The Effect of Absorption, Elimination and Tolerance on Blood Alcohol Content
Certain aspects of human physiology will affect a persons blood alcohol content (BAC). These include absorption, elimination and tolerance.
Absorption: The rate which alcohol is absorbed into your blood stream is primarily influenced by the amount and type of food ingested before drinking. Fatty foods tend to slow absorption, while fasting can increase absorption by up to 25%.
- If you are drinking on a full stomach, it will take more alcohol to reach a given BAC relative to drinking on an empty stomach.
Elimination: Once in the blood stream, alcohol is continually removed and processed by the liver. It is generally accepted that the liver will remove 0.5 oz (15mL) of alcohol, or one drink per hour.
- Looking at the table; for every hour you drink, you can subtract one drink from your BAC.
Tolerance: There are two major aspects of tolerance: Metabolic tolerance is when your liver metabolizes alcohol faster, up to 72%. Functional tolerance is your perceived tolerance at a given BAC.
- Tolerance will shift the graph of optimum drunkenness to the right, so that you need a higher BAC to get to the “Euphoria” stage.
