How alcohol leaves the body
Understanding the rate at which alcohol is oxidized in the body is important. A person can still be impaired (and get a DUI) even hours after a night of drinking. Watch the following video for an explanation.
Even after someone has stopped drinking, BAC can continue to go up until all of the ingested alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream.
Once BAC peaks, a healthy liver oxidizes (or burns off) alcohol at a rate of about .015 per hour. Which is equivalent to about one standard drink. It can take many hours for a person's BAC to go back down to zero. No matter what you do, you cannot speed this process up.
This means that if a person stops drinking at 2:00 a.m. and their BAC peaks at .14 at 3:00 a.m., it will take them 10 hours to completely remove the alcohol from their body. So if the person wakes up at 7:00 a.m. and tries to drive, they'll have a BAC of .08 and can still get a DUI. That person won't have a zero BAC until 1:00 p.m.
Understanding the rate that alcohol is oxidized in the body is very important. No matter what you do, you cannot speed this process up. Plan ahead. If you choose to drink, drink responsibly. Keep it to one drink per hour to stay in the blue!
ONE standard drink per hour
It's your liver's job to remove toxins from your body. When it comes to alcohol, the liver can only do this at the rate of one standard drink per hour. This is true for everyone, regardless of body size or biological sex. Regularly drinking more than one standard drink per hour could damage your liver.