How Long Does Alcohol Stay in Your System? Blood & Urine

How well your kidneys and liver function also factor into how long alcohol can stay in your system. Then there is the factor of how old you are, whether you are male or female, and if you ate anything before or while drinking. If you’re a social drinker or only consume large amounts of alcohol every now and then, it shouldn’t be too hard to clean out your system. On the other hand, someone with a long history flushing alcohol out of urine of alcohol abuse will likely have a tougher time. When this is the case, alcohol treatment can provide the level of support you need to accomplish your goal. Keep reading to find out what factors determine how long the effects of alcohol stay with you along with some tips on how to clean out your system. It should not be used in place of the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider.

The liver is the primary organ for eliminating alcohol, and it needs time to filter the blood and break the alcohol down. This is the time it takes for half of the alcohol ingested to be metabolized and excreted. It takes about five half-lives flushing alcohol out of urine to fully metabolize and eliminate a substance, so this means it would take about 25 hours for alcohol to be fully eliminated. It might seem like sweating out alcohol is an efficient way to rid your body of the legal substance.

Ways to Detox Your Body After Drinking

Most withdrawal symptoms peak around 24 – 72 hours after the last drink. On average the body can eliminate 0.015% BAC per hour, so depending on the person and type of alcohol, they may have a BAC of 0.02% – 0.03% at a rate of 1 drink per hour. That means, the body can take one to two hours to metabolize the alcohol consumed in that hour. If you have two glasses of wine with dinner, it could take up to six hours for you to fully break down the alcohol, depending on the variables listed above. When a person hydrates by drinking plenty of water, it can give their liver time to metabolize the alcohol in their body, as well as spacing out the alcoholic drinks Sober Home they consume. While EtG and EtS urine tests provide a longer detection window for alcohol use, they have several drawbacks. The testing is not as widely available as a standard urine screening for ethanol and it costs more. EtG/EtS testing can’t tell you how much alcohol a person consumed, and it can’t differentiate between ethanol from alcoholic beverages and exposure to alcohol from other products. While alcohol itself has a relatively short detection window of only a few hours, certain alcohol byproducts stay in the body longer. One of these byproducts,ethyl glucuronide, can be detected in urine for up to three days after a person’s last drink.

• Women who drink their normal amount of alcohol prior to menstruation will experience higher BACs than they otherwise would.
• In 2020, drunk driving accidents in the U.S. killed 11,654 people.
• The kidney is a complex filter, “and how much water you drink does not affect how well this filter works,” Goldfarb says.
• While this does eventually clear it out, it does not stop the effects.
• Factors that determine how long alcohol stays in your body include liver size, body mass and the amount of alcohol consumed.

The body generally eliminates 0.015 grams of alcohol per deciliter of blood each hour. If someone with alcohol problems also battles depression, their symptoms may worsen when drinking. Similarly, people with anxiety who drink heavily may experience stressful emotions that can cause a change in the stomach’s enzymes, which affects how a person breaks down alcohol. The transition back to life outside of rehab is fraught with the potential for relapse. Aftercare resources such as 12-step groups, sober living homes and support for family and friends promote a life rich with rewarding relationships and meaning. However, alcohol is highly susceptible to many factors that affect how long it stays in the body.

Factors Affecting How Long Alcohol Stays in Your System

From age, metabolism, and even the type of food someone eats (or doesn’t) impacts how long alcohol stays in the system. Of course, how many drinks per hour someone had will also affect these factors. On average, hair tests can help detect alcohol traces for up to 90 days after the last drink. However, these are not standard tests to detect alcohol in someone’s system.