The article addresses this. One hypothesis is that the cold shock counteracted the vasodilation, and being drunk allowed him to make it through the cold shock without drowning. How he managed to not go hypothermic is unclear, but maybe paddling around without noticing the fatigue or pain was enough to keep him going until he found the overturned boat.

> being drunk allowed him to make it through the cold shock without drowning.

He had a life belt on, so he wouldn't have drowned. Being drunk might've prevented a heart attack brought on by cold water shock.

I am not sure that drinking alcohol wastes energy. It contains a lot of calories, more than sugar. I also haven’t heard about people drinking alcohol to lose weight.

People lose a lot of weight on beer only fasts… there is also a long history of trappist monks doing beer only fasts for religious reasons, and presumably losing a lot of weight.

My understanding is they are usually using high carb low alcohol beer, so it’s more of a liquid only low fat diet than an alcohol diet.

Alcohol is a vasodilator so maybe you'd lose more heat that way.

Vomiting won’t retain calories which happens when you are “spectacularly drunk”.

Someone is clearly not an experienced drunk (joke, joke)

Appoximately 7 kcal per gramm vs 4 kcal per gramm for sugar