What happens when you take poison? You die.
There is certainly an element of truth to Westley, the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride, building up tolerance against iocaine powder in order to get Vizzini out of the way. That happens every day.
What’s the number one ingested toxin in the US? You got it: alcohol.
When we talk about building up a tolerance, we mean doing exactly what Westley did: he built up a tolerance to a poison in order to diminish his body’s negative response to it, therefore requiring larger amounts to achieve the same effect. But Vizzini hadn’t built up that tolerance, so once he ingested it, he died.
We know that a blood alcohol content of .08 is the point at which a person cannot legally drive a car, but do we know when someone is close to death?
The University of Toledo has the following chart on their website:
It’s great information, but let’s dig in a bit.
First, remember that people cannot legally drive with BACs of .08 or higher. They are what we call “legally impaired.” But did you know that the arrests of impaired drivers, on average, finds drivers with BACs of .16, meaning that they are not just “legally impaired”; they are “very drunk.”
But I think we all know that one guy. If you don’t, I’m bringing up the average, so no worries. That one guy is the one who is basically drunk 100% of the time. And because he or she is used to being drunk 100% of the time, the casual observer may not even realize the drunkenness. I know that guy and have a portable breathalyzer, so the challenge was on. I would not have said this person was intoxicated, but the breathalyzer said otherwise. It said the person’s BAC was consistently .30. That’s tolerance. And, as my mother used to say, “I never knew he drank until I saw him sober.” The bodies of those people who have high tolerance have a diminished negative response to the poison, therefore requiring larger amounts to achieve the same effect.
Except alcohol is absolutely killing us! Heavy drinking may not appear to be deadly for those with high tolerance, but alcohol is absolutely deadly. A recent report from JAMA Open Network shows that deaths from alcohol-related liver disease have increased nearly nine percent nationwide (JAMA).
Current advice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that “moderate alcohol use is:
- For men—two drinks or less in a day.
- For women—one drink or less in a day.
“Compared with drinking excessively, moderate drinking reduces your risk of negative health effects.”
But new guidelines, which were expected in June, “are set to move away from suggesting consumers limit alcohol consumption to a specific number of daily servings, according to the three sources, who asked not to be named to speak freely” (Reuters).
Said another way, despite the harm that alcohol consumption is causing, despite the fact that deaths from alcohol-related liver disease have increased 9% nationwide (JAMA), and in 2023, 50.3% (or 28,632) cirrhosis deaths were alcohol related (NIAAA), “The U.S. government is expected to eliminate from its dietary guidelines the long-standing recommendation that adults limit alcohol consumption to one or two drinks per day, according to three sources familiar with the matter, in what could be a major win for an industry threatened by heightened scrutiny of alcohol’s health effects” (Reuters).
When you take poison, you die.
And, unfortunately, the government may no longer warn you about that.
References
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/about-alcohol-use/moderate-alcohol-use.html
Pan C, Abboud Y, Chitnis A, Zhang W, Singal AK, Wong RJ. Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease Mortality. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(6):e2514857. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14857
https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/counseling/selfhelp/substanceuse/bac.html
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