Title: Komasaufen (Coma Boozing)
General Information about Item:
- Type of Lore: Drinking Game
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: Germany
- Informant: Nicolay Ostrau
- Date Collected: May 28, 2019
Informant Data:
- Nicolay Ostrau is a Professor and Senior Lecturer in Dartmouth’s department of German studies. His home region is Northern Germany. He heard of this drinking game through his many experiences with German culture, although he never partook in the game itself.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context
- The informant said that this drinking game is one he’s never experienced, but knows happens in Germany. It seems to be something high-schoolers do to socialize, away from the eye of adults.
- Cultural Context
- In Germany, the legal age to drink is 16 years old. It’s generally assumed that because Germany introduced alcohol earlier, Germans are more responsible when it comes to alcohol. This story shows that isn’t always the case.
Item:
- “So teenagers in Germany get together and their aim is to drink enough that somebody will turn or get close to turning unconscious… into a coma.
So the winner so to speak is the person that falls into a coma.
And and I don’t know how many people have died. Not that many but I think there have been cases where a teenager has died because they drank so much that the alcohol poisoning was so severe that they couldn’t be rushed to the hospital in the time.”
Informant Comments:
- “I don’t know how we should interpret why this would make you a hero… passing out is not very heroic. I mean heroism is not normally considered to be passing out and to be so incapacitated that you’re not in control of your own bodily functions. “
Collector’s Comments:
- I found this story quite interesting, as it is reminiscent of binge-drinking games common in America, with the one difference that in America, it is generally college students who get so heavily intoxicated, but in Germany, it is younger, high-school students who do so. Even though Germany has alcohol legalized at a much younger age than in America, you still find stories of young people drinking.
Collector’s Name: Michael Steel
Tags/Keywords:
- Ritual. Drinking Game.