You might be wondering how long does alcohol stay in your system if you’ve had a couple of drinks and you want to drive home. Perhaps you just feel nauseous and want it to leave your system quickly.
Generally, the average liver can process 1 ounce of alcohol every hour. The length of time alcohol stays in the body varies based on several factors, including your weight, age, gender, and the medications you take.
How Long Does Alcohol Stay in Your System?
Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant with a relatively short life span. On average, it takes the body one hour to metabolize one drink, which equals one can of beer (12 ounces), one small glass of wine (5 fluid ounces), or a single shot (1.5 fluid ounces).
Factors That Affect Alcohol Metabolism
Several factors affect how fast the liver breaks down alcohol in your body. These things include:
- Age – Older adults metabolize alcohol slower (that’s why hangovers become worse as you age).
- Food – If you eat or snack before drinking, less alcohol is absorbed, which allows your body to process alcohol more efficiently.
- Biological sex – Females produce less of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which helps the liver process alcohol. Therefore, women metabolize alcohol slower compared with males. Females also have a lower percentage of water in their bodies than males, which means they would have a higher concentration of alcohol in their bodies when drinking.
- Health conditions – Some health problems, including liver and kidney disease, can make it harder for your body to metabolize alcohol.
- Binge drinking – If you binge drink (more than four drinks in two hours if you are a female and five drinks if you are a male), it will take your body longer to metabolize the alcohol.
Can You Get Alcohol out of Your System Faster?
Despite popular myths, drinking a bunch of water or coffee won’t flush alcohol out of your system faster. Neither will taking a cold shower or exercising. There’s no magic cure to sober up faster. Your body naturally metabolizes alcohol at a certain rate, and you just have to wait for it to complete this process.
How Long Can Alcohol Be Detected?
Alcohol can be discovered via urine, blood, saliva, breath, and hair. Depending on the type of test used, alcohol can be detected up to 90 days after you last used it.
Urine
Alcohol can be detected in the urine up to 72 hours after the last use (ethyl glucuronide test) or up to 12 hours with a traditional UDS screen.
Breath
A breathalyzer is a device that measures a person’s blood alcohol levels via breath. These tests detect only recent alcohol use — usually up to 24 hours after your last drink.
Blood
These tests are done at a lab, and some (carbohydrate-deficient transferrin tests) can detect heavy alcohol use. Standard blood tests detect alcohol 12 hours after use.
Saliva
A saliva test can indicate alcohol use for up to 48 hours after consumption. These tests are inexpensive and often used by employers.
Hair
Unlike breath, blood, and saliva, alcohol can be detected in the hair for much longer periods — up to 90 days. Hair tests look for the alcohol marker ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair follicles.
How Long After Drinking Can You Breastfeed?
Alcohol can be detected in breast milk about two hours after drinking. Therefore, most experts recommend waiting at least two to three hours after your last drink to breastfeed or pump. This does depend on how fast your body metabolizes alcohol.
Self-Assessment: Am I Addicted?
How Does the Body Process Alcohol?
When you drink wine, beer, liquor, or another alcoholic beverage, it is rapidly absorbed into your bloodstream.
Alcohol is then quickly absorbed into the stomach and small intestines. The liver enzymes then metabolize the alcohol by breaking down the alcohol molecules. The liver removes about 90 percent of the alcohol from the blood. The rest is removed through urine, skin, and saliva.
The Effects of Alcohol
The effects of alcohol kick in pretty quickly after you take your first drink. As it reaches your brain, you immediately feel relaxed and euphoric. This is referred to as being “tipsy” or “buzzed.”
How do you know when you’re drunk? If you are drunk, you might experience:
- Impaired coordination and loss of balance
- Unstable emotions (crying or laughing for no apparent reason)
- Tiredness or drowsiness
- Blurry vision
Alcohol Poisoning
No matter how much alcohol you drink, your body can only metabolize so much at a time. Consuming large amounts of alcohol before your body has a chance to process it can result in alcohol poisoning, which can be fatal. Symptoms of this include:
- Slow heart rate
- Confusion
- Extreme sleepiness
- Vomiting (even while unconscious)
- Pale or clammy skin
- Hypothermia or low body temperature
- Seizures
- Irregular, slow breathing
If someone is experiencing alcohol poisoning, it’s an emergency. Call 911 (in the U.S.) and stay with the person until help arrives.
Alcohol Abuse
Drinking large amounts of alcohol at one time isn’t good for the body. If you drink alcohol, you should only consume it with caution. Remember that alcohol may be present in your system, even if you don’t feel drunk. The key is to drink responsibly.
- Don’t get behind the wheel if you have been drinking
- Limit how much you drink
- Don’t drink if you are pregnant
- Don’t drink if you are taking drugs that interact with alcohol like benzodiazepines
Drinking too frequently or too much can have an impact on your health. Like any drug, alcohol abuse can lead to an addiction or alcohol use disorder (AUD). Signs of an alcohol use disorder include:
- Spend a lot of time drinking
- Have tried one or more times to cut back but are unable to do so
- Have problems with work or family relationships because of drinking
- Keep drinking despite health problems that are worsened by alcohol use
- Legal problems (such as DUIs) related to alcohol use
- Strong alcohol cravings that you can’t seem to resist
- Constantly drinking more than you intend to
- Giving up important social activities or hobbies to drink
- Needing to drink more alcohol to achieve the same result
Getting Help for Alcohol Abuse
If you have difficulty reducing the amount of alcohol you drink or you engage in risky behaviors like drinking and driving, it’s important to know that help is available. Professional substance abuse treatment can help you safely stop using alcohol and begin your journey toward long-term sobriety.
Footprints to Recovery can help if you or a loved one is struggling with Alcoholism. With detox, inpatient treatment, and outpatient programs, our rehab facilities in Chicago, Denver, and New Jersey provide a broad spectrum of programs. For a free, private consultation with one of our admissions advisers, give us a call right now. You have the right to lead an addiction-free life.
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- https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/alcohol-and-the-brain
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527027/
- https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding-special-circumstances/hcp/vaccine-medication-drugs/alcohol.html
- https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-long-does-alcohol-stay-in-your-system
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- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/
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