So apparently after drinking it takes 1hr to lose 1 unit of alcohol from your body.
If you’re in the pub drinking for five hours, has your body already processed the first 5 units of alcohol by the time you leave, or does it not start until you physically stop drinking?

Fill yer boots!

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-long-for-booze-to-leave-the-body

dont even try and work it out, just dont do it.

does it not start until you physically stop drinking?

How would it know?

Don’t even suggest you might buy a morning after breathalyser or you’ll be flamed for that also. Everyone on here is teetotal when it suits them or the specific post.

Hampshire Police posted up a good calculator on twitter (search for @hantspolroads) a couple of days back. Quite big variations between drink types / measures.

I wasn’t asking because I fancy my chances of breaking the law, I just thought about it when I was on my way back from a training course today which was discussing drink driving.
I just like answers to my own random questions which I’m too daft to know the answer to.

I looked for some official guidance on this and couldn’t find anything. As far as I could tell, there’s no rule of thumb as it depends massively on a lot of different factors, so providing any official rule of thumb would be stupid as some people would go out, drink what that rule of thumb says and then go and kill someone.

Personally I don’t drink a drop if I’m driving, the impact of killing someone would be too great and for the sake of a couple of drinks, what’s the point

Ages since I had to do it in detail but basically you start metabolising once you absorb the alcohol so theoretically you could drink continuously but never go over the limit if you really pased yourself. However you drink at a far higher rate than you metabolise so best to actually not bother trying to be clever and don’t ever combine the two and avoid driving the next day after a heavy session.

I wasn’t asking because I fancy my chances of breaking the law,

Its a fair question to ask regardless as people will have the odd few drinks at any time of year and being aware of when you’re almost certainly clear/safe is a really really useful thing to know if you act cautiously on that knowledge that .

I just like answers to my own random questions which I’m too daft to know the answer to.

+1 random knowledge often the most interesting!

The alcohol needs to be in your liver before it gets metabolised, so there’ll be a delay until it gets there. That delay will depend on how much food you have in your stomach. Could be anything from a couple of minutes to about twenty maybe, at a guess?

You count from when you start drinking not when you stop.

. Everyone on here is teetotal when it suits them or the specific post.

I’m not teetotal but I don’t drink and drive or even risk it the day after.

Don’t even suggest you might buy a morning after breathalyser or you’ll be flamed for that also. Everyone on here is teetotal when it suits them or the specific post.

I’ve played about with them a bit and the only conclusion I’ve drawn is that how you feel is a very poor indicator of how much alcohol is in your system.

@shermer – 20 mind sounds about right. For a road side breath test, you need to confirm that the time between the last drink and the test is a min of 20 minutes… Which implies that it takes that time to enter the body, and for any residue to leave the mouth.

If you can calculate it with confidence then you can drive. That’s the law.

See the rates of people being caught drink driving had reduced dramatically since the limit was lowered here.

I still find it amazing that you’ve only got to go back one generation to find that drink driving was more or less ‘acceptable’.

It was certainly acceptable in my first few years at work. It was normal to drive along to the pub on our evening break, order a round each (4 of us) drive back, do a couple of hours work and then drive home.

Drac
I’m not teetotal but I don’t drink and drive or even risk it the day after.

A sensible mantra – but I am wondering what that really means:

[list][*]If you had a single glass (125mL) of wine with your dinner tonight (Wed 7pm-8pm) when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?[/*]
[*]If you had shared a couple of bottles of wine between four (Wed 7pm – 9pm) and then had a glass of port and a couple of generous whiskies, finishing up at midnight when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?[/*]
[*]If it was a “proper party” consisting of 3 G&Ts at 5-7pm, a glass of fizz, then a bottle of wine, a couple of ports and those whiskies, finishing at 2am when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?[/*][/list]

Now if you got a phone call at 3pm “tomorrow” with a crisis 50 miles away in an area poorly served by public transport which really needed your attention (perhaps a very sick close relative in hospital)… would that change your answer?

If you had a single glass (125mL) of wine with your dinner tonight (Wed 7pm-8pm) when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

On very rare occasions maybe 2 hours after but normally I just don’t drive.

If you had shared a couple of bottles of wine between four (Wed 7pm – 9pm) and then had a glass of port and a couple of generous whiskies, finishing up at midnight when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

10 to 12 hours later I’d consider it.

If it was a “proper party” consisting of 3 G&Ts at 5-7pm, a glass of fizz, then a bottle of wine, a couple of ports and those whiskies, finishing at 2am when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

I’d probably not bother until the morning of the next day.

Now if you got a phone call at 3pm “tomorrow” with a crisis 50 miles away in an area poorly served by public transport which really needed your attention (perhaps a very sick close relative in hospital)… would that change your answer?

Describes my town. Ring a relative or a friend it’s not a difficult question.

I’m even more conservative than Drac 😆

1/ The following morning
2/ The following afternoon/evening
3/ The following morning (i.e. 30 hours or so)
4/ Get a friend or relative to drive me

Drac – On very rare occasions maybe 2 hours after but normally I just don’t drive.
10 to 12 hours later I’d consider it.
I’d probably not bother until the morning of the next day.
Describes my town. Ring a relative or a friend it’s not a difficult question.

That’s my point – the “don’t drive at all even the following day” mantra falls down if people genuinely have one or two glasses of wine. If I understand correctly its only the third case that you’d not consider driving when something happens the next afternoon (you may of course not be at home or in a position where you know anyone else who can drive – I’m not trying to suggest there is a justification for being over the limit). The point of rules of thumb is so that people can understand exactly these questions.

I also know someone who won’t have a glass of wine at lunchtime and then drive at 10pm, but who will finish half a bottle at 11pm and drive at 6am! Sometimes rules of thumb are useful to point out the bleeding obvious to people!

If you had a single glass (125mL) of wine with your dinner tonight (Wed 7pm-8pm) when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

Immediately. That amount would barely register. 0.007% blood alcohol according to http://www.rupissed.com/

If you had shared a couple of bottles of wine between four (Wed 7pm – 9pm) and then had a glass of port and a couple of generous whiskies, finishing up at midnight when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

I’m more of a beer drinker. If I had 5 pints of 4.9% beer finishing at midnight. I’d drive at 9am.

Blood alcohol would be at 0.019 (Legal limit 0.5%)

If it was a “proper party” consisting of 3 G&Ts at 5-7pm, a glass of fizz, then a bottle of wine, a couple of ports and those whiskies, finishing at 2am when is the first time you’d be happy to drive?

I never drink that much these days. Years ago I breathalysed myself at 7am after a good few pints in the pub the night before. Totally clear.

Whole industry of experts out there who specialise in “back calculations”. That is working out blood alcohol level hours before a specific measurement is taken. Even with exact weight, age and other factors known there is massive range of possible figures due to un measurable (easily at least) personal criteria such as metabolic rate and liver function. In short its all a guess and game of averages so you are gambling on your licence and others safety! That said i didnt fall off my bike on the way home after a few beers tonight so I must be fine.

(Legal limit 0.5%)

No its 0.05% in Scotland
and 0.08% in England/Wales/NI

No its 0.05% in Scotland

My mistake. Still well under the limit though.

In short its all a guess and game of averages so you are gambling on your licence and others safety!

It’s not much of a gamble when various calculators put me well below the limit. I’m confident I’m below the limit when driving

Putting it in perspective – I wish a fraction of the effort that is put into drink drive campaigns was put into anti mobile phone use campaigns. Using a mobile while driving is more dangerous than driving at the legal limit but gets only 3 pts and a small fine.

Driving performance under the influence of alcohol was significantly worse than normal driving, yet better than driving while using a phone. Drivers also reported that it was easier to drive drunk than to drive while using a phone. It is concluded that driving behaviour is impaired more during a phone conversation than by having a blood alcohol level at the UK legal limit (80mg / 100ml). (A)

http://www.trl.co.uk/reports-publications/report/?reportid=2698

It also depends on whether a drink is fizzy; straight spirits take a longer time to get out of your stomach and into your system than the same drink with a fizzy tonic, cola, etc

The one unit per hour is a total guess for an individual. As above, nobody knows…

Obviously it’s what bikes are for…..

(and yes I know, it’s a joke, and yes I do know that too)

They should bring back those boxes in pubs – you put a coin in, breathed into the machine and it told you your blood alcohol level. Due to my small stature, I always won that game.