Alcohol + Caffeine = Bad Idea

The delightful drink Four Loko, named for its combination of alcohol, caffeine, taurine, and guarana, came out in 2005, although it wasn't widely known until the last year or so. It rapidly became a popular binge drinking choice as it contains a few beers worth of alcohol and enough caffeine to keep someone up all night for partying. These beverages are also pretty cheap, come in fruity flavors, and are packaged to look like a regular energy drink. From a packaging perspective, it seems a lot safer to drink two or three Four Loko cans than it would be to drink eight to twelve cans of beer, hence why these are so popular to guzzle down with no restraint. As an aside, with all the diligent students who drink Rockstar and other energy drinks in class, I always thought it would be hilarious to bring a Four Loko and see if anyone noticed.


Although sometimes even regular energy drink consumption is hard to miss.

As the consumption of Four Loko increased throughout college campuses, emergency rooms began to notice a trend. Heavily intoxicated younger folks kept showing up, some with extraordinarily hard blood alcohol levels. A recent report by some emergency department physicians at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York describes 11 cases they saw in a four month period. Two had to be hospitalized and about a third of the patients were in high risk situations, such as being heavily inebriated on subway tracks, when found by EMS.


The study authors also diligently searched all available medical literature for Four Loko references.

As a NPR news story adds, it seems that the combination of large amounts of caffeine with alcohol tends to lead to more dangerous levels of intoxication than alcohol alone. It masks some of the depressant effects of alcohol, allowing novice drinkers to drink much more before passing out or falling asleep, which normally serves as something of a barrier to excessive alcohol consumption. Instead, drinkers can continue to guzzle more alcohol, leading to potentially life threatening blood alcohol levels, or make extremely poor choices as they are kept awake by the caffeine while alcohol ravages their higher brain functions.

I can vouch for this effect personally, although I have not drunk Four Loko myself. I mostly went with Jagerbombs or other combinations of hard liquor and Red Bull. You can read more in detail about my own misadventure here if you like, but the crux of the matter is that I consumed a great deal of caffeine with alcohol and was wandering around with nearly full motor function with a BAC of .23, a level that should have had me in a stupor or unconscious. For reference, a .30 is about the BAC needed to be in a coma from alcohol. I was also in one of those high risk situations that the emergency room physicians were talking about, as I proudly lay on the roof of a three story building when the police came by to pick me up.

Conclusion
The official consensus is still out on whether caffeine and alcohol can be safely mixed, but coming from my own personal experiences, I would say that it's not a great combination. It certainly can be great to keep you up for a party, but it probably would be wise not to drink more than one Four Loko or other such mixed beverage in a night.


No matter how many this guy tries to sell you.

You can also watch this enlightening video for more information about the dangers of alcohol and caffeine.

Drunk and Disorderly

For once, I'll include an actual personal experience in my blog in the hope that it might help someone avoid making an expensive error in judgement. Last month I had an unfortunate encounter with the police. I just finished my last paper for my undergraduate degree so I figured I deserved a night to relax. I went to a bar with one of my friends and had eight beers.


In retrospect, this wasn't the best drink to kick off my night with.

After that my friend and I parted ways and I started walking home. Of course, I decided to take the route that took me by a different bar so I stopped in and pounded down about $30 more in drinks. That is only an educated guess though, as I know I had about $60 in my wallet and was down to $30 when I checked the next morning. Maybe I left a $20 tip, who knows.


Bars should require customers to pass this test before being allowed to order jagerbombs.

After that I started walking home for real. Unfortunately I took a roundabout route that involved climbing the fire escape of a three story building. Understandably, this perturbed the residents of the building on this chilly Wednesday night, who called the police. I was brought down from the roof of the building by police and taken to jail.


Hopefully not like this.

I blew a .23 on my breathalyzer in the booking room, which is almost three times the legal limit to drive. All of my belongings were searched, as is routine in any arrest, and my watch, shoes, and everything else were taken and placed into a locker. I was placed in a holding cell for the night, which was about 10 paces wide and 10 paces long. It had a metal bench there which was not wide enough for a man of my frame to lie down on, necessitating lying on the floor to try and sleep.

As that wasn't proving successful, I got my prison workout routine going by doing several hundred jumping jacks, pushups, and situps. I also gave a long speech to the camera in the cell about the conditions leading to American intervention in Vietnam. While I am certainly not going to compare the experience of a night in a holding cell in a city police department to anything like being in an actual jail or prison, it was certainly extremely boring. The cell did not have a clock or view to the outside and the light was kept on, so the actual time was a complete unknown. You get concerned that maybe you have been forgotten about and will be left there until you starve to death. An additional problem for me was that I sort of came to awareness in the jail cell from my drunken stupor so I didn't really know how I had gotten there. As I had been reading extensively about the Soviet Union lately I was first under the impression that I had been placed in a Soviet prison. I did not have a particularly restful night.

A detective came by in the morning to interview me about my conduct on the previous night. I did not have much information to offer, as I did not remember a thing after leaving the second bar. The only reason I know that I was clambering around on the roof of a three-story building was that he told me about it. He said that I would likely be charged with disorderly conduct and/or prowling, which is a subset of loitering statutes. I was released at 1 PM when my BAC was back down to normal.

It took about a month to receive any charges in the mail. When they finally came I needed to procure a lawyer, which cost me about $2000 to cover all of the pre-trial work. As of yet, I do not know if this will go to trial or not, but I will likely end up plea bargaining as I don't really have a great defense. This could result in me paying additional fines and court costs as well. Added up to my bar tab, broken watch, damaged library book, ripped pants, and damaged wallet, this night will probably cost me around $2500-3000.


That's enough cash to buy 25-30 times the alcohol in this picture.

Fortunately, I have been a diligent saver throughout my college career so I can afford to pay that up front without having to give up eating. Do you have that much cash lying around? I also do not know if this will affect my standing at the new job I have lined up in a couple months, as I may have to do probation or disclose this conviction to my work. And that's just the cost of a fairly minor charge of disorderly conduct. More serious drunken mistakes, such as getting into a fight or driving under the influence will likely end up costing thousands more.

So, with that said, here is my advice to avoid getting into these sorts of situations.

1. Do not get trashed if you are not planning to spend the night at that location.
If you aren't able to just pass out where you are drinking, you are placing yourself in danger. I figured I would be able to walk home without any problems after going out and drinking and instead I ended up on top of a building. You cannot predict what you will do when all of your inhibitions are disabled by alcohol. Don't take the risk of getting blackout drunk.

Do not drink heavily if you are planning on driving home.
This should be obvious, but I always see a couple idiots who parked next to the bar get pulled over right after they came out plastered at bar close. In the best case scenario, a DUI will cost you several thousand dollars in legal fees and be a blotch on your record for years to come. And that's assuming you don't hit another car, ram a tree, or kill a pedestrian.


You do not want to have the wrong answer to this question.

3. Avoid getting trashed altogether.
Some good ways to manage this are to get water or a non-alcoholic beverage before you start buying beers, shots, or mixed drinks. It also can be helpful to alternative between alcoholic drinks and non-alcoholic drinks. Order a water with each of your drinks, it will help you stay hydrated. If you are thirsty you are likely to guzzle alcoholic drinks down rapidly and that doesn't put you in a great situation to refuse the bartender when they ask if you want another. It's also important to remember that the liver metabolizes about .8-1 drinks per hour. If you pound down four shots that's going to take about four hours to be out of your system. Those extra drinks waiting aren't waiting idly, they're playing with your higher brain functions. Don't add multiple drinks to your liver's queue when you're already buzzed or on the lower end of drunk. They're going to take a long time to get out of there and you are going to end up with a blackout.

4. Don't drink heavily with people you don't know well or trust. Even more importantly, don't drink heavily alone.
One saving grace for an intoxicated individual is to have a good friend or friends who ensure that they don't get into a fight with a hostile bicycle rack on the long stumble home. If you are by yourself, you don't have this protection and are more likely to wander into trouble.

It can potentially be even worse to be with people you don't know well. If they have no hostile intentions toward you, they will not be familiar with your drinking habits so they might believe you when you mumble that you can find your way home. They may also leave you behind if they find your behavior inappropriate or just don't care enough about you to help you. If they are opportunistic individuals, they may take advantage of you while you are inebriated. Either way, you don't want to be in this situation.

Conclusion
I would be a hypocrite to claim that you should never get intoxicated. Most people will do it at least once. But it is important to choose safe times to get trashed; if you don't it can be one of the most expensive mistakes you will ever make.