The Myths, and Why Counting Drinks Fails

Only time removes alcohol from your body. Nothing else works, and the popular remedies are all false comfort:

• Strong coffee turns a sleepy drunk into a wide-awake drunk. Caffeine touches alertness, not blood alcohol; reaction and judgement stay impaired.
• Cold showers, fresh air, exercise, a big meal afterwards — none accelerate the body's breakdown of alcohol.
• "I've sobered up" — you can't control or speed the breakdown rate. You can only wait.

And the second false strategy: counting drinks. "I know my limit" is defeated by physiology — the same amount of alcohol produces different blood levels in the same person on different occasions, depending on weight, general health, sex, how fast you drank and what you'd eaten. Two identical nights can give two different readings.

Put the two together and the conclusion is forced: you cannot reliably predict your blood-alcohol level from drinks consumed, and impairment begins in the band that feels fine. So the workable rule is not to drink and drive at all — already the legal position for every PSV, commercial and school driver, and the safest position for everyone else. Counting drinks is a plan built on a number you can't actually know.

The hangover clause: even with zero alcohol left in the blood you're often worn out the day after heavy drinking — a fatigue impairment layered on top. The morning-after drive can be a double hit: residual alcohol and fatigue.