What Factors Affect Your Blood Alcohol Concentration? Experienced DUI Lawyers Explain

Blood alcohol concentration is the most important factor in determining whether someone has driven drunk. If you test as having a too-high blood alcohol concentration, it is far more difficult for even the best New Jersey DWI lawyer to prove your innocence. However, many factors may affect someone’s BAC; the same four beers can make one person legal to drive and another person locked up for years.

Although any attorney will advise you not to drink any amount of alcohol if you plan to drive, be aware of these factors so you can monitor your drinking and not have to hire a New Jersey DWI lawyer to defend you.

How Much You Have Eaten
Some factors delay the absorption of alcohol. Food, for instance, results in a lower and delayed blood alcohol peak. It keeps the food in the stomach longer and makes absorption less efficient. Therefore, eat a big meal close to when you go out, and snack throughout the night.

How Much You Weigh
Other factors make it more difficult for alcohol to be carried throughout the body. For instance, because alcohol has an affinity for water (found in body fat), thin people will tend to have lower blood alcohol concentrations than heavy people. On the other hand, people who weigh more tend to have lower BACs than people who weigh less, because, proportionate to their weigh, they are consuming less drink. If these two factors seem contradictory, think of it this way: Tall, muscular people – who weigh more but tend to have less fat – have the best advantage.

Men vs. Women
Other factors are responsible for the elimination of alcohol. Because women naturally have more fat in their bodies, they will tend to have higher BACs then men. Yet when comparing men and women of similar body fat indexes, women tend to eliminate alcohol faster than men.

Types of Alcohol Tolerance

Studies show that consuming one drink an hour will, in general, maintain your current BAC, as your liver metabolizes the alcohol at the same rate that you drink it.

The body also develops tolerance for alcohol if you drink often. The first type, metabolic tolerance, is due to the liver’s increased ability to process alcohol, and the second type, functional tolerance, is the increased ability to operate while drunk. Tolerance is a sign of alcoholism.

Other factors - such as setting, expectations, mood, tiredness, certain medications, fatigue, and illness - may affect how drunk you feel. You should never drive after drinking simply because you “feel fine.” In fact, the lowered inhibitions many people experience from drinking can lead them to perceive that they are “fine” when they are impaired.

Therefore, if you don’t want to end up paying a New Jersey DWI lawyer for your NJ drunk driving defense be sure to account for all these factors before you drink and make sure you’re sober before you drive. Not only could you end up with fines or even jail time, but you could ruin someone’s life with a drunk driving accident .