I have honestly tried nearly every drug.
The drugs that I've tried are kratom, kava, heroin,
crack, molly, cocaine, Xanax,
Ativan, lorazepam, Klonopin, Adderall, Valium.
I've tried everything.
Sometimes I just want my brain to just stop.
It's definitely all or nothing.
I either go big or go home.
Well Erica says, although she's an alcoholic,
there is nothing she won't try to get high.
Erica's willingness to ingest
just about anything with a warning label
has left her fighting for her life
in comas over a dozen times.
When I'm in the hospital I'm not even thinking about
the overdose or what could possibly happen
if I never wake up.
Or the fact that I'm hurting my family
or putting myself in danger.
I prefer to find her when she's completely passed out
because then we can just shovel her into the car
and take her to the hospital
without her putting up a fight.
Every time we try to take her she screams,
she's even jumped out of the car.
(screaming)
Erica's been on a ventilator
every time she's been in a coma.
Most recently she had ordered anti-anxiety drug from Russia
and it put her in a coma for over two weeks.
The doctors had to call European Poison Control.
They needed to figure out the substance
because they didn't know what it was.
When the bag arrived, it said on it,
"Not for human consumption,"
and that's how I knew it would work.
The dosage on it was a 1/4 a teaspoon
but I was literally taking tablespoons of it,
not measuring it.
It's like four times stronger than Xanax
and I've OD'd on it at least four times
and woke up in the ICU.
Two times she came out of her coma
she was in a psychosis.
She looked mentally disabled.
She couldn't feed herself.
She couldn't urinate by herself.
She had no idea where she was.
I was so terrified for her
I didn't think that she was ever going to come back.
I had to come to terms with the fact
that I could have a mentally disabled sister
for the rest of my life.
I have easily spent over a hundred thousand
with all of this and I have used my retirement
and I would do it again.
All for what?
Just so I don't have to deal with reality.
This is shut my brain down for like five seconds.
'Cause I don't want to be a responsible 31-year-old adult.
I need a babysitter 24/7.
And you think not for human consumption is a good thing?
In my, like when I'm in it, yeah.
Well, joining us remotely
is someone I want you to hear from.
It's Dr. Joel Kahn.
Dr. Khan is a cardiologist
and also serves as a clinical professor of cardiology
at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
He is also the founder
of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity.
He knows very well the medical dangers
of what Erica is ingesting,
Dr. Khan, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you, Dr. Phil.
Let's talk about this stuff she's consuming.
Hand sanitizer, they make this
with three different kinds of alcohol, correct?
Absolutely true, they take grain alcohol
that you might buy at a liquor store,
but by law they have to modify it
to call denatured alcohol.
They make it bitter and toxic on purpose
so that it's not for human consumption
and will make you inebriated, it's true,
but will make you vomit and can put you into coma
with bleeding ulcers in your stomach.
And that's clearly labeled isopropyl alcohol.
There is also the fact that they can actually take
grain alcohol and make it into ethyl alcohol.
That's the scary one.
It starts as booze, but they have to,
again, denature it,
so by law it isn't qualified as alcohol.
Same thing, it can put you into coma,
but the big risk for Erica,
the reason that we have to figure out,
and you, I know, can help her, Dr. Phil,
is what's the brain disease she has.
Is that these are often laced with methanol.
That's the third alcohol.
Methanol is just playing with lethal fire
and it's basically Russian roulette.
When you pick up a box of hand sanitizer
you have no idea, because of quality issues,
whether they're made in the United States
or out of the country,
that that may be 80% methanol.
Methanol's called wood alcohol
and it can immediately cause blindness,
brain disease and death,
and there are, in fact, unfortunately,
are dozens of deaths in the United States
from ingesting methanol.