A charge of Driving under the influence (DUI) is a serious offense that will often lead to a major fine, suspension of your license and sometimes jail time. A DUI will not affect one’s federal financial aid, but individuals can lose scholarships and grants.
Different body styles will process alcohol differently. The popular way of thinking is that the smaller you are, the less alcohol you can consume before your drunk, but that’s not always the case. Size doesn’t always equal a higher drinking tolerance. One important factor tied to how alcohol will affect everyone differently is muscle to fat ratio. Those with a higher fat content will often experience the side effects of alcohol usage faster than those with a more muscular frame.
The obvious factor that leads to faster intoxication is dehydration, but there are others, including: your ethnicity, your gender, how you mix your drinks and added drug usage.
Ethnicity
Our ability to handle alcohol is linked to our genetic traits. For example, Asians and Native Americans have a lower level of enzymes that break down alcohol, causing that alcohol to remain in their bloodstreams longer and build up in their systems faster.
Gender
Gender plays a big role in how much you can drink before it seriously affects you. Since women tend to be smaller, they often get drunk faster. Women also metabolize alcohol slower than men. Also, women tend to have a higher body fat content, which, as mentioned above, attributes to less lean muscle mass that helps distribute the alcohol throughout one’s body.
Mixed drinks
Carbonated beverages absorb into your bloodstream faster, thus, alcohol mixed with carbonation will get you drunk quicker. As will champagne and spike seltzers. On the other hand, mixing energy drinks and alcohol is just dangerous. Due to energy drinks being a stimulant and alcohol being a depressant, the energy drink masks the side effects of alcohol and can cause heart failure due to stresses put on the body.
Mixing drugs and alcohol
- Marijuana: This drug reduces nausea, which gets in the way of allowing the body to vomit – which can be necessary to reduce unwanted toxins. This means more drinks and added side effects due to the body being unable to illicit a vomiting response.
- Over-the-counter drugs: You should not mix Advil and Tylenol with alcohol. These drugs are over-the-counter painkillers and when mixing alcohol with painkillers, your liver processes the drugs incorrectly, breaks down the liquor slower and kills healthy liver cells.
- Prescription drugs: When you mix alcohol with prescription drugs, you will become impaired more quickly. Also, this mix can lead to severe side effects, like reduced heart rate, and dangerously low blood pressure.
The facts are the facts. There are more factors that lead to increased intoxication. The bottom line is to know when you’ve had enough. The last thing you want to do is receive a DUI or worse, injure yourself or others.