The human body is incredibly efficient at processing alcohol, provided it is not consumed so quickly as to cause alcohol poisoning. It is estimated that between 90% and 98% of all alcohol that enters the body is metabolized and absorbed, with the remaining alcohol expelled from the body through sweat, urine, vomit, and faeces. Alcohol can stay in the hair for up to 90 days, and can also be temporarily detected in saliva, sweat and blood. The half-life of alcohol is four to five hours.
This means that it takes about 25 hours for your body to get rid of all the alcohol. Controlling your alcohol consumption can be a tricky thing, and there are a lot of rumors about how to get sober quickly and how clear you should be before leaving the bar. But what happens when you're a little dazed? How long does alcohol stay in your body?As stated above, approximately 20% of alcohol is absorbed in the stomach and 80% in the intestines. What is left over is between 2 and 8% of the alcohol that was not completely processed, leaving behind the metabolites of alcohol.
This alcohol is eliminated from the body through sweat, urine, and saliva. Multiple tests with different sensitivities to metabolites have been developed that can detect alcohol in the body up to 90 days after the last use. It takes an average of 80 hours for alcohol to leave our system through the urine. The body generally processes approximately one standard beverage per hour. If you drink 5 standard drinks, it will take 5 hours for your body to process alcohol.
Eating and having food in your stomach before you drink it can have a powerful influence on the rate of alcohol absorption. Although alcohol passes through the digestive system, it is not extensively digested within the digestive tract in the same way as food. Because alcohol reaches your brain, lungs, and other tissues, you may feel the effects of alcohol almost immediately after you drink. With around 0.15% BAC, most people start vomiting due to too much alcohol in their blood and the body's inability to metabolize alcohol quickly enough. Some more advanced urine sample tests can detect alcohol consumption up to 4 days after consumption. However, there are many other ways to detect the presence of alcohol in the body.
Because the average woman is smaller than the average man, the same amount of alcohol a woman consumes is processed at a slower rate and has more powerful effects. People who drink alcohol may feel more relaxed and less inhibited after having a drink or two, but in some people it can cause them to become prone to outbursts of anger and to aggressive or violent behavior. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, alcohol abuse numbers have continued to rise, causing concern across the United States. Many people mistakenly believe that not having a measurable BAC means that they have no alcohol in their bodies. In contrast, BAC is simply a measure of the concentration of alcohol in the blood, which is filtered rapidly and continuously and endlessly. An alcoholic who stops drinking and begins to detoxify could experience withdrawal symptoms six hours after the last drink, and withdrawal can last for days, weeks, or even months in some cases. eTG tests are considered the reference standard for alcohol testing because they are much more accurate than other tests.
