How Long Does Alcohol Stay In Your System?

When alcohol enters in your system then your body will start to metabolise it. Metabolise is the body chemical process for breaking down a substance to be absorbed or used as energy. This whole process happens when you consume any food or drink. There are two commonly asked questions regarding alcohol in the body. “How long does alcohol stay in your system?” and “How long does alcohol stay in your blood?”. These questions are asked for several reasons. Alcohol is a depressant that has a short life span in our body. Once the alcohol has entered in your bloodstream then it will metabolize an amount of alcohol every hour. This totally depends on the individual and it also includes other factors like liver size and weight. For treatments and medications rehab centers are available at your nearby places.

This blog helps you to understand how long alcohol stays in your system. A healthy person will usually feel the effects within 15 to 45 minutes though. In this page, we discuss the alcohol addiction with its signs and symptoms. It includes for the breathalyzer and also to treat the alcohol addiction.

What Is Alcohol?

Alcohol is pronounced as (AL-kuh-HAW-LIH-zum). It is a chronic disease in which a person craves to drink alcohol and is unable to control his drinking. Alcohol is a psychoactive depressant in fermented drinks which are beer, wine or spirits made from sugar from plants. This acts as a CNS depressant that slows the brain activity which causes intoxication. It is also a toxic substance with dependence potential.

Ethanol and water are the main components of alcoholic beverages which include in making of alcohol. In some sweet substances the sugar content can be higher than the ethanol content. This also contends to be an addiction. It is a chemical substance that primarily refers to a group of organic compounds which characterised one or more hydroxyl groups.

How Is Alcohol Measured in the Body?

You can check alcohol in your body using breath, blood, urine, hair test or saliva with breathalyzers that offer immediate BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration). It depends on the level of alcohol in a person’s body which is typically measured using the blood alcohol concentration. This measurement helps to find how long alcohol stays in your system.

• Blood Tests: A blood test is one of the most directed ways to measure BAC. This helps you to find the exact measurement of alcohol in your blood.
• Breath Tests: It is also known as breathalyzer tests, and it also helps to measure the amount of alcohol in your breath.
• Urine Tests: Urine tests detect the metabolites of alcohol, which are similar to ethyl glucuronide. This helps to detect for a long period of time after the last drink.
• Saliva Tests: It is similar to breath tests, this helps to measure alcohol soon after drinking.
• Hair Tests: Hair tests offer the longest period of detection window. Alcoholic symptoms and its substances can show up in a hair sample for up to 90 days.

How Long Does Alcohol Stay in the Body?

Alcohol stays in your body for different amounts of time period which depend on the type of test which is used for detection and individual factors.

Test Type	Approximate Detection Window
Blood	Up to 12 hours
Breath	12 to 24 hours
Urine	24-48 hours (up to 80 hours with EtG)
Saliva	12 to 24 hours
Hair	Up to 90 days
Fingernails/Toenails	For fingernails it takes approx 3 to 6 months and for toenails it takes around 6 to 12 months

What Factors Impact Alcohol Stays in Your System?

The factors which impact how long alcohol stays in your system are the substances for alcohol metabolism. Alcohol typically stays in the system for about 12 hours on average, but the elimination time period is highly variable. This depends on the individuals what amount of alcohol they take per hour.

Factors that affect alcohol metabolism

• Age: Alcohol affects faster or slower according to age, like teenagers, young adults and older adults eliminate slower.
• Sex: Females tend to have a higher BAC and remove alcohol faster than males.
• Food: Metabolism rate increases with food.
• Exercise: From doing exercise alcohol is eliminated faster.
• Alcoholic: When a person drinks heavily, it increases the heart beat, but liver disease decreases when alcoholism occurs.

Common Withdrawal Symptoms of Alcohol

The common withdrawal symptoms of alcohol are listed below which shows alcoholism happens through it.

• Anxiety: It feels like intense nervousness or tension that arises because the brain lacks the calming effects of alcohol which leads to high stress and restlessness.
• Sweating: When your body has excessive sweating, it feels like withdrawal symptoms happen in our system, and it also attempts to regulate itself during withdrawal.
• Nausea: Nausea is defined as pain in the stomach, or sometimes it can lead to vomiting. This is because alcohol disrupts normal digestive processes and withdrawal function.
• Mood Swings: It can be rapid and unpredictable emotional changes which occur in the brain. It tries to stabilise its neurotransmitters that go from sadness to anger quickly.
• Headaches: In headaches the pain which ranges from low to high can rise due to vascular changes and brain chemistry shifts during withdrawal process.
• Tremors: Tremors happen when shaking or trembling in the hands. It occurs when the nervous system becomes overactive without alcohol, a depressive influence. These tremors are the earliest withdrawal signs.
• Insomnia: Difficulty in sleeping which stems withdrawal that interfere with regular sleep cycles and alerting brain chemicals. The lack of sleep worsens other symptoms like irritability and anxiety.
• Hallucinations: Seeing, hearing or feeling things that are not there happens in high withdrawal. These hallucinations can be visual, auditory or tactile and it can be very distressing.
• Rapid heart rate: It defines the rapid movement of heart beat which puts the body in a heightened state of alertness. This causes palpitations and panic.

How to Treat Alcohol Addiction?

When we discuss how long alcohol stays in your system, which depends on test type and the amount of alcohol which they take on a daily basis. Now, we discuss ways for the treatment of alcohol addiction. The process of treatment for alcoholism which are.

• Counselling: It includes behaviour therapy, group and family counselling, individual therapy or others.
• Detoxification: Is the process in which one abruptly stops the intake of alcohol substances. Detoxification is necessary in some cases like alcohol dependence or addiction. You can also take help from your nearby rehab centers where the medications are available easily.
• Medications: The right use of medication helps you to get out from addiction. Sometimes the medications work like drugs when you don’t follow the prescription and if you take it as an overdose.
• Support Groups: Support groups are like a program or therapy which act similar to counseling. This also helps people who are suffering from alcohol addiction.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we hope you find a good understanding about how long alcohol stays in your system easily. We discussed the alcoholic substance and the measurement of alcohol in the body. This blog helps you to understand the factors that affect the alcohol metabolism and the time period in which the alcohol stays in your body. Moreover we discuss the common withdrawal functions which includes the signs and symptoms of alcohol addiction. Addiction can be eliminated from our body, but it depends on the individual’s control and amount which he/she takes on a daily basis. This page also includes the ways for treatment of alcohol addiction which helps you to get out of it.