How Much Alcohol Do You Have in Your Body when You Drink?

The alcohol percentage in the body is the result of how much alcohol you have per kg of blood. The content differs, depending on how big you are, how much water your body consists of and how quickly you drink the alcohol. Women contain 66 percent water while men have 75 percent, which means that the alcohol is more diluted in a man’s body. It can resist to bigger amounts of alcohol than the female body. Food, in relation to alcohol, lowers the permillage because the spirits are absorbed slowlier. Some of the important factors to consider when someone is getting drunk are:

• The inherited capacity of tolerating alcohol.
• Stress Tiredness.
• If you are in a good mood.
• Drugs.
• How drunk you want to become.

The table below shows the concentration of alcohol in your body after drinking the following drinks:

What happens in the body when you drink?

The blood absorbs the alcohol relatively quickly when the alcohol has reached the small intestine. Small amounts are absorbed already in the oral cavity and by the walls of the stomach. Through the blood, the alcohol is distributed to the liquid water in the whole body. Here follows a graph showing how the body absorbs alcohol and how it decreases in proportion to the hours in a man of 70 kg: s who drinks two glasses of wine.

A small quantity of alcohol gets out of the body by exhalation, urine and sweat but most of it, is burned up in the liver. Here it is transformed into vinegar, which is then transported to the rest of the body until finally it reaches the muscles. Here the vinegar is burned to carbon dioxide and water.

Normally, a liver can burn up 0,1 gram alcohol per hour and kg. This means a man weighing 60 kg: s will get rid of 6 grams of alcohol in one hour (half a canned beer, First class). Even if people think a sauna bath, training or any other method can increase the burn up speed they are mistaken, since the burning up in the liver is going on at a regular rate.

Alcohol in the Traffic

More than 8000 drunken drivers are in the traffic every day in Sweden. Most of them are men among whom a quarter consists of young people between 18 and 24 years old. If you have more than 0,5 per thousand in your blood (see examples above), the risk that you may die becomes 900 times bigger! Approximately 20 000 persons driving under the influence of alcohol are taken to court every year. About 150- 200 persons die in traffic caused by drunk-driving.

Many persons have the wrong attitude to the drink driving. They think they are capable of driving a car when they feel sober even if they have been drinking. Another vital fact is that the drink driving is unplanned and a reason could be the lack of vehicles, in other words the last bus has gone and the person who has taken one or a couple of beers takes the car instead.

How Dangerous is the Alcohol?

The maximum amount of allowed alcohol is 7 grams per day. This is as much as a canned First class beer. A man drinking 40 grams of alcohol each day will soon have liver injuries. If a person drinks about one bottle of wine every day, he or she risks getting serious alcohol injuries soon enough.

Brain injuries

It happens to people who have drunk great amounts of alcohol for many years. Firstly, the capacity of remembering things find in our daily life is affected. Balance difficulties and problems in co-ordinating muscle movements can appear too. Stomach injuries - Alcohol gives gastric catarrh with pain and vomiting and, in many cases, gastric ulcer is to be found.

Liver injuries

According to the earlier facts the liver is the organ that burns up the alcohol and delivers it to the rest of the body. Already after a few days of drinking alcohol the liver becomes swollen and sore. The liver cells are damaged and their function deteriorate. This type of injury is quite common and lately also among young people.

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