After a big night out you may still be over your legal alcohol limit for much of the next day. After a heavy night of drinking, it can take more than 18 hours for your blood alcohol concentration to get back to zero. Many people are booked for drink driving the next day.
It would take roughly five hours and 20 minutes for you to completely metabolize all of the alcohol you consumed and get back down to 0.00 percent. And that is just if you start at 0.08, which is right at the legal limit.
How do I stay below 0.05? There's no amount of drinking that guarantees you'll stay under 0.05% BAC. It generally takes the body about 1 hour to process 1 standard drink. However, two people can drink the same amount of alcohol and have different BACs.
How Fast Can You Sober Up? Alcohol leaves the body at an average rate of 0.015 g/100mL/hour, which is the same as reducing your BAC level by 0.015 per hour.
There isn't any real trick to lower your BAC faster than normal. Once the alcohol is absorbed into your system, that's it. The only thing you can do is have something to eat BEFORE you start drinking, as it will help your liver break down alcohol slightly faster.
In some cases, the breathalyzer may detect alcohol for up to 12 hours. In other individuals, the breathalyzer test may work for twice that long. Although the average person metabolizes about 1 alcoholic drink per hour, this rate varies.
Contrary to popular belief, nothing can lower BAC except time; coffee, cold showers, and chugging glasses of water will not help you sober up any faster. Curious what your BAC might be?
After Six Drinks
Six drinks will produce a BAC of about 0.12 unless the alcohol consumed over a long period of time.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to how fast it rises, such as your weight and your gender, but most people are going to see their BAC drop at roughly the same rate. This rate is 0.015 % per hour, or very close to that standard.
Eating food, either before or while drinking, essentially slows absorption rates. Slower rates mean that less alcohol enters a person's bloodstream (when compared to a drinker that does not eat). This reduction of alcohol in the blood translates into reduced levels of blood alcohol concentration.
The general rule of thumb is that 2 standard drinks in the first hour will raise your BAC to 0.05%, and 1 standard per hour thereafter will maintain that level. To do a quick calculation of whether you are over 0.05% BAC, simply take the number of hours since your first drink and add 1 to it.
The liver is the main body organ that removes alcohol from your bloodstream. Alcohol is processed at a fixed rate. It generally takes about one hour to break down the alcohol content of one standard drink.
On an empty stomach, blood alcohol concentration peaks about one hour after consumption, depending on the amount drunk; it then declines in a more or less linear manner for the next four hours.
A general rule of thumb is not to drive if you feel even the slightest effects of drinking. If you must take a drink or two, remember that our bodies metabolize one drink per hour. You might feel like you're good to go if you wait a few hours after drinking, especially if you dilute the alcohol by drinking water.
Generally, a breathalyzer test can test positive for alcohol for up to 12 hours after consuming one alcoholic drink. The average urine test can also detect alcohol 12-48 hours later. If your BAC is 0.08, it will take approximately 5 hours to metabolize the alcohol completely before you can become “sober” again.
man - 8 drinks in 4 hours = . 168% BAC minus (. 015% elimination rate x 4hrs) = . 060% of the alcohol has been metabolized.
For every one drink, your BAC goes up by about 0.02 percent, so reaching a BAC of 0.08 percent takes about four to five drinks. However, that does not take into account any of the various factors that contribute to how you process alcohol.
The best way to lower your blood alcohol level is to drink less alcohol…! Techniques that help include counting your drinks, slowing down, hydrating and eating food. Remember it takes at least one hour to process each drink.
Specifically, hyperventilation and drinking water before using the breathalyzer were shown to significantly lower the BrAC readings. Breath analyzer operators should be cognizant of these methods that may lead to falsely lower BrAC readings.
Vinegar – Some types of vinegar are made from wine and contain trace amounts of alcohol. Not nearly enough to cause impairment, but possibly enough to lead to a false positive.
So, while a cold shower may make sobering up a cleaner experience, it has no effect on the rate of lowering the blood alcohol level.
Alcohol is distributed in tissues according to water content. A person's weight and sex determine the total volume of body water and, therefore, the BAC after drinking a certain amount of alcohol. In general, the more a person weighs, the larger the volume of body water and the lower the BAC.
Carbonated drinks such as mixed drinks with sodas may increase the rate at which alcohol passes through your stomach and result in a higher BAC.