(Newser) – Talk about a hair of the dog that bit you: A New Zealand man went into surgery after literally drinking himself blind this summer, and doctors cured him with a healthy dose of Johnny Walker Black, the New Zealand Herald reports. Denis Duthie, 65, was celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary by drinking vodka—when he suddenly found he had "gone completely blind," he says. "I thought it had got dark and I'd missed out on a bit of time but it was only about half past three in the afternoon."

At the hospital doctors realized Duthie probably had methanol poisoning from the vodka, which reacted badly with his diabetes medication. They wanted to treat it with ethanol, a common type of alcohol, but didn't have any—so the registrar ran out for a bottle of whisky. Doctors dripped it into Duthie's stomach through a tube, and lo and behold, he could see again five days later. It's "a well established treatment," says a medicine specialist. "If the patient's awake they can just drink it." Stuff reports that Duthie hasn't had a single drink since: "I'll be taking it easy," he says. (Read more blindness stories.)

