Vodka eyeballing. It's the latest drinking fad on YouTube, and it could cause blindness.
Hundreds of online videos that originated in the U.K. show teens pouring vodka directly into their eyes, straight from the bottle. The videos are getting hundreds of thousands of hits, MyFoxDC.com reported.
Substance abuse expert Mike Gimbel claims kids aren’t eyeballing to get drunk faster, but do it when the effects of alcohol have already set in and impaired their judgment. Eyeballing is more of a prank than a way to become more intoxicated.
“They’re not doing it to get more drunk, they’re doing it as part of a fad. ‘I dare you to do this,’” Gimbel said.
Robert Stutman, president of the Maryland Optometric Association, said eyeballing can be very damaging to the eyes. Vodka is 40 to 50 percent alcohol and can burn and scar the cornea.
“It probably could [cause blindness] if it caused severe enough scarring of the cornea,” Stutman said.
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