Drink Spiking - is this story true or false?

The words will reveal all

I spend a lot of time pointing out deception here, so it’s a refreshing change to look at some words which are truthful.

I’ve written about spiking stories before and pointed out how many of the stories that make the news contain numerous elements of deception. The account we’re going to look at was published last week.

BBC News (UK) @BBCNews

Teenager says she waited 34 hours for tests following drink spiking

bbc.inDrink spiking victim: I waited 34 hours for testsJess Insall, 19, collapsed in a Glasgow pub and woke up with no recollection of what had happened.

I went to the bathroom feeling fine and then woke up on the floor an hour later.

Normally, I’ll pick at the use of “and then” in an account of events, as it indicates a jump in time which is hiding something. Here the jump in time is the whole point, so it’s not an indicator of deception.

Deceptive accounts of spiking do often include “time jumping” phrases like “the next thing I know” which is more deceptive than “and then”.

I could not move. I was covered in sick. I had not had much to drink so I knew it was not just alcohol.

This section has 4 uses of “I”, an indicator of ownership and truthfulness. “I could not move” is very basic, it has no embellishment, there is nothing added to persuade us of its truth. Truthful people tend to state the truth very plainly, as is done here.

Deceptive spiking stories frequently seek to downplay the amount of alcohol taken, to persuade us that the effects they suffered can’t be solely down to excess drinking. That appears to be the case here too, but the wording is very different from deceptive stories. Deceptive stories often state the “exact” amount drunk, along the lines of “I only had a couple of drinks”.

Here she makes no attempt to put a number on it. She states factually “I had not had much to drink”, she is happy to say she had been drinking and doesn’t seek to downplay it. She further says that “it was not just alcohol”. Deceptive stories tend to rule out alcohol completely, here she acknowledges alcohol played a part, but that it doesn’t explain all of it.

Samples

I could not get samples that day, then there were no police on duty that evening who could take the samples.

It took 34 hours from the time I was spiked to the time I got the samples.

Twice she talks about her getting the samples. Not her giving the samples or providing the samples. Factually you don’t get samples, you get samples taken, that is you give the sample to someone else who takes it from you for processing.

Why does she do this? I believe it is showing what is important to her, she wants to know what caused her to black out that night. The samples will give her something.

Once again, there is no indication of deception.

I will probably never know what it was that was in my drink, or what it was that left me in that state that night.

One great lesson is that people who are being truthful are much more likely to say “I don’t know”. This is what is happening here. Deceptive stories around spiking often contain the victim claiming they “know” they’ve been spiked and how it happened.

How are you meant to have your own voice, which already feels very mixed-up and confused?

Again, this is similar to “I don’t know”, the person telling this story is admitting they are mixed up and confused. They don’t feel the need to state things with certainty because what is important to them is finding out what happened, they don’t have all the answers.

One thing missing from her words is any mention of anyone else. Deceptive spiking stories frequently include mentions of friends to provide “evidence” of how out of character the behaviour was, what a state they were in and how they needed help from other people after the event.

This person does not feel the need to bolster the story with any of that. Another indication of truth.

Compare her words with another person’s account of what happened to them

We were sitting talking and then the next minute I just had no ability to hold my upper body up at all

There’s that jump in time with “the next minute”. They are at pains to point out the severity by embellishing it with “I just” and “at all”. For some reason, they felt the need to add these words when “I wasn’t able to hold my upper body up” would convey the same meaning.

I've never behaved like that in my life, and I'm not going to behave like that after a couple of glasses of wine.

Full marks if you spotted the drink counting, and also she doesn't explicitly say that two glasses was all she had drunk. Only that she wouldn’t behave that way after a couple of glasses.

And “behaved” is a word that includes a degree of self-control or ownership. We own our behaviour. Spiking is about someone else controlling what you do.

Conclusion

The first account is truthful. There are no indicators of deception present, and it is a simple and clean account of a story. The words are a perfect example of how a truthful person would tell a spiking story.

More on spiking

Spiked? Or simply drunk?

Spiking stories - true or false?