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Death by Coffee?
Clif Griffin writes "Slashdots question of the year, are you ready for this? No? Too bad, you'll hear me anyways. Will drinking 100 cups of coffee (the good kind, not that crappy decaf mocalatte crap) in 24 hours kill a person? Sure, there is one way we can find out but we can't let myself die under mysterious circumstances."
No.
(Disclaimer): There are days when I consume a pot or so of coffee for myself, so I am not saying this out of any prejudice. However, the thing to remember is that there *are* pharmacologically active compounds in coffee, in particular caffeine. The effects of caffeine really depend upon the person and how well their liver enzymes are induced to take care of compounds like this, but 100 cups could be enough to give you anxiety, sweats, tremors dizzyness, GI cramping, dehydration (caffeine is a diuretic), and at higher (toxic) doses even heart arrhythmias, nausea and vomiting, symptoms of CNS toxicity involving ringing ears or damped sounds and flashing light and possibly convulsions. So, can it kill you? Possibly. So, my question to you is.......why would you want to drink 100 cups of coffee in a day? This isn't some dare or weird coffee enema garbage that someone is trying to foist on you is it?
Oh, yea. IAAS. (I am a scientist).
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Well, if drinking a hundred cups of coffee in twenty-four hours doesn't kill you, it'll certainly give you a wicked case of the runs.
Kind of like on the "Bambi" episode of The Young Ones back in the 80s, when Rick tries to kill himself by overdosing on a bottle of pills he's just found in the medicine cabinet.
"Vyv, Vyv, uh, can you, like, really kill yourself with laxative pills?" Neil asks his other housemate, Vyvyan, who replies, "I don't know, Neil, but I'm going to stay and find out."
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
About ten grams of caffeine in a short period of time will kill you. There is about 100mg in your average cup of coffee (though it can vary wildly). So the math is right, but you'd have to suck down all one-hundred in a short period of time to get a fatal amount of it. Too much liquid, I think, you just can't process it that fast. All that would happen is you'd probably be urinating like a racehorse (caffeine is a diuretic), and and have a really bad headache to show for it at the end of the day.
;)
Over the course of 24 hours, a lot of the effect would probably be mitigated by the time span. I don't know how long it would take you to get the caffeine out of your system, maybe someone else does. Google says around 13% of the caffeine in your body is removed every hour, but I haven't a clue how correct it is. Sounds dubious.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Spread out over 24 hours? Hmm.. that's 4.167 cups/hour.
If you were wise and countered the stimulant effect with the soothing liquid-love that is Guinness every half hour you should be in fine shape. Can't say the same about your digestive system the next day (read: "100 coffee + 48 Guinness == SplatterBum(tm)") but you'll be around to enjoy it.
disclaimer i: I'm not an MD or biologist, however I drink with the ones from work quite often.
disclaimer ii: (for your family) if he follows these directions and dies, my name is Rob Malda.
Trolling is a art,
No, but it'll let you save all your friends from a fire.
Option-Shift-K.
..in the alt.suicide.holiday Methods FAQ and have fun.
I bet 500 Euro (your car is on the way) on you dying http://rcm-medicine.upr.clu.edu/publications/sidne y_kaye/toxicology-of-caffeine.htm
Oh, you mean all at once?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The result is total awareness, inner bliss, and superman-like physical abilities
GO FOR IT DUDE!
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
...you'll be wide awake for it.
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
IIRC the lethal caffeine dose is 10g oraly and 3.2g intravenously.
a cup of coffee contains ~80-120mg of caffine, so 100cups of coffee could well kill you...
if you drank them all simultaniously.
one after another... you'll just feel REALLY shit.
Back in my younger, experimentalist phase, I tried taking a lot of caffeine pills. I had 13, which is about 20 or 30 cups of coffee. It was an overdose.
For about an hour I had a huge, ever-increasing buzz. Then it became difficult to walk. Then I started to throw up. I was vomiting for about 10 hours straight.
Unless you want to go through the same hell that I did, lay off the massive coffee dose.
to accept the praise of personal wisdom is an affront to the very ideal i hold dear.
The LD50 for caffeine is estimated at 150 mg/kg body weight
or approximately 10 grams for the averaged size human. There is about 125 mg in 1 cup of coffee, which is about 12.5g/100 cups. So yes, there is little over a 50% chance it could kill you.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
When I quit, I reduce my intake by halves -- in other works, today a pot, tomorrow half a pot, and so on, until it's just a sip, and then nothing.
That makes it fairly painless to shake the monkey (no headaches).
And then it's extra fun to drink that next pot a few weeks later... ;)
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
...Sounds like a job for MythBusters!
What a joy is it to see the gene pool skim itself.
Caffeine, like all alkaloids, is bug poison. Alkaloids were invented by tropical plants to discourage bugs from eating.
Alkaloids are people poison, too, of course, but a bigger dose is required.
It's surprising one can even survive to 10 cups of coffee, when most coffee is contaminated with DHMO.
For those who are not aware of the dangers of this substance, dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO.
Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Exposition to it gaseous form may cause burns, permanent scars and even death.
Symptoms of DHMO ingestion include sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance.
For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen monoxide is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain. It has been found that malignant cancer cells only develop in its presence.
The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation.". It's commonly used as an industrial solvent and coolant, as a fire retardant, in the distribution of pesticides, in abortion clinics,and lots more.
I created a community against DHMO in Orkut. You're all invited to join it.
You can also check the official Dihydrogen Monoxide FAQ
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Its not coffee itself that kills, but the plastic cup that reacts with the coffee, and generates an acid called tri-hidro-cafeine, that is lethal.
Here is the complete story.Of course it can kill you. But it requires freezing it into an icicle first.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Yes, it probably could kill you.
My recommendation:
Get a vasectomy. Anyone who would consider drinking 100 cups of coffee in 24 hours doesn't belong in the gene pool.
A cup of coffee has about 150 mg of caffeine in it.
Hence, 100 cups of coffee is about 10-15 grams of pure caffeine.
The lethal dose varies.. different people react diffferently. That's why there are LD50's.. which is the value which statistically kills half the subjects. (or, you could view that as a 50%/50% chance)
The LD50 for caffeine in rats (orally) is 192 mg/(kg body mass)..
A typical male human weighs about 80 kg.. 15 grams of caffeine divided by that is 187 mg/kg.
So, yes that amount of caffine can definitely kill someone. I wouldn't take my chances.
Considering you just posted on a high-traffic web site that you're going to drink 100 cups of coffee, if it did kill you, your death wouldn't be so mysterious.
So I say, Go for it. If you die, we'll let folks know.
...you'd be pissing your life away.
Bureaucracy loves company.
A can of coke contains only about 35 mg of caffiene. So 48 cans of coke contain about 1.7 grams of caffeine - far short of the lethal amount, which is about 10 grams if taken at once.
The 48 cans of coke are about the same as 12 cups of strong coffee. I assure that many people have had more than that over a twelve hour period and survived.
Of course, if your fathers friend had an existing heart condition (for example) the high amount of caffeine and sugar could have contributed to a heart attack or something.
i think you should try drinking the coffee and squirting it up your ass at the same time. this way you can "ingest" the coffee at twice the rate you would if you just drank it. all those capillaries in your bowels will soak up the caffine lickity split.
maybe you can also experiment to see how many cups of Decaf you have to drink in order to kill yourself.
Quick! do it fast!
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
The reference is from episode #67, "Three hundred Big Boys":
A news reel reveals that Zapp Branigan has overthrown a planet of arachnids and as a result, Earth President Nixon is rewarding the entire population of the planet a $300 "fun bill."
The rest of the episode consists of vignettes of how the Planet Express gang (and Kif) utilize their refund. Fry buys 100 cups of coffee; Leela has a unique encounter with a whale; Bender buys theft tools to steal the world's most expensive cigar; Professor Farnsworth tries an anti-aging cream and meets a woman hiding a weight problem; Amy rents an airbike, and her clumsiness results in Kif's gift (an expensive watch) falling into the whale's airhole; Dr. Zoidberg pretends to be rich and ultimately feels nothingness; and Hermes buys an out-of-control toy for his son.
After Kif is incarcerated for trying to retrieve Amy's watch, the gang goes to the Treasures of the Silk Surplus benefit, where Bender's cigar starts a fire and only the over-caffeinated Fry (moving so fast even flames appear to be still) can save all the attendees.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
I think we've all learned from Fry that after the 100th cup time slows (or your perception of time) and you can rescue your friends.
Coffee doesn't kill, it saves!
That means the lowest lethal dose reported in the literature was 192 mg of caffine per 1 kilogram of weight of the victim. I'll let someone else look up plausible values of caffine content in coffee.
It is certainly possible to kill yourself with caffine, you just need enough of it.
I found a link for content of the beans, the values are around 1.3 %. So 100 grams of beans contains 1.3 grams of caffine, or 1300 mg.
Eating 100 g of beans is well over the limit, assuming any of my math is right :)
> guy had died after drinking approximately 48 cans of coke
I know a guy who died after tying his shoelaces. Deadly stuff, shoelaces.
I would hazard a guess that you are NOT an actuary.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
The answer is; it's do-able.
While 20 liters of water (or any other liquid substance) will cause severe pain and will kill you when drunk at once (see torture-methods), the fact that it is spread on a time-period of 24 hours changes the picture completely.
If the body is given enough time/oportunity to get rid of a considerable amount of the liquid, then nothing will happen (exept a full blatter every hour).
So, provided it's evenly spread among the 24 hours, 100 glasses of water are consumable without any great averse affects.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Almost everything is a poison in large enough doses to living things.(Water to a fish would be an exception)
Granted it would take a large amount of water or coffee to kill someone, but if taken enough it would kill you.
Sure, there is one way we can find out but we can't let myself die under mysterious circumstances.
Well, since you've now told everyone your plans, your demise won't be a mystery. You may proceed with confidence."Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching." - Dogbert.
In October of 2000 I was a Navy Hospital Corpsmen assigned to a Marine unit. (Just for those who don't know, the Marines fall under the Department of the Navy and get medical support from the Navy)
During one of the training exercises taking place at a base on the island of Hawaii, one of the Marines ( a Corporal) who was working in the chow hall drank 32 oz. of coffee concentrate (equal to about 50 cups) on a $30 bet from his Staff Sergeant.
He came into the Aid Station complaining of chest pains and vomiting blood. He kept on saying, "I can't stop shaking, Doc."
Needless to say this was considered an emergency and we called the Medical Officer. We had to keep an eye him in case his heart developed an arrhythmia due fact the enough of any stimulant, including coffee, could do that. The Marine was put under observation for the night and one of the Corpsmen went to inform the Staff Sergeant that if the Corporal died he'd be held responsible.
This Marine lived and was passed over for a promation because of this incident but, I never seen him drink coffee since.
Yes, it is possible that coffee could kill a person. Depending on the person's weight and the period of time that it took to drink the coffee. It might be funny now but at the time it was dead serious.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Indeed.
A British girl Leah Betts died from Hyponatremia a few years ago. The official story, and the way it was hysterically presented in the press, was that she died from taking a single Ecstasy pill, whereas actually she basically drank so much water her brain swelled up and killed her.
Even sadder, most people still believe she was killed by Ecstacy...
Never let the facts get in the way of a good anti-drug hysteria whuppin' up. Remember the people on acid supposedly jumping out of windows in the '60s?
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
I used to work mostly in the field but was in the office on a chilly day working on some new equipment. I had learned that my coworkers, who loved coffee, hadn't had chocolate covered coffee beans. I brought in 1/4 pound. They each tried one bean.
This left me absent-mindedly munching them and pouring repeated cups of coffee. I ended up eating the whole box and drinking over a pot of coffee.
By quitting time I was quite sick and facing a commute across the SF-Oakland bay bridge. I found a box and lined it with a bag in case I threw up and endured the commute - not fun when you are extremely hyper and sick.
I got home and just wanted to curl up in bed but every time I tried I was way too jumpy and had to get up again. My heart was pounding so hard and fast that it scared me.
My recommendation: don't do it - it is really, really unpleasant.
Further reading: the caffeine material safety data sheet
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Death by coffee? Bring it on... death by chocolate didn't work.
particlesphere.com - quantum
And that's why i like my coffe pure black!
just the powder, and a spoon.
As posted somewhere else, the lowest observed lethal oral doses for humans is 192 mg/kg. This is, however, roughly equivalent to 10g of coffee beans per kg.
Check out this debunking page.
An excerpt (for the lazy):"Lawrence E. Armstrong, a professor of exercise and environmental physiology at the University of Connecticut, found that caffeine is not the dehydrating demon some people believe. In fact, he concluded that caffeine is no more a diuretic than water."
This is a great site http://www.gutenberg.net/ for finding classic literature.
The Leather Funnel
My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris.
His house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass
plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from
the Arc de Triomphe. I fancy that it had been there long before
the avenue was constructed, for the grey tiles were stained with
lichens, and the walls were mildewed and discoloured with age. It
looked a small house from the street, five windows in front, if
I remember right, but it deepened into a single long chamber at
the back. It was here that Dacre had that singular library of
occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which served as a
hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. A wealthy man
of refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life and
fortune in gathering together what was said to be a unique private
collection of Talmudic, cabalistic, and magical works, many of them
of great rarity and value. His tastes leaned toward the marvellous
and the monstrous, and I have heard that his experiments in the
direction of the unknown have passed all the bounds of civilization
and of decorum. To his English friends he never alluded to such
matters, and took the tone of the student and virtuoso; but a
Frenchman whose tastes were of the same nature has assured me that
the worst excesses of the black mass have been perpetrated in that
large and lofty hall, which is lined with the shelves of his books,
and the cases of his museum.
Dacre's appearance was enough to show that his deep interest in
these psychic matters was intellectual rather than spiritual.
There was no trace of asceticism upon his heavy face, but there was
much mental force in his huge, dome-like skull, which curved upward
from amongst his thinning locks, like a snowpeak above its fringe
of fir trees. His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his
powers were far superior to his character. The small bright eyes,
buried deeply in his fleshy face, twinkled with intelligence and an
unabated curiosity of life, but they were the eyes of a sensualist
and an egotist. Enough of the man, for he is dead now, poor devil,
dead at the very time that he had made sure that he had at last
discovered the elixir of life. It is not with his complex
character that I have to deal, but with the very strange and
inexplicable incident which had its rise in my visit to him in the
early spring of the year '82.
I had known Dacre in England, for my researches in the Assyrian
Room of the British Museum had been conducted at the time when he
was endeavouring to establish a mystic and esoteric meaning in the
Babylonian tablets, and this community of interests had brought us
together. Chance remarks had led to daily conversation, and that
to something verging upon friendship. I had promised him that on
my next visit to Paris I would call upon him. At the time when I
was able to fulfil my compact I was living in a cottage at
Fontainebleau, and as the evening trains were inconvenient, he
asked me to spend the night in his house.
"I have only that one spare couch," said he, pointing to a
broad sofa in his large salon; "I hope that you will manage to be
comfortable there."
It was a singular bedroom, with its high walls of brown
volumes, but there could be no more agreeable furniture to a
bookworm like myself, and there is no scent so pleasant to my
nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient
book. I assured him that I could desire no more charming chamber,
and no more congenial surroundings.
"If the fittings are neither convenient nor conventional, they
are at least costly," said he, looking round at his shelves. "I
have expended nearly a quarter of a million of money upon these
objects which surround you. Books, weapons, gems
Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
When I was working 80 - 100 hour weeks for months on end (averaging 4 hours of sleep a night), caffeine was a requirement to function. I got to the point I was drinking 4 pots a day - 40 cups. After a couple of *years* of this, my body was so dependent on caffeine that when I went on vacation and cut my coffee dosage to 2 cups a day, I literally couldn't even take a dump.
But it wasn't anywhere close to killing me, as far as I can tell, unless you count exploding in a nasty, stinking mess had I gone cold turkey from coffee.
And no, this is not an April Fools joke!
Beer has electrolytes; it won't kill you like water. If you took the same amount of water, you would not be here, I think, even spreading it in a 24h period.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Here in our neighbourhood in Belgium there used to be some smartshops, small semi-legal stores where they sell all kinds of herbal extracts, non-subscription drugs, ... They once sold caffeine caps of 500 mg caffeine, which would be the equivalent of around 25 cups of coffee. Once ate one of those, did have a hell of a party afterwards, but I experienced actually no real (short-term) negative effects, except some hyperactivity, nervosity and a lot of thirst. Of course taking four of those guys I wouldn't promote...
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
NO, 100 cups of coffee according to the show Futurama (episode: three hundred big boys) will actually set you in a super hightened and mobile state where you move at super human speed and awareness. Thus you can save people.
:(
"I think we were just saved by an orange Blur!!!"
I wish they would bring that show back.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
When I was working a neuro ward a number of years ago we admitted a man in his mid 50's who was suffering seizures and cardiac arrythmias. He was worked up for several days with all sorts of testing with no results. Finally, a med student thought to take a detailed history from the guy. When he asked him if he drank coffee, the response was "yes, 5 or 6 pots a day." Turned out the guy waa a cop working night shift at a desk and drank coffee constantly.
Weaned the guy off the coffee gradually and the problems went away. Guess it didn't kill him, but he was intensive care for quite a while.
No deaths have ever been reported as direct effect of smoking too much dope. I imagine this is because it's physically impossible to continually smoke enough in succession to reach a lethal level. At some point in your quest you'll either stop caring (too lazy) or just pass out. As with coffee, at some point you will get too sick to continue ingesting enough caffeine to reach a lethal level.
I used to love coffee. I drank espresso by the mug. My old landlady once asked me about it while we were watching a program on coffee addicts. After doing the maths they had just explained on the telly, I discovered I was drinking the equivalent of 56 cups/day. She asked if I had any side effects, and I thought about it and said "no... except I fall asleep in 15 minutes if I stop".
;-)
These days I drink a few small pots of tea.
Once, for a laugh, I ate two bags of chocolate covered coffee beans out of a bowl with a spoon and then went down the pub. I had a killer evening, really fast and witty (everyone thought I was on speed) followed by a night full of shivers and shakes and just wanting to stop being awake, but not being able to.
Worth doing the once
For the record, I've also tried a cup of coffee on the half hour every half hour. Took me till lunch to get really weirded out and unhappy. Finally I've tried (with instant) making a saturated solution and drinking it. Not good either.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
The LD50 (the dosage at which 50% of human beings will experience a fatal overdose of a substance) of caffiene is about 10 g for oral administration (intravenously, amounts as low as 3.2 g have caused death). A cup of coffee has about 120-170 mg of caffiene. So, 100 cups would easily put you above the LD50 (at 12-17 g), although your body attempting to purge the caffiene (via uncontrollable urination and vomiting, both of which will certainly occur at the doses mentioned) will mitigate the dosage somewhat.
It is worth noting that caffiene, like cocaine, is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. Once you pass an amount as little as 250 mg (depending on your weight) you will begin to feel the effects of caffiene intoxication, which include a very reduced sensitivity to pain, and eventually a feeling of intense, vibrant physical energy. As dosage increases however, psychological effects such as paranoia and anxiety are common, and panic attacks are often induced (it's happened to me). Keep going, and you will manifest serious cardiovascular effects, including heart arythmia and fibrilation. A myocardial infarction (heart attack) can be induced, particularly in individuals prone to heart disease. Such cardiovascular effects are likely to cause physical incapacitation before you can drink your way to the LD50, but if you figure out a way to maintain your rate of ingestion then yes, you will very likely die.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
"Will drinking 100 cups of coffee (the good kind, not that crappy decaf mocalatte crap) in 24 hours kill a person?"
t h/Transcripts/s871112.htm).
0 4/022120045.htm), and one child abuse/murder (http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,455030824,0 0.html) caused by force feeding water.
Yes, it will. 6 gallons of water in 24 hours will cause water intoxication (hyponatremia). That's when the ion content of your body becomes too low for neural activity to be maintained. About half that amount has been known to cause coma (http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_heal
An athelete drank that much and survived probably only because he was an athelete. (http://www.wonderquest.com/water-intox.htm)
There have been at least 2 deaths caused by a person drinking too much water (http://www.urban75.com/Drugs/drugxtc1.html ; http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2004/02_20
People don't need to drink near as much water as they're usually told. Common "wisdom" says to drink half a gallon a day. That's wrong. You need 1 milliliter of water for every calorie of food. That *is* two liters for a 2Kcal diet. But all the food we eat is in large part water. The USDA recommendations are quite clear on including that. Unfortunately nobody reads them.
Yes, I do know what day this is. This is the answer anyway.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This guy from my hometown apparently tried this out a few years ago on a dare. He took most of a 90-pill bottle of caffeine pills and then keeled over in the middle of class. I couldn't find a link to the article on Darwin Awards, where it probably belongs, but you can read about it from a bunch of Google sources. I've always wondered how he took that many. I imagine him sitting down to breakfast that morning to a bowl of pills submerged in milk.
where the comment ends and sig begins
You end up dead but still awake.
PeRSoNALLy I doNTSEeHOWitCOULDbe a PRoBlEM I dRINk 75 CuPS a DAY fOr 10 YeArS aNdTHEREs NOTHING WrONgWITHME thAt I cAN SEE OMG LOOK AT THAT BRB!!!
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
The LD50 (leathal dose, 50% occurance) of caffeine administered oraly in humans is 192 mg/kg. Meaning that a 70kg (150lbs) person who ingests 13.44g of pure caffeine has a 50% chance of survival. Since the standard cup of drip coffee has 150 mg of caffeine (a shot of espresso has substantially LESS) a 70kg individual would have to ingest 89.6 cups in once sitting to reach the 50% survival dose.
89.6 cups is a lot of volume so it is unlikely that one could drink that much at once. The question posed was whether 100 cups in 24 hours would be fatal. Since the metabolic half life of caffeine is 4 hours, this problem becomes a little more complicated. Assuming the 100 cups were spaced evenly throughout the 24 hour period (one each 14.4 minutes), we can calculate the total caffeine in the bloodstream at any time durring the 24 hour period.
At one cup every 15 minutes, the level of caffeine reaches an equilibrium with the rate of degredation arround cup #70 with a blood level of 2.4g -- much less than the LD50 of 13.4g. Even if you were drinking a cup every 5 minutes, the blood level would stabalize around 7.2g -- in the danger zone but still likely survivable especially with medical attention.
Caffeine is a dierettic (makes you pee) and so your biggest risk would likely be dehydration. But that's another story entierly.
-----------------
Just in case:
Drugs affect different people in different ways. Don't try doing your own experiments.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
The addictiveness of alcohol is strongly dependent on genetics. Some people get addicted at a fairly low dosage, while the majority of people would have to make a real sincere effort to get addicted.