Alcohol Detox Methods – How You Can Sober Up Fast At Home

Knowing some alcohol detox methods so you can sober up fast can be very helpful if you have an event, work day or if you need to drive a vehicle the next day.

This post is partly a response to a 17 year old reader, Luke, who sent me a question.

Question

If you’re 17 and you have a big night drinking, and have to get up early the next morning to drive home (a 40 minute drive), how do you get rid of the alcohol so you can drive, food or something?

Answer

In response to Luke’s question, I’d say that first of all, you should be very careful about driving the day after drinking.

After all, you’ll probably still be over the legal drink driving limit. Alcohol detox methods can’t help you that much.

I’ve known 2 guys who were breathalysed the day after a night out drinking. They were tested by cops at around midday and still tested positive. This was pretty bad news for them as you can imagine.

So first of all, either don’t drive early the next day after drinking or just drink a small amount or none at all the night before.

Not only will cops look for people who are driving on Saturdays or Sundays with a hangover and penalyse them, but you’re at risk of badly hurting someone else or yourself in an accident. That risk just isn’t worth having a few drinks the night before.

What I can do is advise you on the best drinking tips and tell you how to sober up faster using some alcohol detox methods.

What you can do to sober up fast

Alcohol detox methods involve metabolising and flushing the alcohol from your body faster than normal. I’ll talk about these techniques shortly.

There are some useful drinking tips that you’ll need to know if you’re driving early the next day and you want to have a drink.

I went to a big 4 day music festival in Spain once. I had to drive 3 others to and from the site, as we had accommodation that was about 7 miles from the concert site and we didn’t want to camp on site. It gets too hot for camping in Spain.

Drink only at the start of the night

I wanted to have a drink and to drive later on. So I simply drunk alcohol at the very start of the concerts at around 7 or 8pm. I had only a few drinks and wasn’t drunk at all.

Then I drunk just water and juices (and plenty of them) for the rest of the night until around 4am when it was getting towards time to go back home.

I was entirely sober by this time as I’d worked out that the units of alcohol that I’d consumed had already filtered out of my body during the 7 hours or so that had passed since. Drinking liquids helped ensure the alcohol was flushed properly too.

I had a great time too, didn’t need to keep drinking to enjoy myself.

What is the proof I was sober? I was breathalysed by the Guardia Civil (Spanish police) on driving back on one of the nights. They said I was fine and well under the limit.

This is the best way to drink if you have to drive a few hours later.

You should eat while you drink, to slow down the absorption of alcohol.

Remember, your liver removes alcohol from your blood slower than you drink it, unless you’re an incredibly slow drinker.

The rate at which your liver removes alcohol from your body also varies from person to person. Fitter and (sometimes) younger people, can sober up faster than older and unhealthy people.

As a general rule, one standard drink (one beer, glass of wine or measure of spirits) takes almost one hour to metabolise. However, alcohol takes at least 30 minutes before it starts to be metabolised.

Let’s say you drink 5 beers (250 ml or half pints). You’ll need to wait approximately 6 hours to be sure you’re sober.

If you drink 10 beers or shots then you’ll be sober after 10 hours or a little bit more.

If these beers are strong then allow more time.

To help your liver stay in great condition and to enable to to detox your body faster, try taking milk thistle extract capsules.

Alcohol detox methods at home

If you want to sober up faster some alcohol detox methods should help.

However, don’t think this means you can get away with driving just a few hours after drinking a lot. There is no guarantee that it’ll work for you.

Food

A good way to speed up the process of metabolising alcohol is food.

Eating complex starch, eggs and other food that helps dilute alcoholcan reduce the level of alcohol in your body.

DrinksDrinking plenty of fruit juices, water and tea can also help to expel alcohol from the body at a faster rate.

Avoid coffee as this won’t necessarily help how you feel. Stick to good fruit juices especially, including tomato juice and banana juice. Alcohol detox methods – drinks to sober up faster

Exercise

Exercise is effective for accelerating the rate at which you can expel alcohol from your body.

Vigorous exercise is not recommended for everyone, but can be a beneficial alcohol detox methods after drinking for healthier people. Take care never to become dehydrated and drink more than enough liquids.

Running or cycling hard and fast can help you to sweat out and process alcohol faster. Following 30 minutes of hard exercise, your body should have expelled more alcohol that it would normally have done.

Take care if you have to drive hours after drinking. The above techniques only help to expel alcohol slightly faster than you normally would. That doesn’t mean you can drive just a few hours after drinking.

More on alcohol detoxification 

What is an alcohol detox drug? 

Milk thistle can help your liver process alcohol faster