How to sober up fast: 11 ways that help

Eating is perhaps the most important way to flush alcohol out of your system. The toxins in alcohol can cause low blood sugar and even crashes, so it’s important to balance it out and get some food in your body. If you think you’re too nauseous to eat, try something light like eggs or crackers. Then later, when your body can handle it, try eating meats and other foods that are rich with Vitamin D. Fatigue causes many of the same symptoms as intoxication, which will magnify the effects of the alcohol. If you are fatigued before drinking, intoxication will intensify the symptoms. When someone is fatigued, the liver is less efficient at processing and/or eliminating alcohol, leading to the experience of a higher-than-normal BAC. Since the liver is responsible for metabolizing drugs other than alcohol, potentially dangerous alcohol-drug interactions can occur in both light and heavy drinkers. If you take prescription or over-the-counter medications, ask your healthcare provider for advice about alcohol intake.

Less than 10 percent is flushed out through water loss, such as breath, urine, and sweat. If you don’t have enough ADH or ALDH, your stomach will send the alcohol directly to the small intestine. From there, it hits your bloodstream and your brain, and you start feeling its effects. Joining a specialized program is ideal if you want to remove alcohol from your body. However, you can start educating yourself about alcohol and its effects if you want to learn and understand how to flush alcohol out of your system.

Ways to Detox Your Body After Drinking

A single drink may only be present for as little as three hours, while a night of binge drinking could result in alcohol remaining in your blood for up to 24 hours. It would be very uncommon to find alcohol in your blood after 24 hours, even with heavy alcohol use. If someone with alcohol problems also battles depression, Sober House their symptoms may worsen when drinking. Similarly, people with anxiety who drink heavily may experience stressful emotions that can cause a change in the stomach’s enzymes, which affects how a person breaks down alcohol. Heavy drinking can eliminate vitamins and minerals from the body, which can lead to a hangover.

For people of the same weight, even the same gender, individuals with a lower percentage of body fat will have lower BAC’s than those with a higher percentage of body fat. It should not be used in place of the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. While92-98% of alcohol is metabolized in the liver, the remaining 2-8% leaves the body through urine, sweat and breath. Some drugs can show up in a person’s urine for days or weeks, but alcohol has a much shorter detection window. A urine screening can typically detect ethanol — the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages — forup to 12 hours. When you’re trying to flush the alcohol out of your system, you must be honest with yourself. While having a couple of extra drinks one night is fair-game, recognizing that you have a drinking problem is a very different situation. Our body is so marvelous that it can help us flush out alcohol through sweating, breathing, and urinating. The rest of the contents go through the liver, which starts the detoxifying process.

Is there a safe approach to drinking?

Detoxing won’t necessarily remove all the toxins from your body right away, but it can help the alcohol flush out more easily. Some popular ways to fight a hangover like drinking coffee and taking a shower, for example, may make you feel better in the moment but do not have any effect on your BAC. The FHE Health team is committed to providing accurate information that adheres to the highest standards of writing. This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure FHE Health is trusted as a leader in mental health and addiction care.

For every person, no matter the size, the liver will only digest one standard drink per hour. This keeps the liver from being overloaded; it enables a person to maintain a safe BAC and achieve the social relaxation effect most desire. At The Recovery Village Columbus, we understand how alcoholism affects people and can help those struggling with alcohol the fastest way to get alcohol out of your system achieve lasting sobriety. If you or someone you care about is struggling to stop using alcohol, our experts are ready to help. Contact us today to learn how we can help you start your journey to a healthier, alcohol-free future. Your body will metabolize alcohol at a specific rate, and there is not much you can do to speed up that process.

These symptoms are meant to serve as deterrants against drinking. In terms of BAC, alcohol is typically eliminated at a rate of 0.015 per hour. If you have a BAC of 0.08, then it will take about 5.5 hours for your body to process and eliminate the alcohol you drank. Women typically have higher body fat percentage and lower percentage of body water compared to men, so women will process alcohol slower.

• Food can either absorb alcohol, or simply “take up space” so the alcohol does not enter the bloodstream through contact with the wall of the stomach.
• This is important since alcohol drinks often leave you dehydrated.
• We link primary sources — including studies, scientific references, and statistics — within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom of our articles.

Some rehab programs also use these tests to monitor people in treatment and identify potential relapse. The older a person is, the longer alcohol stays in their liver meaning unprocessed alcohol remains in the bloodstream longer. Another reason why you might sweat from alcohol is while you’re withdrawing. This is one of the natural responses to alcohol detoxing and is commonly found in those who had an addiction to alcohol and are coming off of the substance. Medical researchers believe more than 90 percent of alcohol is oxidized by the liver.

What is blood alcohol concentration (BAC)?

Drinking lots of water helps supply your kidneys with the fluid it needs to flush alcohol and its toxins out of the body. When first starting detox, it helps to drink as much water as you can stand. And ultimately, the best way to avoid having to flush alcohol out of your system is by drinking responsibly. Alcohol is a toxin that needs to be eliminated from the body in order for us to function normally. 10% of this toxin can be naturally released through bodily functions such as sweating, breathing, and urinating. The rest is up to the liver, which takes over the detoxifying process. Slight improvements in mood occur at a BAC of approximately (.02-.05). Feelings of depression and anxiety prior to drinking can increase or become exaggerated during and after drinking. Stress emotions such as depression, anxiety, and anger can also cause a change in the enzymes in the stomach, thus affecting how one processes alcohol. Refer to the drink equivalency pagefor details on alcohol content of specific drinks.

There are many myths and tips for beating a breathalyzer but most are fiction. Attempting to use mints or mouthwash may cover up the smell but do not actually change the amount of alcohol you exhale. The myth of ‘sucking on a penny’ or keeping one under your tongue also does not hold any truth. However, the biomarkers — or physical evidence — that you consumed alcohol can be present for days or even weeks and are detectable by other specialty tests.

Recognize that even herbal medicines and supplements can have adverse interactions with alcohol. Around 60% of the human body is water, making hydration an important part of every process in the body. Alcohol depletes water in your body, removing more fluid than an alcoholic beverage you drink can replace. Staying hydrated will enable your body to metabolize alcohol as quickly as it can.

First, it physically obstructs the alcohol from coming in contact with the stomach lining. Food can either absorb alcohol, or simply “take up space” so the alcohol does not enter the bloodstream through contact with the wall of the stomach. Caffeine is a stimulant, which can perk you up and reverse some of alcohol’s effects. If you don’t like drinking water straight up, you can add a little flavoring to it. Alcohol flushing is eliminating or flushing out all the alcohol in your body. Since your body is already chemically adjusted to the regular presence of alcohol in your system, flushing can be quite challenging.

Urine tests can detect alcohol long after you’ve had your last drink by testing for traces of alcohol metabolites. The average urine test can detect alcohol up to 12 hours after drinking. However, more advanced testing can measure alcohol in the urine 24 hours after drinking. Mixing different types of alcoholic drinks can rapidly bring up BAC levels and make a person feel and appear intoxicated much more quickly than if they stick to one kind only. However, this is more likely due to how mixing drinks may cause a person to consume a larger amount of alcohol in a short period of time. There’s a difference between a blood alcohol content test, which measures how much alcohol is in your system, and a test designed simply to determine if therewasalcohol in your system. BAC tests can be unreliable if they aren’t performed correctly, and many people attempt to influence the test by trying to delay or contaminate it.

It is illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.08 or higher, and this limit may be lower for commercial vehicle drivers and those younger than 21. A person can still commit the offense of driving under the influence if they are under the BAC limit. Therefore, it is advisable to make alternative plans to get home if driving. Alcohol roughly leaves the body at an average rate of 0.015 grams per 100 milliliters per hour. This translates to reducing a person’s BAC level by 0.015 per hour. Not taking medications, including over-the-counter drugs, while consuming alcohol. Alcohol may make medications stronger or interact with them, making them ineffective or dangerous. Some proponents suggest that carbon or charcoal capsules, which people can buy in health food stores, may help with sobering up. Exercise can help wake up the body and make a person more alert. However, there is currently no strong evidence to suggest that exercise can help metabolize alcohol quicker.