I was watching a rerun of Dr Phil the other day (it was my day off and I was bored, sue me) and it was the one where they interviewed Duff McKagan about his substance abuse problems. In one part of the interview, Dr. Phil quoted McKagan's book, saying that at one point he would drink a gallon of Vodka a day.

I was curious about what kind of effect that would have on the human body, so I cruised the web for a fairly simple to use blood-alcohol-content calculator, that, after putting a few reasonable scenarios through, I decided to use for this experiment. The only difficult part of this was ascertaining Duff McKagan's weight for the calculation.

Searching google, I found out that McKagan's height is around 6'3". Using that, and a body-mass-index chart, I was able to guesstimate that )based on his body frame), he was about 172 pounds, which I think is fairly reasonable. It's not rail thin, but it's not towards the bulkier end of it

So... 128 ounces of 80 proof (40%) liquor consumed across a 16 hour period, by a man weighing 172 pounds yields a blood alcohol content of 2.019%.

Now, to further make this interesting, let's add in the numbers for the 10 bottles of wine he'd drink a day when he quit drinking vodka. Same bodyweight and time period, but we'll change the variables for wine to those based on a standard wine bottle of 750ml (25.36 ounces) at about 30 proof (15% alcohol, which is about average given that Wine can be anywhere from 10 to 20% alcohol content).

So... 253.6 ounces of 30 proof wine consumed across a 16 hour period, by a man weighing 172 pounds yields a blood alcohol content of 1.438%.

By way of comparison, anything over a .30 is considered "dangerous territory." At this point, you blackout ("I did WHAT with a stop sign and a tube of axel grease?") or just pass out, your breathing can slow and stop, your heart can stop, or you can go out like several rock gods and choke to death on your vomit in your sleep. Duff McKagan went over this limit on a DAILY BASIS, so it's not unreasonable to assume that there was a period of time where his blood-alcohol-content would have went higher than what was stated here since it couldn't completely clear out of his system.

Meanwhile, Amy Winehouse died with just .40 blood alcohol content.

Which leads me to this question... HOW THE HELL IS THIS MAN ALIVE?

Blood Alcohol Content Calculator
Body Mass Index Chart
Dr. Phil interviews Duff McKagan part 1, part 2, and part 3.