eesabtbad
Member
- Jun 2, 2026
- 7
I just wanted to warn you. If you ever come up with an idea to drink methanol (found in badly distilled alcohol) or ethylene glycol (found in antifreeze), do not. I am begging you.
If you don't want to read my storytime and you're just wondering what happened to me, skip all the text written in red.
I worked as a lab assistant at a university, so I had access to various substances. As we were working mainly with organic solvents and I didn't know about toxicity of SN since I wasn't a member of SaSu (also I'm not sure if we even have SN), I thought "hmm, lethal dose of methanol is pretty low and we're working with it almost everyday. That should be it". I knew that the main long lasting effect of ingesting methanol is getting blind, but I thought that wasn't gonna be a case as I was planning to simply drink more and die. I poured it to vials and took home. I wanted to pour some chloroform to put myself to sleep, but it takes too long to make you unconscious so it was nonsense. I didn't want to make a problem for my landlord because I was renting a flat, so I went to the lake about 50 km from my flat to ctb.
I drank two big vials of 98% methanol, 80 mL in total. It had a very unpleasant taste, was a bit bitter and aggresive in my mouth, trying to stab my tongue and cheeks from the inside, and simultaneously drying everything out, but absolutely not similar to ethanol (but I can't be sure, as I don't know how 96% spirit tastes, the maximum concentration I have ever drunk was about 50% I guess). I tried to sleep, but woke up after about 1.5 hours. I was a bit drunk, but perfectly fine. I went to sleep again and woke up after an hour, almost completely sober (or at least I felt that way).
I got angry and caught a train to a bigger city nearby and thought that I didn't care about my landlord and want to die in peace at home, but the next train to my town was going to arrive in 4 hours so I tried to get an Uber, but it was too late to catch one. I tried to find a spike to spend a night in, but couldn't find it, so I went to sleep on a landing of a staircase in an old tenement.
I went to sleep once again and woke up around 3.5 hours later, in the early morning. Still perfectly fine. No blindness at all. Sober. And alive. I was both shocked and angry and went straight home.
The same day I decided I want to try once again and still hoping methanol would do something. I thought the redness of my eyes was the side effect, but it turned out it was just from crying.
The taste of methanol was so horrible that I thought I would never swallow it again, so I was wondering about something tastier. And that's how I came up with ethylene glycol. Again, I poured it in vials and took home, but this time I thought I wanted to die in a comfortable place (my attempts were in April and it was pretty cold where I live, especially at night, about 5°C / 41°F and with a strong wind).
I drank three vials (around 120 mL) of ethylene glycol. Also, I diluted it with water (I poured everything in the vials to a cup and filled to the top with water), because the sweet taste wasn't as good as I expected (it tastes different than glycerol which taste I find acceptable). I went to sleep and when I woke up, I was very dizzy and drunk, had problems with speaking and body coordination. The coordination problems were so severe that I couldn't grab a cup of water and spilled it all over the floor and, furthermore, I couldn't even clean it after that. When I tried to put my finger on my cheek, I put it in my eye instead. I couldn't walk properly, I was hitting with my body every wall in my flat when going to the kitchen or to the bathroom. I recorded some voice messages and I hear I was speaking much slower. I slept for almost 2 days with maybe 2-hour breaks every 16 hours.
The aftermath wasn't really bad. I was getting a really intense but short bursts of headaches every time I tried to stand up. It lasted for maybe two days. Then my lower back, especially on the right side, hurt, but not badly (probably something with kidneys). A typical period hurts more than that and I don't have a high pain tolerance. It also ended quickly.
And after that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am fine, my eyesight is great as if it never happened. No long-lasting side effects at all. No vomiting, during the attempts or after them.
I am a curious soul so I was wondering why nothing happened, especially, why I am not blind so I did a bit of research.
1. Why I failed both times?
a) maybe I have a problem with an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and it doesn't decompose methanol and ethylene glycol effectively. I am not a hard drinker and get drunk pretty quickly so it makes sense,
b) I am just super cool and have a strong organism (/hj) and the advice "if you want to die take three times the lethal dose" doesn't come from nowhere. I took only ~1.3 times the lethal dose and it all depends of the source which may lower it purposefully. Also I may have researched the lethal dose incorrectly (found 50-60 mL for methanol and 70-100 mL for ethylene glycol).
2. Why I failed with ethylene glycol?
a) maybe the concentration was around 50% instead of 90-95% so I drank too little. I honestly don't remember, I just saw a big bottle named "ethylene glycol" and poured from it,
b) perhaps mixing it with water did something to it but as far as I'm aware it doesn't dissociate nor hydrolyse.
3. Why I failed with methanol?
a) there is a slight chance it wasn't methanol. I was always taught it has a harsh smell, but when sniffed it, I smelled absolutely nothing. But our lab is very well-organized, we use those solvents in spectroscopy and the type of solvent affects the properties of a solution, so I don't believe we would have a random liquid in a Sigma-Aldrich bottle named methanol.
If you don't want to read my storytime and you're just wondering what happened to me, skip all the text written in red.
I worked as a lab assistant at a university, so I had access to various substances. As we were working mainly with organic solvents and I didn't know about toxicity of SN since I wasn't a member of SaSu (also I'm not sure if we even have SN), I thought "hmm, lethal dose of methanol is pretty low and we're working with it almost everyday. That should be it". I knew that the main long lasting effect of ingesting methanol is getting blind, but I thought that wasn't gonna be a case as I was planning to simply drink more and die. I poured it to vials and took home. I wanted to pour some chloroform to put myself to sleep, but it takes too long to make you unconscious so it was nonsense. I didn't want to make a problem for my landlord because I was renting a flat, so I went to the lake about 50 km from my flat to ctb.
I drank two big vials of 98% methanol, 80 mL in total. It had a very unpleasant taste, was a bit bitter and aggresive in my mouth, trying to stab my tongue and cheeks from the inside, and simultaneously drying everything out, but absolutely not similar to ethanol (but I can't be sure, as I don't know how 96% spirit tastes, the maximum concentration I have ever drunk was about 50% I guess). I tried to sleep, but woke up after about 1.5 hours. I was a bit drunk, but perfectly fine. I went to sleep again and woke up after an hour, almost completely sober (or at least I felt that way).
I got angry and caught a train to a bigger city nearby and thought that I didn't care about my landlord and want to die in peace at home, but the next train to my town was going to arrive in 4 hours so I tried to get an Uber, but it was too late to catch one. I tried to find a spike to spend a night in, but couldn't find it, so I went to sleep on a landing of a staircase in an old tenement.
I went to sleep once again and woke up around 3.5 hours later, in the early morning. Still perfectly fine. No blindness at all. Sober. And alive. I was both shocked and angry and went straight home.
The same day I decided I want to try once again and still hoping methanol would do something. I thought the redness of my eyes was the side effect, but it turned out it was just from crying.
The taste of methanol was so horrible that I thought I would never swallow it again, so I was wondering about something tastier. And that's how I came up with ethylene glycol. Again, I poured it in vials and took home, but this time I thought I wanted to die in a comfortable place (my attempts were in April and it was pretty cold where I live, especially at night, about 5°C / 41°F and with a strong wind).
I drank three vials (around 120 mL) of ethylene glycol. Also, I diluted it with water (I poured everything in the vials to a cup and filled to the top with water), because the sweet taste wasn't as good as I expected (it tastes different than glycerol which taste I find acceptable). I went to sleep and when I woke up, I was very dizzy and drunk, had problems with speaking and body coordination. The coordination problems were so severe that I couldn't grab a cup of water and spilled it all over the floor and, furthermore, I couldn't even clean it after that. When I tried to put my finger on my cheek, I put it in my eye instead. I couldn't walk properly, I was hitting with my body every wall in my flat when going to the kitchen or to the bathroom. I recorded some voice messages and I hear I was speaking much slower. I slept for almost 2 days with maybe 2-hour breaks every 16 hours.
The aftermath wasn't really bad. I was getting a really intense but short bursts of headaches every time I tried to stand up. It lasted for maybe two days. Then my lower back, especially on the right side, hurt, but not badly (probably something with kidneys). A typical period hurts more than that and I don't have a high pain tolerance. It also ended quickly.
And after that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am fine, my eyesight is great as if it never happened. No long-lasting side effects at all. No vomiting, during the attempts or after them.
I am a curious soul so I was wondering why nothing happened, especially, why I am not blind so I did a bit of research.
1. Why I failed both times?
a) maybe I have a problem with an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and it doesn't decompose methanol and ethylene glycol effectively. I am not a hard drinker and get drunk pretty quickly so it makes sense,
b) I am just super cool and have a strong organism (/hj) and the advice "if you want to die take three times the lethal dose" doesn't come from nowhere. I took only ~1.3 times the lethal dose and it all depends of the source which may lower it purposefully. Also I may have researched the lethal dose incorrectly (found 50-60 mL for methanol and 70-100 mL for ethylene glycol).
2. Why I failed with ethylene glycol?
a) maybe the concentration was around 50% instead of 90-95% so I drank too little. I honestly don't remember, I just saw a big bottle named "ethylene glycol" and poured from it,
b) perhaps mixing it with water did something to it but as far as I'm aware it doesn't dissociate nor hydrolyse.
3. Why I failed with methanol?
a) there is a slight chance it wasn't methanol. I was always taught it has a harsh smell, but when sniffed it, I smelled absolutely nothing. But our lab is very well-organized, we use those solvents in spectroscopy and the type of solvent affects the properties of a solution, so I don't believe we would have a random liquid in a Sigma-Aldrich bottle named methanol.
