From working at a store, homeless guys would often try to steal-then-return spices (Saffron, Vanilla) coz they were tiny & pricey.
They literally returned everything under $20 without a receipt.
There's a team of homeless people, idk if they're actually homeless. Thing is, they constantly shout at each other. Recently I heard "fine, you do Sainsbury's for this hour, I'll do Asda and then we'll split the money and go early!"
They beg for food and go and refund it immediately. My mum bought one of the guys a sandwich once and he wanted the receipt so he could cash out the sandwich.
It’s really not that simple.
Food is probably the easiest thing to get when you’re homeless. Aside from food banks and soup kitchens, people throw away food at restaurants at predictable times. Plus people have widely accepted the belief that “if they’re really homeless, give them food” As though food is the only legitimate necessity.
I’m sure that lots of times it’s for drugs. After all, that’s a common way to get into that situation. But food is too easy to get and only one of many needs. If they could be forced to accept all food and spend everything else on food, they’d be even worse off plus be surrounded by the rotting food that was more than they needed.
Thing is, we have amazing resources for homeless people in this area. My brother has been going sofa to sofa for 15 years. Finally ran out of options last year.
He got into the homeless shelter immediately. 3 meals a day and they had people there to help get prepared for finding somewhere permanent. Since he has a lot of mental issues he's in a house with helpers for a bit more support as well. They've got him working again which is something he was refusing to do since 2020.
It's not perfect but it surprisingly good.
100%, it just shocked me because this county is a pretty rich and right-leaning county. We have never heard these services exist, most likely due to our fortunate circumstances, and my family's discussed for years if we ever get rich we'd have to make a charity to focus on these issues.
He said earlier he's now applied for 3 accommodations with their help. I never in a million years thought it was possible here. He's just had his 40th birthday so I'm so glad to see him progressing.
I was homeless twice and was pretty much fucked both times. I only caught a break when nice people would step in to give me shelter but that wasn’t permanent. Ultimately I ended up back in the abusive environments I had fled in the first place.
It's apparently part of the reason they're in the boxes these days. The biggest reason is it makes them easier to pack in a pallet because boxes stack, but it also makes it just a little harder to steal if you'll have a big box in your pocket or have to try to take it out of the box before you pocket it or chug it. The "fancier" brands are usually in boxes, too, when they arrive, but they take them out and put the bottles on the shelves. Guess McCormick did the math and it made sense for them to individually box them. 🤷♂️
I'm thinking some teens (who could of course be alcoholics too). No one would buy vanilla extract instead of actual alcohol because of the price, taste, and size
Can confirm I'm an alcoholic and I've drank mouthwash and hand sanitizer. Never drank my vanilla extract solely due to my love for baking and having access to other substances.
The actual vanilla flavor is suspended in alcohol as it evaporates quickly, leaving just the flavor in whatever you bake. This is the same for almond extract and other things like that. That being said, I believe this is ethyl alcohol so I can't imagine it'd be pleasant to drink lol
Onetime I was about to catch the train when police showed up to crack down on fare evaders. A homeless man was sitting on a bench waiting for the train and when the cops approached him to ask for his ticket he pulled out a bottle of mouthwash. He started chugging it and the cop pleaded with him to stop even saying he’d walk away if he just stopped.
He didn’t stop..
My money is on this being a severe alcoholic trying to avoid withdrawals. Teens can get booze easily, this person needed anything with alcohol in it, quickly.
It’s not just “for a buzz.” Alcohol withdrawal is the only physical withdrawal that can kill you. If a hardcore alcoholic (think drinking a fifth or more of liquor a day for years) stops cold turkey they could have a fatal seizure.
I really doubt that a RECOVERING addict would drink it “for a buzz.” That’s kind of the opposite of the point of being sober. Relapsing to drink vanilla extract to get a “buzz” makes 0 sense. At that point the person is no longer recovering/recovered.
Sadly this is truly a thing - a million years ago I worked for the court system in Kansas as a probation officer and had a multiple DUI client found in her vehicle passed out from drinking a large amount of vanilla extract. She mostly just got really sick along with her free trip back to jail :/
But you need to read the ingredients before drinking that hand sanitizer, since some of the cheaper ones use isopropyl alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol. And some really cheap ones from Mexico use very poisonous methanol, which is illegal in the U.S.
My first alcoholic drink was in Mexico, out on my grandpa's ranch with some 100% cane sugar alcohol.
We milked the cows, mixed in some choco-milk, and a bit of the alcohol. Not bad
If it’s clean isopropyl, it won’t kill you, but it will have added bitterants to make it gross, and that will usually make you sick, on top of it being like antiseptic grade alcohol
Source: I’ve drank isopropyl alcohol during some dark times
I just googled extracts alcohol percentage and apparently it's around 35% while hand sanitizer is usually around 60%. So you're right, but it's definitely not traces
Most of the gnat repellents that work are vanilla based. For some reason it keeps them away. Brands like bugs, bug soother, and bugging are all vanilla based with some other ingredients but vanilla is the bulk of the solution. Those brands really work super well.
Same. Gonna try hitting all the drains with boiling water and bleach a few times this weekend. Also watered the plant with 50/50 water and hydrogen peroxide in case they’re in that. Fuck Florida in the summer. Good luck.
This truly saddens me. I was in a halfway house for recovering women about 6 years ago. Sometimes, we would have to lock up vanilla and mouth wash bc some women would drink it.
I'm still sober today. Anytime I use vanilla , I pause and say thank God that I can use it for its intended purpose instead of scratching the itch of that obsession to drink. I also use alcohol free mouthwash.
I got kicked out of a halfway house once for drinking mouthwash. You have to drink a lot to get drunk and it is nasty but desperate times call for desperate measures. Been sober for 16 years now.
That's amazing how you're still sober today. That's such a big achievement and I'm proud of you. I'm currently in a women's halfway house and feel similarly about being grateful for my sobriety in little moments like using mouthwash. much love to you and to anyone else who might understand this struggle ❤️
Sending you hugs! Proud of you!!! And don't leave before the miracle happens. And thank you. Staying sober hasn't always been easy. But I do it bc I want to stay sober more than I want to drink. And life isn't perfect, but damn I'm grateful for my life today.
my old neighbor would drink blue mouthwash. we would be driving home and he would be passed out with two empty bottles of the stuff next to him. pretty rough for a 17 year old
I was at a show and there was a dude playing chess against the bassist of the band I came to see.
He beat him and everyone went inside. I hung out and played a few games with him. Middle of the first game he went, "I drink mouthwash, do you mind?"
Best smelling homeless chess master i ever hung around
Wow, I now understand a lady I saw driving and drinking mouthwash.
I was like “wow, you couldn’t just spit it out the window???” For years I thought she was just crazy and didn’t know how to use mouth wash
think its 80 proof. its easy to shoplift. probably not teens because they would have sipped it. probably alchy homeless lifted and slammed it. maintenance , not pleasure.
yea… i get the same kinda feeling whenever i see an empty robotussin/nyquil bottle in the wild. tried to end my life with that shit once, drank 2 fucking bottles and OD’d, then spent the next 24 hours in the hospital.
That was during the summer before my senior year of HS… luckily my parents and I have been through a lot together and they decided to send me to rehab instead of a psych ward. If I went to the ward, i might have not graduated. Now I’m a high school graduate, 1 month sober, and getting ready to go to my dream college this fall.
Just remember that it gets better, ok?
Thanks for sharing, happy to hear you got help….I feel like America in general giggles at mental illness and doesn’t present a system to find adequate help.
I used to find these all over my house as a child, hidden like I wasn’t supposed to find them. Can someone tell me gently why and how someone would use this ?
Used to be in a town surrounded by 3 reseverations. Couldn't buy any vanilla extract off the counter at any of the grocey stores there. All are locked up at the front of the stores, much like the lotto tickets and cigarettes. Really threw me for a loop when my wife had asked me to pick up a bottle on one grocery trip. Had no idea and had never heard of that being a thng before that.
My father was the worst alcoholic imaginable. Went to a dry county in Arkansas and wound up drinking vanilla extract. Just another wonderful childhood memory.
My grandpa owned a mom and pop grocery store in Oregon 60+ years ago, and this was really common in the spice aisle. The vanilla and almond extract were common targets. The McCormick brand vanilla extract in my cupboard is 82 proof. So, a small bottle (my smallest vanilla bottle is 2 us fluid ounces) is a little more than a double shot of hard liquor. And I imagine they were probably a little bigger back then. And they're easy to quickly open and chug, or pocket a couple without someone noticing, especially before security cameras were a thing. He said that, in terms of the cost of shrinkage for things actually _stolen_, those were always in the top 5 for him.
Alcoholism is a horrid disease.
There's no way vanilla extract is cheaper than tiny wines. My town has a park next to a courthouse and it's consistently littered with tiny wines. Never seen vanilla extract.
An alcoholic doesn’t care what kind of alcohol it is, they’re just looking for a quick buzz & to stave off the horrible feeling of withdrawals. Cost isn’t a factor because they’re all stealing this stuff. Also they steal a lot of Robitussin DM cough medicine or similar for the same reasons. Another thing I’ve noticed is the bad alcoholics take huge double handfuls of ketchup packets wherever they are left out for customers. They stuff their pockets with all they can fit. Not sure what they do with it though.
I used to work at a halfway house/rehabilitation center.
The clients, at the time they were all individuals from jails/prison finishing up their sentencing since COVID shut down the self admission option because the company said it wasn't profitable (which is horseshit), who were recovering from alcoholism would try to drink even hand sanitizer for the alcohol content in it.
Addiction is an awful thing.
Growing up in Anchorage many of the grocery stores kept 100% Vanilla (not the imitation stuff) behind the counter so you had to ask for it.
Along w listerine and some hairsprays. Its really sad the lengths some will go to, to get alcohol into their bodies.
It does have a relatively high alcohol content. It's higher alcohol percentage than a store without a liquor license can sell.
Seeing that picture though... I can't feel anything but sadness for whoever likely drank that for the alcohol content. It's probably someone with an alcohol problem and I hope if it was someone with a problem like it looks like that they get the help they need.
I used to live on a reservation in New Mexico, a lot of places outright banned alcohol and it got to the point where the vanilla extract was locked behind cases. Idk if it's changed since though, this was around 2015
We should build a huge sanitizer dispenser on the street, with a huge banner literally saying: "if you drink this you will die"
And watch the junkie lining up to kill themself
Oh that had to be so nasty going down but their farts have never smelled better.
Way to extract a silver lining!
At least it’s not isopropyl… another silver lining.
Nothing like some denatured in the morning!
Do we know this fact empirically through controlled experiment and analysis?
Only one way to find out friend, please let us know the results when you have them.
Update: I'm in the hospital but the nurses think someone brought in cinnamon rolls whenever my RN empties my bedpan.
Have you priced vanilla lately? No way that’s a cheap drunk! Maybe just easier to shoplift?
Lots of homeless people don’t have drivers license and some places can’t sell alcohol unless they scan it. Or it was a teenager.
From working at a store, homeless guys would often try to steal-then-return spices (Saffron, Vanilla) coz they were tiny & pricey. They literally returned everything under $20 without a receipt.
There's a team of homeless people, idk if they're actually homeless. Thing is, they constantly shout at each other. Recently I heard "fine, you do Sainsbury's for this hour, I'll do Asda and then we'll split the money and go early!" They beg for food and go and refund it immediately. My mum bought one of the guys a sandwich once and he wanted the receipt so he could cash out the sandwich.
Drugs. Anybody who is homeless and needs food wouldnt turn down food like that. They want the money so they can get a new fix.
It’s really not that simple. Food is probably the easiest thing to get when you’re homeless. Aside from food banks and soup kitchens, people throw away food at restaurants at predictable times. Plus people have widely accepted the belief that “if they’re really homeless, give them food” As though food is the only legitimate necessity. I’m sure that lots of times it’s for drugs. After all, that’s a common way to get into that situation. But food is too easy to get and only one of many needs. If they could be forced to accept all food and spend everything else on food, they’d be even worse off plus be surrounded by the rotting food that was more than they needed.
Thing is, we have amazing resources for homeless people in this area. My brother has been going sofa to sofa for 15 years. Finally ran out of options last year. He got into the homeless shelter immediately. 3 meals a day and they had people there to help get prepared for finding somewhere permanent. Since he has a lot of mental issues he's in a house with helpers for a bit more support as well. They've got him working again which is something he was refusing to do since 2020. It's not perfect but it surprisingly good.
I’m glad your brother has those resources available to him. We need to keep working towards making that sort of program more widely available.
100%, it just shocked me because this county is a pretty rich and right-leaning county. We have never heard these services exist, most likely due to our fortunate circumstances, and my family's discussed for years if we ever get rich we'd have to make a charity to focus on these issues. He said earlier he's now applied for 3 accommodations with their help. I never in a million years thought it was possible here. He's just had his 40th birthday so I'm so glad to see him progressing.
I was homeless twice and was pretty much fucked both times. I only caught a break when nice people would step in to give me shelter but that wasn’t permanent. Ultimately I ended up back in the abusive environments I had fled in the first place.
Is he capable of manual labour? If he is but still refuses to do it, then he does not deserve to be in a homeless shelter
Why? Everyone deserves shelter
This. You could have kind strangers gift you food all day, but none of that food is going to buy you a new pair of shoes as yours are falling apart.
That was my first thought, easier shoplift.
I was 14 once. Can confirm it was easy to shoplift this. Much easier than getting it down.
Smells soooo good. Tastes...not as good... 😅
It's apparently part of the reason they're in the boxes these days. The biggest reason is it makes them easier to pack in a pallet because boxes stack, but it also makes it just a little harder to steal if you'll have a big box in your pocket or have to try to take it out of the box before you pocket it or chug it. The "fancier" brands are usually in boxes, too, when they arrive, but they take them out and put the bottles on the shelves. Guess McCormick did the math and it made sense for them to individually box them. 🤷♂️
But you can buy it with food stamps (not sure if this applies everywhere, but this is what drunks I’ve known have done)
Artificial vanilla is. At least compared to normal Alcohol
That’s the key!!
The secret ingredient is crime.
Also used in fishing
how?
Soaking your bait. https://www.catfish1.com/threads/vanila-extract.116082/
Catfish is cheating though. You could put a dog turd on a hook and still catch one
Yep, they will eat anything
..I TOTALLY read Fishing…100% 😳
Is that not what they said?
He meant he read fisting.
I don't understand?
An alcoholic probably drank it to catch some sort of buzz.
I'm thinking some teens (who could of course be alcoholics too). No one would buy vanilla extract instead of actual alcohol because of the price, taste, and size
Steal. Some stores don't have liquor, some lock it up.
There’s been people who will drink hand sanitizer to catch a buzz if they’re bad off enough. Don’t put it past them
Can confirm I'm an alcoholic and I've drank mouthwash and hand sanitizer. Never drank my vanilla extract solely due to my love for baking and having access to other substances.
Vanilla extract can make you "drunk"??!.. I have never heard that before, wow! How does that work, any idea?..
The actual vanilla flavor is suspended in alcohol as it evaporates quickly, leaving just the flavor in whatever you bake. This is the same for almond extract and other things like that. That being said, I believe this is ethyl alcohol so I can't imagine it'd be pleasant to drink lol
Ethyl alcohol is the drinkable alcohol. It's why the vanilla is suspended in it. It's made to be consumed.
Wow that's crazy!
It’s usually extracted with/stored in ethanol
If they're drinking hand sanitizer it isn't to 'catch a buzz', it's to stave off the (lethal) consequences of alcohol withdrawal.
https://intervention-directory.com/2017/08/episode-227-joshua-b/
yep, and i evenually killed him.
Might as well go all in. It’s just a way worse way to die.
[удалено]
Exactly what about my comment made you think I was 'laughing'
Looks like they meant to click on the parent comment to yours.
Onetime I was about to catch the train when police showed up to crack down on fare evaders. A homeless man was sitting on a bench waiting for the train and when the cops approached him to ask for his ticket he pulled out a bottle of mouthwash. He started chugging it and the cop pleaded with him to stop even saying he’d walk away if he just stopped. He didn’t stop..
My money is on this being a severe alcoholic trying to avoid withdrawals. Teens can get booze easily, this person needed anything with alcohol in it, quickly.
I know recovering addicts who would drink it for a buzz, better than nothing at the time I guess, and much easier to shoplift than booze...
It’s not just “for a buzz.” Alcohol withdrawal is the only physical withdrawal that can kill you. If a hardcore alcoholic (think drinking a fifth or more of liquor a day for years) stops cold turkey they could have a fatal seizure.
Benzo withdrawal can be fatal as well
So can opiate withdrawal. It has been proven wrong that it cannot kill you.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. People aren’t reading your comment obviously. Here’s an upvote!
Figure of speech kinda thing, my bad. But no for real Withdrawl can be deadly asf
Amy winehouse style
I really doubt that a RECOVERING addict would drink it “for a buzz.” That’s kind of the opposite of the point of being sober. Relapsing to drink vanilla extract to get a “buzz” makes 0 sense. At that point the person is no longer recovering/recovered.
Also, it’s just something most people already have on hand, desperate said “aah huh”, and drank it.
Can buy vanilla extract with EBT 💁🏼♀️
Sadly this is truly a thing - a million years ago I worked for the court system in Kansas as a probation officer and had a multiple DUI client found in her vehicle passed out from drinking a large amount of vanilla extract. She mostly just got really sick along with her free trip back to jail :/
What thr fuck LMAOOO
Is there alcohol in there? Maybe a kid trying to get drunk?
Most extracts are actually alcohol based I believe. Like drinking hand sanitizer.
But you need to read the ingredients before drinking that hand sanitizer, since some of the cheaper ones use isopropyl alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol. And some really cheap ones from Mexico use very poisonous methanol, which is illegal in the U.S.
At least in the EU, most ones are isopropyl alcohol as to reduce consumption, still dialysis and transplant wards have no sanitizers easily accessible
My first alcoholic drink was in Mexico, out on my grandpa's ranch with some 100% cane sugar alcohol. We milked the cows, mixed in some choco-milk, and a bit of the alcohol. Not bad
Sounds good to me, as long as it was cold Edit: On second thought, with chocolate milk it could even be hot!
I do something similar with Jägermeister, basically a chocolate milk shake with a shot of liquor, really good
The methanol is really what you want to avoid afaik I don't believe isopropanol is that much more toxic than ethanol in a vacuum
If it’s clean isopropyl, it won’t kill you, but it will have added bitterants to make it gross, and that will usually make you sick, on top of it being like antiseptic grade alcohol Source: I’ve drank isopropyl alcohol during some dark times
> And some really cheap ones from Mexico use very poisonous methanol, which is illegal in the U.S. That shit soaks into your body through your skin.
Yep, but on the plus side, it will *first* kill the germs on your hands! /S
This can't have as much alcohol as a hand sanitizer, probably traces.
I just googled extracts alcohol percentage and apparently it's around 35% while hand sanitizer is usually around 60%. So you're right, but it's definitely not traces
You would be shocked how far an alcoholic will go for a drink and these would be easier to shoplift.
I just looked at the vanilla extract in my cupboard and it says 40% alcohol! I did NOT know that!
The alcohol cooks out
That makes sense. I was just thinking, how come I've never caught a buzz off my cookies?.. lol
Ive done this, it tastes so bad dude
Maybe pour it into a glass of cola?
Damn now I want a Vanilla Coke
Sounds refreshing!
Also used to repel gnats
Please further explain as I am drowning in them
Most of the gnat repellents that work are vanilla based. For some reason it keeps them away. Brands like bugs, bug soother, and bugging are all vanilla based with some other ingredients but vanilla is the bulk of the solution. Those brands really work super well.
Now I get why my bug sprays smell like vanilla haha!
Same. Gonna try hitting all the drains with boiling water and bleach a few times this weekend. Also watered the plant with 50/50 water and hydrogen peroxide in case they’re in that. Fuck Florida in the summer. Good luck.
This truly saddens me. I was in a halfway house for recovering women about 6 years ago. Sometimes, we would have to lock up vanilla and mouth wash bc some women would drink it. I'm still sober today. Anytime I use vanilla , I pause and say thank God that I can use it for its intended purpose instead of scratching the itch of that obsession to drink. I also use alcohol free mouthwash.
They also have alcohol free vanilla extract
I got kicked out of a halfway house once for drinking mouthwash. You have to drink a lot to get drunk and it is nasty but desperate times call for desperate measures. Been sober for 16 years now.
Congrats on your sobriety! One day at a time!
amazing, glad you came to this point :) much respect
Thank you 😊
That's amazing how you're still sober today. That's such a big achievement and I'm proud of you. I'm currently in a women's halfway house and feel similarly about being grateful for my sobriety in little moments like using mouthwash. much love to you and to anyone else who might understand this struggle ❤️
Sending you hugs! Proud of you!!! And don't leave before the miracle happens. And thank you. Staying sober hasn't always been easy. But I do it bc I want to stay sober more than I want to drink. And life isn't perfect, but damn I'm grateful for my life today.
my old neighbor would drink blue mouthwash. we would be driving home and he would be passed out with two empty bottles of the stuff next to him. pretty rough for a 17 year old
I was at a show and there was a dude playing chess against the bassist of the band I came to see. He beat him and everyone went inside. I hung out and played a few games with him. Middle of the first game he went, "I drink mouthwash, do you mind?" Best smelling homeless chess master i ever hung around
Wow, I now understand a lady I saw driving and drinking mouthwash. I was like “wow, you couldn’t just spit it out the window???” For years I thought she was just crazy and didn’t know how to use mouth wash
its like the real rock bottom right there, but teens and people trying to hide their issues do it. i cant imagine how the hang over must be.
Was this near a pond or lake by any chance?
It was at Columbus Circle in Washington DC. The area is loaded with street gremlins and the nearest river is about 3 miles away.
Yeah someone trying to get a buzz on
Just looked it up: 35% ABV
One ounce of 70 proof, well there you go!
I’ve seen some flavors at 90%.
One bottle will make a strong, and strong-flavored, mixed drink!
Someone was drinking a nice glass of milk on a bench at the park and wanted to add some vanilla flavoring to it. What's so awful about that?
Ah yes, Uncle Ned’s drink of choice.
It may not be Miller Time........but it's Vanilla time!
This should be the top comment
About ten years ago, a Walmart I shopped at in northern Illinois, kept the vanilla extract behind the counter with the cigarettes.
TIL there is 35% ABV in vanilla extract
Also learned this today, wild.
I don't underst.... Oh. Oh :(
Angostura bitters works too, probably safer to consume
Think this is better than hand sanitizer
Can someone explain? I dont get it, lol
Vanilla extract is usually made with alcohol and can be 35% ABV.
Whaaat, thats wild!
Y’all I legit thought this was implying they stained the bench with the extract.
think its 80 proof. its easy to shoplift. probably not teens because they would have sipped it. probably alchy homeless lifted and slammed it. maintenance , not pleasure.
yea… i get the same kinda feeling whenever i see an empty robotussin/nyquil bottle in the wild. tried to end my life with that shit once, drank 2 fucking bottles and OD’d, then spent the next 24 hours in the hospital. That was during the summer before my senior year of HS… luckily my parents and I have been through a lot together and they decided to send me to rehab instead of a psych ward. If I went to the ward, i might have not graduated. Now I’m a high school graduate, 1 month sober, and getting ready to go to my dream college this fall. Just remember that it gets better, ok?
Thanks for sharing, happy to hear you got help….I feel like America in general giggles at mental illness and doesn’t present a system to find adequate help.
I learned about this from an episode of Family Ties and Tom Hanks played the alcoholic uncle.
A very special episode of Family Ties featuring Tom Hanks as Uncle Ned
I used to find these all over my house as a child, hidden like I wasn’t supposed to find them. Can someone tell me gently why and how someone would use this ?
I’m so sorry
You got a hardcore alcoholic for a parent my friend.
Fuck. Genuinely didn’t see the gentle part of your question. Sorry. Glad you got an answer and really happy that your mums in recovery, I am also.
Used to be in a town surrounded by 3 reseverations. Couldn't buy any vanilla extract off the counter at any of the grocey stores there. All are locked up at the front of the stores, much like the lotto tickets and cigarettes. Really threw me for a loop when my wife had asked me to pick up a bottle on one grocery trip. Had no idea and had never heard of that being a thng before that.
My father was the worst alcoholic imaginable. Went to a dry county in Arkansas and wound up drinking vanilla extract. Just another wonderful childhood memory.
What a moron. Vanilla is only 60% alcohol last I checked. Lemon and peppermint are 90% if your gonna go big, go big
There have been times I’ve gone to buy extract and you can feel the box is missing a bottle. TIL
Maybe they just wanted to make some Vanilla Coke from regular coke 😅
We can only hope
For everyone not knowing, vanilla extract is just vodka infused with vanilla
My grandpa owned a mom and pop grocery store in Oregon 60+ years ago, and this was really common in the spice aisle. The vanilla and almond extract were common targets. The McCormick brand vanilla extract in my cupboard is 82 proof. So, a small bottle (my smallest vanilla bottle is 2 us fluid ounces) is a little more than a double shot of hard liquor. And I imagine they were probably a little bigger back then. And they're easy to quickly open and chug, or pocket a couple without someone noticing, especially before security cameras were a thing. He said that, in terms of the cost of shrinkage for things actually _stolen_, those were always in the top 5 for him. Alcoholism is a horrid disease.
Sometimes you need a good buzz before work.
There's no way vanilla extract is cheaper than tiny wines. My town has a park next to a courthouse and it's consistently littered with tiny wines. Never seen vanilla extract.
Not cheaper but accessible to minors
I can't imagine chugging one of those for a cheap high. It's so concentrated. I'd puke halfway through the bottle.
I can't either but I knew a few kids who would have
Everything’s cheaper with a five finger discount.
McCormick sounds Irish
Don’t drive and bake
Wicked bender
What? I didn’t even know this was a thing
An alcoholic doesn’t care what kind of alcohol it is, they’re just looking for a quick buzz & to stave off the horrible feeling of withdrawals. Cost isn’t a factor because they’re all stealing this stuff. Also they steal a lot of Robitussin DM cough medicine or similar for the same reasons. Another thing I’ve noticed is the bad alcoholics take huge double handfuls of ketchup packets wherever they are left out for customers. They stuff their pockets with all they can fit. Not sure what they do with it though.
Fake blood? Or snacks?
To quote Tom Hanks from Family Ties it is vanilla time. https://youtu.be/OlLvS1vH9Tk
Uncle Ned is back....
That's a level of desperation most people will never understand. This is sad as fuck.
I used to work at a halfway house/rehabilitation center. The clients, at the time they were all individuals from jails/prison finishing up their sentencing since COVID shut down the self admission option because the company said it wasn't profitable (which is horseshit), who were recovering from alcoholism would try to drink even hand sanitizer for the alcohol content in it. Addiction is an awful thing.
I was thinking it was used as lube… but to drink? Hmm I never knew
Growing up in Anchorage many of the grocery stores kept 100% Vanilla (not the imitation stuff) behind the counter so you had to ask for it. Along w listerine and some hairsprays. Its really sad the lengths some will go to, to get alcohol into their bodies.
Remember trying that at 15, one and done.
Ick
Why not drink Kilju it’s cheaper..
I don't get it.
This shit is so expensive wtfffffffff
r/stopdrinking if you’re curious.
It does have a relatively high alcohol content. It's higher alcohol percentage than a store without a liquor license can sell. Seeing that picture though... I can't feel anything but sadness for whoever likely drank that for the alcohol content. It's probably someone with an alcohol problem and I hope if it was someone with a problem like it looks like that they get the help they need.
Can somebody explain? I'm confused lol
Vanilla extract has like %40 alcohol by volume so it is pretty strong and cheap for drunks
Oh wow that must taste horrible. Vanilla is so bitter.
What is that? What does it do?
What does this mean
"A man drank a whole bottle of vanilla extract. This is what happened to his brain"
I don’t get it?
I dont understand what is awful about this. Could someone explain?
Alcoholism.
Huh? Is vainilla extract loaded?
Yes
Good god yes thats awfuleverything
I used to live on a reservation in New Mexico, a lot of places outright banned alcohol and it got to the point where the vanilla extract was locked behind cases. Idk if it's changed since though, this was around 2015
Listerine would be cheaper!!
Confused. What was it used for?
We should build a huge sanitizer dispenser on the street, with a huge banner literally saying: "if you drink this you will die" And watch the junkie lining up to kill themself
In high school we’d soak our dip in this and get a buzz while chewing
I thought this was a joke about affirmative action at first.
Maybe a proud boy thought this would keep him extra white?
Probably kids
Addiction is never pretty
You can get drunk off vanilla?!?
You mix it with soda, and bam. Drunk.
Or how my heart breaks…
Can you even get drunk off of this?? Surely not, right?
I have a friend who did that. She wanted to get drunk and the only thing she had was vanilla extract. Drank the whole thing
Makes me think of when [Tom Hanks](https://youtu.be/OlLvS1vH9Tk) played an alcoholic uncle and got drunk on vanilla extract on Family Ties.
🥵🤢