Come on guys
The amount of alcohol and trace of a `drug` used for a cold will have had no affect on their performance once the aircraft had started its take off roll. Far more likely is that it was a cold frosty the guys probably turned up got the APU cranked up, wamed the aircraft up, jackets off a quick walk roundinto that cold still bright morning, saw no ICE on the wing (they looked at) and off they went, the rest is history
I very nearly saw a BRAL J41 get caught out a couple of years back at Aberdeen, remeber when the BA computers crashed, well these guy had to sit on the ramp for about 3 hours in Feb?March? nice day CAVOK as the sun went down the temp plunged, these guys were sat there in their short sleave shirts with warm air pumped in from a ground supply, as i took my seat i could see the wings had frost on them in the apron lights. i thought they might be waiting for the pax to board before de-icing, but no they weren't aware of the frost, after the hostie did a welcome aboard i asked to let me speak to the Captain before he started his engines, as they were already late he wasn't best pleased, but he got the ground engineer(who was already hooked up) to do a check, he confirmed that the wings did now have frost on them and they had to de-ice, as lesson for them, for me and i hope for all. It might be warm when you leave the sunny south, but i gets cold bloody quickly up north, buy a jumper and always do a walk round before you go or get the ground guy to do a last check if there is any doubt