Woman Gets Out of DWI Because of “Auto-Brewery Syndrome”

It sounds almost like a headline from The Onion or another source of satirical news: But it’s a true, a woman in New York got out of a DWI because her body produces its own alcohol, due to something called “auto-brewery syndrome.”

Making your own alcohol isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds, however. In here case, the syndrome is likely due to “a severe yeast infection in her intestines.” According to Tech Insider:

The extremely rare condition is caused by the unlikely presence of a high concentration of yeast in someone’s stomach. That yeast consumes sugar and converts it into alcohol inside the gut itself. That alcohol can than be absorbed by the intestines and make its way into the bloodstream, where it can intoxicate the patient in question.

It can be triggered by eating carbohydrate-heavy foods, including french fries. It’s a very rare disorder; estimates of how many people there may be that suffer from it in the United States number in the hundreds. However, multiple cases have also been reported in Japan.

The woman (whose name has remained anonymous) is a 35-year-old teacher from western New York. In October of 2014, she was pulled over and blew a .33 BAC, well over four times the legal limit, after a 911 tipster reported that she was weaving on the road.

However, despite her high BAC levels, she claimed she had only consumed three drinks, and had stopped drinking well before getting on the road. According to her lawyer, after she was charged, she spent over $7000 working with a medical specialist to prove that she suffers from the disorder. However, the disorder is still poorly understood, and a hard explanation to swallow for why a driver may have had a BAC at over four times the legal rate.

There have been a few other confirmed cases, including a 61-year-old man in Texas in 2013 who started “getting drunk out of the blue.” The doctor who treated the DWI defendant from New York has stated that he’s treated about 10 people with the disorder over the last few years. But given that the disorder seems pretty rare, it’s doubtful that we’ll be seeing too many others successfully use auto-brewery disorder as a defense to get out of DWI charges–the woman in New York may be a rather isolated incident.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.