Don't Drink and Dive

May 21, 2016 1:15 PM

To raise the public's awareness on the risks of taking a dip when intoxicated, [Swedish insurance company] Trygg-Hansa invited Stockholm Men’s Synchronized Swimming Team to participate in a little experiment. All they asked was for the three-time world champions to perform their regular, winning routine — but with one small difference. They performed drunk. [via]
posted by not_on_display (25 comments total)

Worst...orgy...evar.
posted by chavenet at 1:27 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

0.84% ?? isn't that like, 10x the legal limit to drive? Or do they measure BAC differently in Sweden?
posted by capnsue at 1:28 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

The subtitles say the BAC levels are "promille", which means "per thousand."
posted by chavenet at 1:34 PM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

(After watching the entire video, yeah, I guess they must have a different system, maybe dividing by 10 would bring it into line with the US way of determining BAC? But yeah, those guys were GONE towards the end of the video..)
posted by capnsue at 1:36 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not that strong a swimmer.
posted by The Tensor at 1:38 PM on May 21, 2016 [11 favorites]

Sweden measures blood alcohol content by mass in permille (‰), so roughly 10x off from US per volume percentages.
posted by effbot at 1:51 PM on May 21, 2016

Those guys are having a blast! This is a pretty good argument in favor of drunk swimming.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:51 PM on May 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

0.84% ?? isn't that like, 10x the legal limit to drive? Or do they measure BAC differently in Sweden?


That's probably dead in US units, 0.09% if you convert.
posted by ssg at 1:57 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Man, they had a couple of great camera shots once they were in the pool. The one with the guy about midway down in the water who was illuminated from behind reaching for the top was...striking.
posted by ZaneJ. at 2:01 PM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

We dig a hole, we dig a hole, we dig a hole..
posted by rhizome at 2:13 PM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I won't swim afterwards, but I wouldn't mind drinking on land with the Swedish men's synchronized swimming team! There are a lot more tattoos and mutton chops than I would have predicted.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:38 PM on May 21, 2016 [11 favorites]

MetaFilter: There are a lot more tattoos and mutton chops than I would have predicted.
posted by Fizz at 3:20 PM on May 21, 2016 [6 favorites]

(a) I did not know that men's synchronized swimming was even a thing;
(b) I would not have guessed that its finest athletes would be such a paean to the Dad Bod.
(c) Man, are Swedes a pasty-looking lot, or what?
posted by drlith at 3:38 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Man, are Swedes a pasty-looking lot, or what?

It was filmed in late March, which means it's been dark for about six months or so :-) They'll look different in August.
posted by effbot at 3:48 PM on May 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is great as a work of art: it's plugged as a PSA (ho-hum), gets party-happy for two minutes or so, and ends dark Bergman dark at the end. (No death or chess though.)
posted by kozad at 4:49 PM on May 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

I would not have guessed that its finest athletes would be such a paean to the Dad Bod.

Yeah, this really surprised me. It looked as if they just pulled some guys off the street.
posted by AFABulous at 5:12 PM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, there is that one guy who needs help to porpoise out of the water newer the end.

But yeah, I also expected a rescue or two and some more flailing.

Still makes a good point.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:52 PM on May 21, 2016

As a swimmer, I envy that pool. Jesus it was gorgeous.

As a human being, I'm really glad they had that rescue diver cued up. That lifeguard was tense.
posted by librarylis at 7:14 PM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

And the rescue diver was just like "man, I could do this all day."
posted by joycehealy at 8:23 PM on May 21, 2016

I wasn't sure what those blood alcohol contents really meant, so I looked it up. Looks like 0.2 is the legal driving limit in Sweden, so they had about 7 times that.

According to this article (one of the few I could find that had information about physical effects rather than driving fines), 0.6-0.8 has a noticeable effect on concentration and reaction times, above 0.8 your field of vision is narrowed, your reaction times only about half as fast as usual, and your balance is affected. 0.5 promille is enough to kill a child.

So they were really pretty damn drunk.
posted by lollusc at 9:32 PM on May 21, 2016

Well, ~0.8 (0.08%) is the legal driving limit in the US. Sweden is simply stricter.
posted by alexei at 10:31 PM on May 21, 2016

It would be something like 4-5 standard drinks in an hour for a man of average size. (If that sounds a lil high as the legal limit for driving yeah it kinda is.)
posted by atoxyl at 12:34 AM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Though of course differences in tolerance exist so BAC doesn't really correspond directly to level of intoxication.
posted by atoxyl at 12:35 AM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Huh, I had always assumed that differences in tolerance were a matter of how quickly the alcohol got into your bloodstream and/or got metabolised out of it, therefore meaning that different people ended up with different BACs even after drinking the same things.

I didn't realise you could be differently affected by the same BAC.
posted by lollusc at 3:52 AM on May 23, 2016

I vaaaaaguely remember from Alcohol Awareness classes in junior high and high school that people, be it due to metabolism, genes, or level of addiction, aren't all affected equally by BAC -- but still, reaction time becomes slower, etc., no matter what the "tolerance" of the individual is, or how well they can "hold their liquor"...

Mind you, I'm remembering this from the early to mid 1980's, so I take much from that decade with a grain of salt, due to my own memory being poor, or all the Reaganesque propaganda being floated around our young malleable minds...
posted by not_on_display at 9:01 PM on May 23, 2016