Man Can't Work Because He Gets Drunk Without Drinking

For years, Eric Poulin kept being told he had a drinking problem—while insisting he hadn't touched a drink. The Nova Scotia father of five has auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which microbes in the gut convert carbohydrates into ethanol at a rate his metabolism can't keep up with, leaving him suddenly intoxicated with slurred speech, alcohol-like breath, and memory gaps. It's also left him unable to work since 2023. "I don't know what's going to happen day to day, hour to hour, so that really leaves a lot of limitations on what I can do, where I can go, work, money, everything," he tells the CBC.

Less than 100 cases have been recorded (we've reported on some of them in the past here, here, and here), and doctors say its rarity and the erratic nature of the symptoms make diagnosis and treatment difficult. Poulin has tried low-carb diets and antifungal drugs—the two go-to ways of dealing with the disease—without success; his doctors are now considering a fecal microbiota transplant in capsule form.