LogFAQs > #946190587

shadowsword87 posted...

No it's not exact, but, it's a good rule of thumb and something to remember in asking why one day one beer will just be flavored water you after you eat some pasta and are chill, and another will absolutely hammer you if you've only drank coffee all day.

Neither of those cases actually have anything to do with caffeine, though - in one case you've provided yourself with a base of other material in your stomach that is slowing alcohol absorption while in the other case you're drinking on an empty stomach which will always lead alcohol to hit you harder.

You'd actually get mostly the same effect if you ate a big pasta meal and then immediately popped caffeine tabs before drinking, versus not having a single ounce of caffeine for a week but not eating all day before going out eating. The big meal is going to soak what you're drinking, not eating all day will allow you to get drunker faster on fewer drinks (and can save you money if you're a poor college student looking to get hammered as cheaply as possible).

FourLoko's issue wasn't strictly the caffeine - it was the fact that it had four times the amount of alcohol as you'd expect (hence the name). And that the synergistic effects of antagonistic drugs (again, similar to why/how speedballs tend to be so fatal) can in and of themselves be more dangerous (increasing the odds of things like seizures or blood pressure issues).

Caffeinated alcohol CAN keep you from blacking out (which in turn will prevent you from realizing just how drunk you are, which can increase the odds of alcohol poisoning), but it doesn't really "counteract" the buzz. It just gives you an even more unnatural feeling buzz, as you're getting most of the positives of both at once without the negatives of either (again, the main reason why people do speedballs in the first place, why their so addictive, and why their withdrawal hits much harder).
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