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In South Africa, it is legal to drink alcohol when you’re over the age of 18. However, sometimes people overdo it and drink excessive amounts at a time. To a point where they end up in the hospital or injure themselves or somebody else.

Your body can only process a certain amount of alcohol. When you consume too much, you can damage your organs, dehydrate yourself, and make poor decisions.

But how do you tell the difference between being very intoxicated or in danger of having alcohol poisoning?

What Are The Symptoms Of Alcohol Poisoning?

Alcohol suppresses the nerves that control your involuntary actions, such as breathing and the gag reflex (which prevents choking). Drinking too much alcohol could prevent these nerves from performing their function and could result in suffocation and death.

Alcohol irritates the stomach, which causes people to vomit if they drink too much. Alcohol overdose is known to cause death by suffocation in an unconscious person, says College Drink Prevention. 

The symptoms of alcohol poisoning include:

• Mental confusion,  
• Vomiting,
• Seizures,
• Extreme sweating, and
• Heart palpitations.

These are signs of someone who has had too much to drink. If they need immediate medical attention, use the iER panic button to call for help. Our call centre will dispatch help to your location.

How Much Is Too Much?

There is no minimum amount of alcohol that can potentially cause alcohol poisoning, says Drink Aware. 

Whether or not you have had ‘too much’ to drink depends on your age, sex, size, weight, how fast you’ve been drinking, how much you’ve eaten, your general health and other drugs you might have taken.

Rethink Drinking says for healthy adults in general, drinking more than four drinks a day for men and two drinks a day for women is considered “at-risk” or “heavy” drinking.

About 1 in 4 people who exceed these limits already have alcohol use disorder. The rest are at greater risk of developing these and other problems.

When To Get Emergency Assistance

You do not need to exhibit all the above signs before you seek medical attention. If you feel that somebody is in danger because of how much they’ve had to drink, use the iER app to call emergency services.

Alcohol Poisoning Complications

Alcohol poisoning can result in many complications.

If you are in a situation in which someone has alcohol poisoning, use the iER app to connect you to the call centre, and an agent will dispatch the exact help you need. Be on the lookout for the following:

• Vomiting and Choking. Alcohol suppresses your gag reflex, which increases the risk of choking on your vomit if you lose consciousness.
• Suffocating. Accidentally inhaling vomit into your lungs is deadly.
• Dehydration. Vomiting can result in severe dehydration, leading to low blood pressure and a fast heart rate.
• Seizures. Alcohol causes your blood sugar level to drop. This is the same as when a person with diabetes is hypoglycemic and can cause coma and death. You will usually notice the person is sweaty and clammy and unresponsive or sluggish.
• Hypothermia. This is when your body temperature drops to dangerously low levels. Your body temperature may drop so intensely that it leads to cardiac arrest.
• Brain damage and death. Heavy drinking may cause irreversible brain damage.

 

Alcohol Poisoning Is An Emergency

If you notice any of the above after someone has imbibed, call for immediate assistance and do the following. 

• Call the ambulance. The iER app will save you time and send the ambulance to your exact GPS location. Never assume someone will sleep off alcohol poisoning.
• Tell the truth. No, it isn’t the time to be scared to tell the ambulance what the person was drinking and exactly how much and when. The more they know, the better they can help treat them. This is a matter of life and death.
• Don’t leave an unconscious person alone. Alcohol poisoning affects the gag reflex, so the patient can choke on their vomit and not be able to breathe. While waiting for help, please don’t make the person vomit because they could choke.
• Help a person who is vomiting. Try to keep them sitting up. If the person must lie down, turn their head to the side.