JohnKenn
You guys never lived till you chased a six pack of Sterno with a paper bag full of Freon.

I dunno what that is, but it can't be any worse than a pint of scrumpy and a bag of cheese n onion with a pickled egg in it.

For historic reference stuff...
 
Sterno is the camp fire starter in small cans. Used as a cheap drunk but with quite a few side effects. Wisdom was you could avoid the toxicity by straining the Sterno fluid through rye bread. Don't know if anyone saw the original movie "Andromeda Strain", world about to be annihilated by a virus. A baby and old man survived. The baby because it was crying and hyperventilating, the old man because he was drinking Sterno. Both cases, upset in blood ph was enough to keep the virus from infecting. Never actually tried it.
 
Freon the refrigeration gas in cans to get your car or home fridge working again. Did try this a couple times decades ago in my crazy youth on the thumbs up advice of my derelict friends...probably all dead by now.

All you need to finish that night John is a nice bottle of Nyquil! 
 
(The cough medicine you'd see homeless drunks having from time to time.)

Craig,
 
Pharmacist perspective on this.
 
The knockout in Nyquil is from diphenhydramine, generic Benadryl allergy medication. Selective histamine blocker.
Nyquil too much loaded with other crap to destroy the liver if consumed enough for the hi, though you can get really stoned on Nyquil for the first few times by drinking the whole bottle.
Histamines in the CNS keep us out of the delta brain wave mode which means knocked out dead to the world when delta rhythms take over.
 
Benadryl takes faster brain wave complexes down to let delta take over while it is relieving itch and rashes. Works great as a sleep aid for a couple weeks.
 
Could add that all the over the counter sleep aids (except the melatonin pills), the Tylenol PM's, all the crap available. Just rot gut Benadryl or something close sold as a designer mix for way more than it is worth.
 
John
 
 

A new study just came out that linked extended use of certain allergy medicines (including Benadryl) to dementia.  By extended, they mean using daily for only 30 days.

Didn't see the study, but not surprised.
 
Some more medical trivia for anyone interested...about the antihistamines...every color and flavor imaginable if the seasonal pollen rubs you wrong. What to choose...
 
We got all kinds of stuff circulating around in the "periphery" of our body, means fluids outside the brain and spinal column. Then the area inside the brain and spine. These areas biologically sequestered by the "blood brain barrier". Couple weak interfaces around the brain's pineal gland, but intact in most other places.
 
Way the body repells stuff from getting into the brain and spine is by how greasy it is. Most stuff we slurp down from diet is not greasy, water soluble stuff and the like. Diet things get thru the intestines, float around in the blood but hit the grease barrier before getting into the brain and are repelled from entry.
 
Older first generation antihistamines are themselves greasy. Allergic reactions in the periphery (stuffy nose, itchy rash) can be beaten down there without having to involve the brain. Grease likes grease however, so the old meds hit the barrier and get thru causing upheaval in the level of consciousness.
 
We were able to create antihistamines with a molecule that is more polar, means the charges on the molecule skewed to one side. More liking a water base but bouncing off the grease barrier into the brain.
 
If you got allergies and needing an antihistamine, there are many choices over the counter. Benadryl will fry your brain as well as the other older generation agents. Among these however, chlorpheneramine being the least destructive of the cheapies. Currently, Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra are the three available in the US that will nuke the itch without nuking the brain if you do need allergy relief but don't want to get wasted in the process. Allegra (fexofenadine) has the best pressure envelope of cranking up the dose without knocking you into oblivion.
 
Is this cool or what...
 
John

Since this thread has already been hijacked about as far as it can go, here's my Nyquil story.
We were playing a New Year's Eve party (the party at which the incident inspiring my song "New Year's Day" http://soundclick.com/share?songid=5073907 happened) in Isla Vista, CA. Two of us were in the Air Force and didn't really want to drive back to Vandenberg after the party, since we were getting pretty wasted. As it happened, out roadie/sound tech was house-sitting for some of his family's friends in Santa Barbara. So we all went there.
Nice house. Nice, BIG house. With a game room.
We set ourselves up in there amid assurances from Gerry that everything would be fine, the home owners wouldn't be back until the next afternoon. We played pool, cranked the stereo, had ourselves a good time.
Our bass player (natch) went exploring for something to drink, but all he could find was a bottle of Nyquil. He drank it all down.
After awhile, we all fell asleep in the game room, Steve the bass player stretched out across the pool table, drug drunk.
We were awakened by a loud "what the hell is going on in here?!" about 5:30. The home owners were back!
He pulled out his gun and began blasting away in every direction!
Not really.  Gerry explained it all and he was okay with it (as far as we could tell). He let us stay the night and he and his wife even cooked breakfast for us before we left.
I don't think he ever house-sat for them again, though.
 

JohnKenn
If you got allergies and needing an antihistamine, there are many choices over the counter. Benadryl will fry your brain as well as the other older generation agents. Among these however, chlorpheneramine being the least destructive of the cheapies. Currently, Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra are the three available in the US that will nuke the itch without nuking the brain if you do need allergy relief but don't want to get wasted in the process. Allegra (fexofenadine) has the best pressure envelope of cranking up the dose without knocking you into oblivion.
 

 
You've inspired me to start a new thread that may help anyone suffering from allergies.
 

Would be a good idea. Ragweed's in bloom ya know...
Wow, you just did. Interesting stuff there...