The average rate of alcohol withdrawal from the body is about 0.1 ppm per hour, Andrey Bolonkin, a psychiatrist-narcologist from the Zdravnitsa professional treatment and rehabilitation center, told socialbites.ca. To determine whether it is possible to drive, you need to multiply the volume of the drink by its strength in liters.
“So, if 0.5 liters of hard drink is drunk in the evening (vodka, cognac, whiskey, etc.), then it turns out: 40×0.5 = 20. So alcohol will leave the body after 20 hours. This means that full sobriety will come in the evening of the next day.
At the same time, it should be taken into account that the rate of alcohol withdrawal may be different for different people, depending on different parameters (weight, state of health, gender, etc.). For example, in women this rate is less, and in overweight people it is more, – noted Bolonkin.
Alcohol is excreted at different rates from different beverages. It enters the body faster than carbonated drinks and exits faster. For example, 0.5 liters of beer with a hardness of 4% leaves the body of a man in 1.5-3 hours, depending on the mass. In women, you can safely add another hour, the narcologist said.
100 ml of sparkling wine completely leaves the body of a healthy man weighing 80-90 kg in 50 minutes. The doctor calculated that this figure is higher in women – they need more than 2 hours to completely break down the ethanol contained in 100 ml of champagne.
“It turns out that after drinking a bottle you have to wait at least 8 hours before you can drive. If an 18% wine with a volume of 500 milliliters was drunk, then a person of average weight should wait at least 10 hours. If you drink a bottle of wine the day before, then the next day it is better to go to work by public transport, ”explained Bolonkin.
It all depends on the kidneys and liver.
If an average-weight man drinks strong alcohol – vodka, for example – 20-25 grams of alcohol per hour is metabolized, Dmitry Movchan, deputy chief physician of the medical department of the Marshak Clinic, told socialbites.ca.
If the driver has to go on a trip the next morning after a feast, he should not drink alcohol stronger than champagne (up to 16 degrees).
“Firstly, drinks are not stronger than champagne, so it will be easier for the body to metabolize alcohol. The longer the vodka stays in the body, the more energy it needs to process it. “There are diseases where this process is greatly slowed down — kidney and liver disease,” he said.
Drivers can use forensic expert tables to calculate the time it takes for alcohol to be eliminated from the body,
The psychiatrist-narcologist Alexander Kovtun, found on the Internet, gave advice in an interview with socialbites.ca.
“There you can enter the strength of the drink, the weight of a person, take into account the amount of water drunk and food eaten, get data when the alcohol concentration drops by 50% and is completely excreted from the body. Even the nature of motor activity is taken into account,” Kovtun said.
hard morning
The best liquid-containing products to accelerate the elimination of alcohol from the body, stressed psychiatrist and narcologist Andrey Bolonkin. In this case, water helps a lot because of its diuretic effect. Not only will it speed up the elimination of alcohol from the body, but it will also help you feel better the next day.
“A good effect will be if you drink at least 0.5 liters of water after drinking alcohol. Coffee and tea also show some effect due to the metabolism-accelerating effect of caffeine,” said the doctor.
Fatty foods can help reduce the harm that alcohol does to the body, including by reducing the absorption of ethanol from the gastrointestinal tract: meat, milk, lard, vegetable oils, since fat covers the walls of the stomach and intestines in a certain amount. Alcohol does not just penetrate the blood.
Simply put, you need a snack, the doctor said.
without energy drinks
Dmitry Movchan said that during the holidays, drivers should not eat foods containing certain animal or vegetable fats – alcohol slows down its processing. These include butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, fatty fish and meat. Smoking at the same time as drinking alcohol is not worth it.
Carbohydrates, in combination with carbon dioxide (fresh sparkling water), positively affect the decomposition process of ethyl alcohol.
According to the doctor, some drivers use energy drinks after a drunken feast, believing that it will help them recover faster the next morning.
“Drivers believe that energy drinks increase concentration and invigorate. They even contain a large amount of caffeine, which has a diuretic effect, removes trace elements from the body and only aggravates the condition of the intoxicated person,” he said.
Movchan also added that some people buy drugs from pharmacies that are supposed to fight hangovers and get rid of alcohol from the body.
The doctor emphasized that it is useless to use them – such drugs do not work, and their effectiveness has not been proven.
In any case, the interlocutors of socialbites.ca should understand that if you need to drive in the morning, the amount of alcohol drunk the previous day should be minimal.
illegal raids
Closer to the New Year and on holidays, the traffic police actively conduct raids, stopping all cars in a row. It doesn’t matter if there are signs of drunkenness – everyone is offered to “purify” or immediately sent to a mobile medical examination station, warned Viktor Travin, chairman of the Board of Car Owners’ Legal Protection.
“This is a universal way of identifying drunk drivers. If there are no signs of intoxication, then “liquidation” at the on-site or narcologist doctor is in principle unacceptable, because this is not prescribed by law, but unfortunately, traffic cops do it, “Travin said.
According to the lawyer, traffic inspectors should take a closer look at drivers with signs of drunkenness, patrol restaurants and other establishments and carry a breathalyzer – this should be the purpose of the raid.
Travin recalled that the symptoms of poisoning were unsteady gait, alcohol odor from the mouth, skin rash, and inappropriate behavior. In this case, the traffic inspector draws up a protocol on suspension from driving. In the presence of two witnesses or under a videotape, the driver is offered to “blow into the tube”. If he refuses, he is referred for medical examination, either on a mobile station or by a narcologist.
Travin noted that traffic inspectors often fail to comply with the requirements of driver sobriety checks.
“Incomplete video footage, the driver is not told about his rights and obligations, the witness rights are not disclosed, the consequences of refusing a medical examination are not explained to the driver,” the source said. –
Traffic cops say that you can go further and there will be no problems, but the driver does not know that the same responsibility is imposed on drunk driving – a fine of 30 thousand rubles and deprivation of rights .
It means that the driver is not ready to be examined on the spot, that is, he wants to be tested by a doctor, but the traffic cops mislead the driver. Traffic inspectors give the driver a referral protocol for a medical examination, and he, without reading it, signs a refusal in it.
He advised the drivers not to argue with the traffic police and not to waste time, not to take the exam in order not to lose their rights.
Also, National Automobile Association (NAS) vice president Anton Shaparin said traffic inspectors often fail to abide by the rule of law, which mandates getting the driver out of control before doing an inspection.
“Sometimes the traffic inspector uses a personal breathalyzer instead of an official one, hoping to get bribes thanks to fake results. We have also encountered many times when traffic inspectors did not take the driver from the hospital and back to the vehicle after the narcologist’s examination,” he said.