Alcohol Half Life: How Long Does it Take to Sober Up?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you drank more than you should have and want to regain control in a hurry? At such a time, you might fall for one of the many “sobering up” methods that people take as common sense.

Here’s the catch: most ways to sober up are myths, and if you rely on them, you could get hurt in an accident or arrested for DUI. Below, we’ll take a look at the myths and reality of how to sober up and why most folk remedies don’t do the job.

What Makes You “Sober”?

Before you can really understand the answer to questions like “How long does it take to sober up,” you first need to understand what it means to “be sober.”

When people talk about being sober, they’re often referring to the presence or absence of the symptoms of intoxication from their perspective. If you feel alert and in control, you perceive yourself to be sober. If a bartender sees a customer that’s coordinated, speaking clearly, and able to follow a conversation, they perceive the customer to be sober.

The problem? This isn’t the legal standard for sobriety. In a court of law, sobriety is judged by a measurement of your blood alcohol concentration. The important thing to know is that the symptoms of intoxication don’t always match up with blood alcohol content (BAC).

People with a so-called “high tolerance” can have a BAC over the legal limit with few noticeable symptoms.

This isn’t just a legal distinction; it’s also a functional one. Despite some people’s ability to mask the symptoms of intoxication, your body experiences a predictable and unavoidable loss of functionality at certain BAC readings. Your reaction time, visual acuity, and motor control always deteriorate whether or not it’s apparent.

For example, one study found that at a BAC of 0.08, reaction time decreases by 120 milliseconds on average. This may not sound like much, but when you’re driving 40mph, that means an extra 7 feet before you recognize a problem and hit the brakes – easily the difference between avoiding an obstacle and hitting it.

In order to be legally and functionally sober, your body needs to break down the amount of alcohol circulating in your bloodstream. Alcohol metabolism happens at a fixed rate that can’t be altered in the short term.

What does this mean? The only thing that actually sobers you up is time. 

What BAC Is Sober?

This is a more complicated question than it sounds.

There’s only one blood alcohol content at which your body and mind are not affected by alcohol at all, and it’s 0.00.

As for legal sobriety, it varies by age in every jurisdiction – one for “youth” (under 21) and one for “adults” (21 and up). In 14 states and DC, blowing any BAC above 0.00 is illegal when you’re under the age of 21, while 2 states allow a youth BAC of 0.01 and the remaining 34 allow a youth BAC of 0.02.

The adult threshold for legal drunkenness has been 0.08 for twenty years, but Utah lowered theirs to 0.05 recently, resulting in a significant decrease in fatal car crashes.

It’s also worth noting that commercial drivers have an even lower legal limit – disqualifying anyone with a BAC of 0.04 ensures that commercial drivers are not compromised.

If you’re asking what BAC is safe to call sober – not just legally, but in terms of your safety – there’s reasonable evidence to consider a BAC of 0.03 or below as fairly safe. Below 0.02, the effects of alcohol should be negligible.

Ways to Sober Up: Myths and Explanations

We’ve established that sobriety can’t be judged by a lack of symptoms and that the realistic solution for sobering up (ie, bring your BAC below 0.02) is to wait.

But there’s a reason people believe that certain tricks can help you sober up fast. If you’ve ever asked how to sober up from drinking in 30 minutes or how to stop feeling drunk, you might have come across one of the following suggestions. Let’s talk about why they’re untrue and why they persist as common myths.

Does Throwing Up Make You Less Drunk? 

Alcohol enters your bloodstream very quickly once you’ve swallowed it, throwing up will have no impact on your BAC unless it’s within the first 5 to 10 minutes.

Why do people believe vomiting will sober you up? Probably because of the relief they feel afterward. Drinking too much or being hungover might make you nauseous, and vomiting may alleviate those feelings. It’s easy to confuse “feeling better” with “being less drunk.”

Does Drinking Water Sober You Up? 

Drinking water does not lower your BAC any faster than normal.

That said, there are multiple reasons to drink water in conjunction with alcohol. It will help slow down or even reduce your alcohol consumption, and it will help counteract the dehydration caused by drinking. As a result, you may get less drunk and reduce unpleasant symptoms during and after consumption – as with throwing up, it’s easy to confuse feeling better with sobriety.

Can a Cold Shower Sober You Up?

Cold showers don’t impact your BAC at all, so why are people sure a shock of cold will help them sober up?

A cold shower or a splash of water on the face might make you feel more alert immediately afterward. However, you’ll still be as drunk as you were before, and it’s unlikely the feeling of alertness will last for more than a few minutes.

Does Eating Sober You Up? 

This one is trickier because there’s a glimmer of truth in the lie, which causes confusion.

Drinking on an already full stomach does slow the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream, so your liver is better able to keep up with the influx. Eating before alcohol consumption may keep you from getting legally drunk, as long as you drink in moderation.

However, any food you consume later in the evening will have no impact on your sobriety. It may slow down the absorption of additional alcohol. It may help you feel more alert or less sick, but it won’t lower your BAC. Food doesn’t speed up the sobering process.

How Long Does It Take to Sober Up?

Once you know that time is the only way to sober up, your next question is probably “How much?”

How quickly your BAC rises when you drink depends on a variety of factors – some permanent, like size or body type, and some within your control, like rate of alcohol consumption or presence of food in the stomach. You may feel the alcohol “kick in” within 10 minutes, but it takes longer for your BAC to peak. On an empty stomach, peak BAC is reached between 30 minutes and 2 hours; on a full stomach, it can take up to 6 hours for your BAC to peak.

How quickly your BAC goes back down is a function of your alcohol metabolism rate. This number varies from person to person, but an individual’s rate is fairly fixed. Your alcohol metabolism certainly can’t be sped up over the course of minutes, hours, or even days. Heavy drinkers may build their alcohol metabolism over weeks or months through an increase in the production of liver enzymes, but this is temporary – eventually, alcohol damage to the liver will cause their metabolism to plummet lower than the average person’s.

On average, the body eliminates alcohol at a rate of 0.015% per hour. That means the average person can clear 0.5 to 1 standard drinks per hour. This is why the rule of thumb is to wait at least one hour per standard drink after you stop consuming alcohol completely before getting behind the wheel. Even then, you may still be impaired.

How Long Does It Take Alcohol to Get Out of Your System? 

Clearing alcohol from your system completely is different from sobering up enough to drive.

In the bloodstream, alcohol’s half-life – how long it takes to eliminate half of it – is four to five hours. The next four to five hours will eliminate a quarter of the original amount, the next an eighth, and so on. It takes around five half-lives to completely rid the body of alcohol.

Therefore, it takes your body approximately 25 hours to completely clear alcohol from your bloodstream.

How Long Does Alcohol Stay in Your System? 

The length of time that alcohol can be detected by a test varies based on the type of tissue.

Breath and saliva tests typically stop working 12 to 24 hours after alcohol consumption. Blood can only give a clear measure of recent drinking within the first 6 hours, but traces can remain for a day or so.

Signs of alcohol consumption can linger in certain places for much longer. Heavy drinking may make alcohol detectable in urine for up to 80 hours. Traces of alcohol can be found in hair for up to 90 days since it’s not made of living cells.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t sober at the time of the test.

How to Avoid Alcohol Intoxication 

The only way you can successfully prevent intoxication is by avoiding alcohol or consuming it in moderation.

To avoid intoxication: 

• Avoid consuming multiple drinks in a short amount of time 
• Limit yourself to one drink per hour
• Stick to drinks that take time to finish, such as beer or wine
• Pick drinks that you want to savor
• Delay your next drink by snacking or drinking non-alcoholic beverages
• Consume drinks with low alcohol content, such as light beer  
• Take slow sips and stay active by talking with friends, for example

Don’t forget to have a backup plan to get home if you overindulge. Remember that you may not be able to trust your own judgment about whether you’re safe to drive.

Learn About Responsible Drinking Like A Pro

Bartenders have to learn about BAC, signs of intoxication, third-party liability, and more because they have a legal responsibility for responsible service. To comply with the law, they take online TIPS courses to make sure they understand the reality versus the myth.

Whether you’re trying to learn more about responsible drinking for your own safety or you’re worried about host liability when you throw parties, you can also take advantage of these courses.

Check out our state-by-state guide to liquor laws and always drink responsibly!