Time After Time
Alcohol Intake
By PePe A.C.

Ari S. believes in drinking “lots and lots and lots” of coffee before heading home from any “Friday or Saturday nights out of painting the town red,” he says, insisting on how “it (drinking coffee, or any hot beverage, for that matter) easily makes me sober up.”  This way, he believes he can drive (if/when he brought a car with him) his friends and himself home; or, when his parents are visiting, he can come home not drunk, “something my mother particularly notices, and expresses her disapproval of.”

Thus far, Ari S. has yet to be caught “by law enforcers or whatever, and by my mother,” he says, so that he believes “what I do is really working, right?  Everyone’s got their way of sobering up quickly; mine just happens to be drinking coffee, lots and lots and lots of it.”

By “other ways of sobering up,” Ari S. means the other practices that many do in the belief that, through these, they can drink even more with the drunken effect easily removed, anyway – from eating before alcohol bingeing to splashing cold water on the face (or taking cold shower) to eating White Rabbit or Stork or Mentos to trick breathalyzer machines.  Most going out on drinking sprees have a trick or two, or at least know of a trick or two, on how best to sober up – quickly.

According to The Police Notebook (ou.edu), however, “drinking a lot of coffee after drinking too much alcohol (cannot sober you up quickly, though it may) increase your discomfort through the need to use the bathroom while being transported to the jail on driving under the influence (DUI) charges.”  On eating a heavy meal before drinking: “How much you have eaten, and how recently, may have a small effect on how quickly or slowly the alcohol you consume will enter your bloodstream — but it won't stop the alcohol from entering.  If you drink too much, you will become intoxicated.  There may be, however, a direct correlation between the size of your meal and how much of your meal may be found later in (cars) and jail cells.”  On splashing cold water on the face: “Splash away!  And by all means, take a cold shower. It may make you cleaner, but it won't sober you up or make you a safe driver.”  And on eating mints: “Eating mints will not affect your blood alcohol content (BAC) level since it isn't the smell of your breath, but the alcohol content, that's measured.”

There are other beliefs, of course.

But for The Police Notebook, “nothing sobers up a drinker except time.”  Thus, in Ari S.’s case, it’s not the coffee itself that helps sober him up, but the time it takes to finish a cup/mug of coffee (especially when it is scalding hot).  And obviously, the more alcohol consumed, the longer the time needed to sober up.

Understanding alcohol is, therefore, important –e.g. discussions on just how alcohol one is taking in that shot of El Hombre Tequila (as opposed to Jose Cuervo), or a glass of Cossack Vodka (as opposed to Absolut), et cetera with the understanding of the alcohol by volume (ABV, the “standard measure of how much ethanol alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage,” defines Wikipedia.org).
A quick run-through, as stated by Wikipedia.org, of typical ABV levels:

TYPICAL ABV LEVELS

• Fruit juice (naturally occurring): less than 0.1%
• Low alcohol beer: 0.0%–4%
• Beer: 4%–12% (most often 4%–6%)
• Specialty beers: (13%–25%)
• Barley wine: 10%–15%
• Cider: 4%–8%
• Alcopops: 4%–17.5%
• Wine: 9%–16% (most often 12.5%–14.5%)
• Fortified wine: 18%–20%
• Liqueurs: 15%–55%
• Spirits: 15%–95%
• Soju: 20%-45% (usually 20%)
• Shochu: 25%-45% (usually 25%)
• Vodka: 32%–60% (usually around 40%)
• Rum: 37.5%–75.5%
• Whiskey: 40%–55% (usually 40% or 43%)
• Baijiu: 40%–60%
• Absinthe: 45%–75%
• Poteen: 90%–95%
• Neutral grain spirit: 95%
• Rectified spirit: 96.5%
• Absolute alcohol: 100%

Source: Wikipedia.org

1 | 2