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Original poster

Could my 54 year old husband have had his drink spiked tonight

356 replies

MadKitty · 31/10/2025 01:53

Just that really. He went for drinks after work with a colleague. We don’t drink much in general, maybe a couple of units a month. I picked him up from the station at 11pm, all the other passengers left and I could see on my phone that he was still on the platform. Called him and he was barely coherent. Saw him staggering down the platform holding onto a railing.

After 10 mins he gets in the car, he’s soiled himself, grey and uncommunicative. Talking weird and not making sense. Walked in the house and literally dropped to the floor. I know, I know….. you’re thinking he’s been on a bender. He’s had less than a bottle of wine, maybe 3 glasses from what I’m gathering. This is the opposite of who he is and how he drinks.

Nearly 3 hours later he’s still lying on the floor with his head in a bowl. He’s so confused and unlike him. 111 tell me he’s just drunk. I’m hoping in the next hour I can get him standing so I can get him in the shower. He said this came on suddenly during the 20 min train journey. Could this be spiking?

Anyone around who might have some insight?

OP posts:
Autumngirl5 · 31/10/2025 10:09

MadKitty · 31/10/2025 10:01

Morning! Sorry we were both exhausted and needed a bit of a lie in! Will update properly later this morning but just to say he’s feeling better than last night. I was really touched this morning by your kind comments and helpful advice. They were all read throughout the night and calmed me down too xx

Thank you for taking the time to update us and so glad he is feeling better. So very scary for you x

Pericombobulations · 31/10/2025 10:11

Glad to hear he’s feeling better.

To those who think it’s an urban myth, you are very wrong. I knew several people in the 90’s who were spiked, so assume it’s worse now. One poor girl was date raped after her spiking. Another was a bloke, who was certain he had been spiked for a laugh but knew the effects he had were due to drugs and not drink as he had had to try drugs for his job to experience the effects.

Bambamhoohoo · 31/10/2025 10:14

Pericombobulations · 31/10/2025 10:11

Glad to hear he’s feeling better.

To those who think it’s an urban myth, you are very wrong. I knew several people in the 90’s who were spiked, so assume it’s worse now. One poor girl was date raped after her spiking. Another was a bloke, who was certain he had been spiked for a laugh but knew the effects he had were due to drugs and not drink as he had had to try drugs for his job to experience the effects.

I don’t think people think it never happens, just that it doesn’t happen to the level whereby people badly affected by alcohol assume they’ve been spiked.

Leopardspota · 31/10/2025 10:20

Lostsadandconfused · 31/10/2025 02:05

Drink spiking is so rare it’s pretty much an urban myth.

Yes I know, everyone has had a personal experience or knows someone who knows someone etc etc.

It’s almost always someone not realising how much they’ve drunk, drinking on an empty stomach etc.

I’m not sure why you’d say this. It happened to me when I was 19, worst experience of my
life. Rare, yes. Urban myth- no.

Cherrytree86 · 31/10/2025 10:23

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 31/10/2025 10:07

The thing is that I get migraines too, ordinary ones, but they don't feel or behave anything like this and are nowhere near as severe. This is why the first couple ot times it happened people were throwing around the 'spiked' thing. Even though it was almost impossible. The last time it happened (at home, alone, one tiny glass of Prosecco) was when I looked for a diagnosis.

I vomit so hard that I genuinely fear I will choke, and can't move my head at all. It is terrifying. Hence giving up alcohol altogether (sigh).

Show quote history

@Nolongera

you had drank a lot. OP husband didn’t.

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 31/10/2025 10:25

Cherrytree86 · 31/10/2025 10:23

@Nolongera

you had drank a lot. OP husband didn’t.

Show quote history

No I hadn't, that was why it was so confusing. First time I thought I had drunk more than I did (onlookers told me it was a couple of glasses). The final time it was one glass. It's easy to assume, when you feel like this, that you must have been spiked or drunk more than you thought, but when people around you are puzzled at your level of incapability because they've been watching you drink, that is when they assume spiking.

AgentPidge · 31/10/2025 10:25

Lostsadandconfused · 31/10/2025 02:05

Drink spiking is so rare it’s pretty much an urban myth.

Yes I know, everyone has had a personal experience or knows someone who knows someone etc etc.

It’s almost always someone not realising how much they’ve drunk, drinking on an empty stomach etc.

Urban myth? Don't be silly. It happened to me! Its pretty prevalent now.

Edited to say that it happened to me and my boyfriend and was done by a guy sitting at our table in the pub. Both our drinks were spiked. A very unpleasant experience.

user2255679541 · 31/10/2025 10:44

My son's drink was randomly spiked when he was visiting a friend and a different uni. He disappeared and the friend eventually found him outside, basically unconscious. His phone was gone, but CCTV showed that it was taken by someone coming from the opposite direction, so that might have been a crime of opportunity. Wherever the black eye happened it was before he was in that spot with cctv coverage. Another friend (a girl) was also spiked but apparently less out of it. The friend took them to hospital where they were tested. He has absolutely no memory of what happened, which is terrifying.

Katiesaidthat · 31/10/2025 10:58

spoonbillstretford · 31/10/2025 05:02

Needle jabbed in her leg in a club with god knows what in it.

Show quote history

This happened to someone I know, she had the wherewithall fast to dart for the security guy and tell him and just slithered into a heap. The paramedics were called and they checked her leg, and there it was a needle prick, which later became a bruise. She had zero recollection later.

Tumbler2121 · 31/10/2025 11:00

So glad your H better today, but it was worth checking out what it might have been.

I remember many years ago when the doctor used to come out my MIL called one around 10.30pm as her husband very unwell. He’d had his usual couple of pints during the evening.

I heard the doctor say “this man is drunk” with total disgust and then he left.

No, FIL had had serious stroke and was never well again.

user1492757084 · 31/10/2025 11:03

Wine by the glass sometimes contains more than one standard drink so the three drinks might have been six.

I would still have DH checked for heart attack and stroke.

Katiesaidthat · 31/10/2025 11:05

Tumbler2121 · 31/10/2025 11:00

So glad your H better today, but it was worth checking out what it might have been.

I remember many years ago when the doctor used to come out my MIL called one around 10.30pm as her husband very unwell. He’d had his usual couple of pints during the evening.

I heard the doctor say “this man is drunk” with total disgust and then he left.

No, FIL had had serious stroke and was never well again.

My husband was considered drunk by the nurse at hospital, he saw her do the drinking gesture. My husband never drinks, never has done. He was having a stroke and was dismissed. When he had a second ministroke they found the scar the first one left on his brain.

Lalgarh · 31/10/2025 11:12

Hospital staff are supposed to be being trained about spotting the signs of spiking. But then they're also supposed to be trained to spot the signs of sepsis and they often times don't

Timeforabitofpeace · 31/10/2025 11:12

@Lostsadandconfused You certainly are confused. Spiking is very much a thing these days.

Jenkibuble · 31/10/2025 11:15

Bobbie12345678 · 31/10/2025 01:56

I would consider calling an ambulance. You might be made to feel silly. He might just be drunk.
But he might have had some sort of stroke or heart attack or be septic. It is a really weird story.
(Assuming that you trust him?)

This would be my first thought, rather than spiking . Given his age too I mean

Hope he is OK !

CellophaneFlower · 31/10/2025 11:21

ambulance came and took her to hospital and they did CPR at the pub just in case

I'm not sure CPR is ever performed "just in case", only if the person isn't breathing?

Like others though, I've been spiked, years ago and I assume with rohypnol. It was totally different to being paralytic drunk. I lost all memory of the evening, apart from seeing the pavement come up to meet me numerous times. I've fallen many times when drunk, but always on my arse, usually whilst dancing. This was full on face planting the pavement. I know who spiked me, unfortunately I thought he was a friend. He used my phone to call us a cab and from that I was able to work out I was only in the bar for 45 minutes... certainly not enough time for me to be in that state that I have never before or since been in. Absolute splitting headache the next morning. Smashed phone and covered in cuts/bruises from falling.

Glad he's doing better now OP, but do keep a close eye on him for a while.

Irenesortof · 31/10/2025 11:25

Devonshiregal · 31/10/2025 08:07

yes this poster is a victim blaming twit who hasn’t experienced something themselves and therefore has decided it’s a ‘myth’. They literally even say everyone’s had an experience or knows someone who knows someone….but yet instead of believing all those people, decides to discredit them based on his/her own opinion.

I’ve been spike three times. First time it was the barman - he spiked my then boyfriend too and other people in the club. It was our first drink of the night so no we weren’t accidentally just drunk. My then bf was a scary looking guy who normally wouldn’t get messed with and it brought him down, I don’t even know how we made it to the next day. I just remember him grabbing me and pulling me down the stairs as he clocked what was happening. We were like Bambi on ice and then just remember him saying we have to get away from the club the. everything going in and out of blackness while watching him collapse against the wall of the club outside in the same fashion.

second I was out with a girlfriend having a quiet drink. Not drunk.

Third one I was drinking a bit before we went round to meet this guy my friend was dating (she had bad taste), had a drink there then suddenly was absolutely out of it. Ended up locked in a bathroom with thrfriend of mine who hadn’t been drinking much who was throwing up and wetting herself while all I remember is being in and out of consciousness and nothing until being in a taxi with my phone dismantled in my bag. Getting out and my then boyfriend freaking out at me because if called him and then he’d heard some guy shouting and the phone going dead.

I was also in a bar with friends on nye once and a guy walked by at the end of the night and stupendously unsubtly plonked a pill in my friend’s drink. It literally splashed up as he did it.

My life has clearly been different to the poster but I that doesn’t mean I’m so stupid I don’t know the difference between being spiked and not. There’s a bizarre delay between having the drink and the effect hitting - hence why it sounds like OP’s husband may have been. And it feels like being drugged - because you were.

and it does happen to men.

Show quote history

My God, that's horrific. It must make you think twice about going out to bars. I hope you are OK after all that.
I can believe that there are occasions when somebody who doesn't like to admit how much they drink puts a bad hangover down to spiking. But generalising from this to claim that spiking is an urban myth is as dangerous and demeaning as claiming that because women and girls on occasion have admitted to falsely accusing men of sexual assault, sexual assault hardly ever happens and all women are liars.

Irenesortof · 31/10/2025 11:27

MadKitty · 31/10/2025 10:01

Morning! Sorry we were both exhausted and needed a bit of a lie in! Will update properly later this morning but just to say he’s feeling better than last night. I was really touched this morning by your kind comments and helpful advice. They were all read throughout the night and calmed me down too xx

Morning OP. Thanks for the update, I've been wondering how he is. Phew! Hope that he continues to feel better and has no longer lasting effects from last night.

GreenGreenGreenRed · 31/10/2025 11:33

I was spiked when I was 19 too. I know what drinking too much feels like, and it's not going from perfectly fine to unconscious on a nightclub floor 5 minutes later.

mjf981 · 31/10/2025 11:35

Good to hear he's better.
I was wondering about food poisoning. Did he have any food? I collapsed and felt very weak about 20 mins before vomiting/diarrhoea started when I had it.

worrisomeasset · 31/10/2025 11:37

I'm relieved that OP's husband is OK. If it happens again, OP, please, please call an ambulance immediately or get him to a&e yourself. He's had a medical incident of some kind and it may well have had nothing to do with drink or spiking. My brother was relaxing and having a beer while waiting at an airport recently and suddenly found that he couldn't balance and that he was seeing double. It turns out he was having a TIA and it was nothing to do with the small amount of beer he had drunk. I'd also recommend that your husband sees his GP about what has happened.

WearyAuldWumman · 31/10/2025 11:40

I came late to this thread. Glad he's okay. Hope you both manage to get a good rest.

AutumnLover1989 · 31/10/2025 11:41

MeganM3 · 31/10/2025 02:07

He’s not really a target for spiking. And I’m not sure if he’d be able to get himself off a train if spiked. But it does sound like something dangerous has happened and I think he should be seen by a doctor / a&e, they can test for spiking - or something else.
I’d check for any signs of a stroke or hart attack on the way to the hospital.

There is a possibility that the drink still could have been spiked and the drink wasn't intended for him. This happened to my son. He was in a mixed group and had a drink that was spiked and was intended for one of the girls in the group. My son drank it.😡

Cherrytree86 · 31/10/2025 11:45

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 31/10/2025 10:25

No I hadn't, that was why it was so confusing. First time I thought I had drunk more than I did (onlookers told me it was a couple of glasses). The final time it was one glass. It's easy to assume, when you feel like this, that you must have been spiked or drunk more than you thought, but when people around you are puzzled at your level of incapability because they've been watching you drink, that is when they assume spiking.

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@Vroomfondleswaistcoat

sorry , I got mixed up - I was referring to the poster who said she drank a tray of vodka and coke!