.

Call the emergency services.

Today I want to talk about the 6 symptoms of alcohol poisoning.

Let me start by saying that as soon as you put alcohol into your mouth, and this is a toxin and it’s going to start causing poisoning straight away.

Just because you’re putting minute amounts of it in doesn’t mean it’s not poison and your body isn’t going to try and get rid of it.

First of all when you’re drinking, you’re poisoning your body, and when you’re going through the hangover, that’s your body recovering from the alcohol poisoning.

It’s the consequence of alcohol poisoning.

That’s just for a start.

So, the first sign of alcohol poisoning is the person starts to have mental confusion.

They might go into a bit of a stupor which is basically what you see when your average person gets drunk.

That can start to deepen and the person can go into a coma.

The more poison the person drinks, the more risk, the more deeper they’re going to get into this.

From semi-unconsciousness to definitely being comatose.

When we were drinking in Ireland, we had a saying that was ‘yeah I was that pissed, I was comatose’, and I tell you, when I used to drink and I used to get into bed at the end of the night, fell into bed, my body would really have shut down or it was in the process of shutting down by the time; and by the time my head hit the pillow, I was fully comatose.

For 2 or 3 hours before, I was woken up with a shock.

I’m convinced at this stage that my body was saying to me ‘ you’re a fucking idiot, put the idiot brain unconscious while the body deals with the crap that you’ve just put in there.
You’re supposed to be intelligent. You put all this crap inside me and now I’ve got to deal with it. How intelligent is that?’

Second symptom is vomiting.

Again, this is a thing that your natural bodily defences work, your body is going to try and put the shit back out, the shit that you put into your body, especially when it gets to the stage where you can’t cope.

Your body can cope with a certain amount of alcohol as a natural part of your life, there’s alcohol in different things, there’s alcohol in your digestive system.

So, your body is able to cope with what they say is 1 unit per hour, and that depends on who you are, whether you’re male or female, large or small, what you’ve eaten, all different factors, how healthy you are, how healthy your liver is.

But there comes a time when your body just can’t handle that anymore, so it’s going to just get rid of this, get rid of what’s in the stomach, get rid of what’s in the body as soon as possible, and that’s through vomiting.

So, the first one is where they’ve gone unconscious and can’t be roused, the second one is where they’ve been vomiting.

Vomiting is a bad one in this case because your body is going to shut down a lot of organs, all the organs in the body one after the other as it tries to redirect its resources from what it thinks it doesn’t need, from the non-essentials to fighting off the poisoning.

And the more poisoning there is, the more it’s going to try and direct those resources away from the processes that you do need.

And one of those processes is the gag reflex.

This is all part of the brainwork.

Your gag reflex doesn’t work as part of your throat- it is a part of your throat, a reflex – but it’s a brain function.

It’s your mind sending signals down to your throat to start gagging.

If you’re vomiting through alcohol poisoning and your gag reflex has stopped and you’re lying on your back, then there’s a possibility that the vomit will go back down into your throat and into your lungs, and choke you to death.

That’s how a lot of young people die, by choking on their own vomit.

That’s why I said at the beginning of this, if you suspect someone has got severe alcohol poisoning, turn them on their side.

At least then their vomit can come out, it won’t go back down again.

There’s less chance that it’d be going back down.

Another symptom of alcohol poisoning is when the person starts having seizures.

Now I’ve never seen this, but apparently it is one of the things to

watch out for. If you see someone having a seizure anyway, I think the first thing to do is get them help.

Put them into recovery position and get them help as soon as possible from someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Like I said, I’ve never seen it.

I’ve seen some people with severe alcohol poisoning, but I think that would be a no-brainer.

If you see somebody having a fit then get them help immediately.

Another symptom of alcohol poisoning is really slow breathing.

I’m talking about less than 8 breaths per minute, that’s really slow.

I’m not sure what a person’s breathing goes down to when they’re sleeping, it probably goes down to something around that level.

The next symptom is irregular breathing.

10 seconds or more between their breaths.

That’s definitely a lot lower than 8 breaths per minute.

I got these symptoms off of WebMD by the way, so you know that it’s doctors that have written these symptoms.

The final symptom is hypothermia.

It’s when the body temperature goes really low.

These are all symptoms of the body gradually shutting down.

The body shuts down so it can deal with the poisoning that’s going on in your body.

But at a certain stage, what else is there to shut down?

The fact that all the systems that are designed to get rid of the toxin, get rid of the alcohol, they’re all dependent on the body functioning.

So eventually that functioning in itself is going to stop.

Eventually, the gag reflex is going to stop.

Your lungs are going to stop working, your heart’s going to stop, your brain’s going to stop.

And that’s it, you’re finished.

There’s no life without those essentials.

This is not a nice video, not a very hopeful video, this is one of the videos that I try and do every so often.

Most of the stuff I do is carer approach, benefits of quitting drinking, how good your life can be when you quit drinking.

This is one of the consequences, the shit that can happen to you the more you drink.

If you think that getting older can prevent this kind of thing from happening, that you can handle the drink…the more you drink, the more destabilized your organs become and the less capable they are of their normal function.

The more you drink, the more poisoning you get, the older you get, the less functioning your organs are, the more likely you are to suffer the effects of alcohol poisoning and for your body to start shutting down.

When I talk about the long-term effects of alcohol, when I talk about early death from drinking alcohol, I always try and say it’s not always only the death that you have to worry about, it’s the sickness going up, and that’s the sickness that you have to worry about with alcohol poisoning.

Your physical organs shutting down over time and just reducing in their capacity and capability of looking after you overtime.

That reduced efficiency is going to give you problems.

It’s not just that you get to a certain age, and you get to a certain time during drinking when all of a sudden your body quits and you’re dead.

It doesn’t happen like that.

It’s always going to be preceded by a long period of illness, and that illness is not good.

That’s what can be avoided.

There’s a certain amount of illness that can’t be avoided, that you can’t avoid in this life, but these things you can.

You can stop drinking, you can treat your body with respect, you can give it all the food and the nutrition that it needs to live healthy, to maintain all the different systems and organs that are inside you.

Give it the exercise that it needs in order to maintain your organs and give yourself the brain food that you need to maintain your brain.

Your brain maintains everything else.

It’s all a big thing. Look at this in a holistic way.

One thing affects another thing.

You can’t just change one thing, you have to change another thing and carry on down the line.

You’re not seeking perfection here.

You’re seeking to get back to the way you normally do, what’s best for your body.

That’s what we’re looking for.

Again, if you suspect anybody has alcohol poisoning, turn them into recovery position, on their side, left or right, it doesn’t matter.

Put a pillow behind their back.

Stay with them, call an ambulance.

Call the emergency services.

If you can’t call an ambulance, get someone else to call an ambulance and stay with them until the ambulance comes.

Make sure that they don’t choke on their vomit.

Stay safe, keep away from the alcohol.

ALCOHOL IS A DRUG – STAY AWAY FROM IT.

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

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10 Comments

  1. Geraldine

    The sobering truth Kevin. Excellent video. The govt and big marketing companies don’t want to remind people of this.

    Reply
    • Kevin O'Hara

      They don’t even want to call it a drug, let alone advertise the consequences.

      Reply
  2. frank oconnell

    gee kevin,

    You are getting a bit random.This video is a first aid video.

    I can see it is getting tougher to come up with subjects on a daily basis.
    It is a challenge. Maybe you could field ideas from your audience or refer to some aa daily inspirational readings for some ideas. I find you are getting away from the crux of alcohol mastery. No offense intended. It is an observation from a longtime fan. Keep up the challenge.

    f

    Reply
  3. Gail

    Dear Kevin

    To me, alcohol mastery is knowing about all aspects of alcohol and need to be presented.

    To me, Kevin is a master.

    Someone searching frantically for information about alcohol poisoning may come across this video and this needs to be there for them. Some people may not know these facts; I found them quite confronting.

    Please, do not quote aa propaganda, as someone suggested.

    I have appreciated everything you have taught.

    Thankyou for your great work, and please continue as long as possible.

    Gail

    Reply
    • Kevin O'Hara

      That’s the point of the videos, to try and cover as many aspects of alcohol, the alcohol problem, and what to do after you’ve quit. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Gail

    Hi Kevin

    To me, alcohol mastery is knowledge of all aspects of alcohol, and this is just one aspect.
    Even though the subject is quite confronting, it is very necessary.

    Someone searching frantically for information on alcohol poisoning may come across this and need immediate help, Kevin has this covered.

    The more I know about alcohol, the better I’m able to stay away from it.

    Thankyou for your excellent videos, I have found them very useful.

    Peace, Gail

    Reply
  5. Sue

    Hi Kevin
    This video really opened my eyes. The term “gag reflex” is a natural response your body is trying to tell you NO MORE!!
    I can’t tell you how many times I have experienced this while taking yet another sip (or gulp) and just didn’t listen. Looking back, with my mind getting clearer everyday, 9 Days Sober, I think , how stupid could I have been??

    You helped me get my life back and I will be forever grateful. I’m finally letting the sun shine or should I say “in”.

    Respectfully
    Sue

    Reply
  6. Richard

    I feel like I’ve lived a similar life to you with regarding drink..Im 35 and drank for 20 years. Being from Ireland, i felt like a real man being able to consume pints for days on end. I remember my mother telling me I look grey..Of course i was like ah I’m grand, drinking was my Passion, my hobby, part of who I was. How dumb was I..Off it 2 months and peeling back the onion layers to get to the heart of the issues alcohol masked over the last two decades. Thanks Kevin for helping me in awakening.

    Reply
  7. Susan trevino

    Four years ago I experienced a severe breathing problems. A year later, it worsened and I was diagnosed of COPD. I came across Herbal HealthPoint (ww w. herbalhealthpoint. c om) December, 2018 and learnt about their successful herbal therapy for COPD. I immediately started on the COPD treatment; i began to notice a reduction in symptoms till it all vanished. I feel better and breath better. I Just wanted to share for people suffering from this horrible lungs disease.

    Reply

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