Drinkers of the world unite, we have a new King!

As reported in The Age newspaper in Australia:

www.theage.com.au...

"Bulgarian doctors did five blood tests on a man to confirm his blood-alcohol level of .914, far above the life-threatening range. Police doubted the result as the 67-year-old was conscious and spoke to them."

The legal level for driving in Australia is 0.05. From the website "In The Know Zone":

"In most states, a BAC of .10% is considered legally drunk. This means that for every 1,000 milliliters of blood, the body contains 1 milliliter of alcohol."

And further on:

"A BAC of .37-.40 or higher can cause death."

All in all, an impressive feat. While there is evidence to suggest that the body can build up an immunity to alcohol poisoning, such a high, verified level must be quite unique.

I had a BAC of .45 once, and I was very coherent and didn't even feel that drunk. I think it has to do with both your tolerance and your rate of consumption. I can drink a lot, just not very fast. Remembering back on this, it took me over 12 hours of drinking to get this way. I had been having bipolar problems and submitted myself to an inpatient clinic and they checked my BAC twice, to make sure it was correct and to figure out if I needed to go in the tank for a while. Since I don't really get DT's upon withdrawal, they opted not to.

I find that if you drink heavily over an extended period, the novelty of the buzz begins to go away and you begin to feel less intoxicated/more sober. Maybe it is just me, but a high tolerance can do that. Still though, with a .914 he must have felt like a pickle.

Yep, I know a guy who used to have to drink one and a half bottles of vodka "just to get a little tipsy"! It cost him a fortune to get truly drunk. My tolerance goes up and down depending on how regularly I drink. Does anyone have any comments on the effects of type of drinks? For example, I drink a bottle of red wine and feel relaxed but relatively coherent, but a bottle of white wine and I feel quite drunk. I've heard people say the same of beer versus spirits, or even spirits versus spirits. If you are consuming the same volume of alcohol, why the differing affect? Is it purely psychomatic?

People can definately get used to this stuff. My younger brother downs a 750ml bottle of whiskey in the first couple hours of his typical friday night, then if he hasn't been kicked out of the party a few hours later he'll usually get into a drinking contest and put somebody else under the table.
Everyone is sure he's gonna get alcohol poisoning every time, but it never happens.
The only difference in his case is that he isn't coherent when he drinks- at least not yet. He has blackouts and ends up taking a swing at one of his friends almost every time.