Drinking less and driving the morning after

[Ale]

For many years, when I drink at home I have found that 4 pints is my amount of preference. I tend to drink once or twice a week, so for years thats been 4-8 pints/bottles in a normal week. Holidays are another matter of course but not for this thread.

I dont like drinking more than a couple if Im driving in the morning as I can feel the effects and even though probably under the limit it could still affect my driving although I do very occasionally drink the night before and drive in the morning. I took redundancy last year so am now self employed working from home as a mortgage adviser. This means I am driving less in the mornings so having a drink midweek more often. Normally If Im watching midweek football. I'll come back later to work out how much alcohol you can break down and whether people will be over the limit based on answers.

Since I've been doing this, I've noticed recently that the amount I drink has gone down. I now have 3 pints/bottles and am finding that I am "done". Its still once or twice a week that I am drinking but means that I am only having 3-6 beers a week. (I do sometimes wonder if its worth brewing myself but it just seems to keep on pulling me in)

I wanted to ask if others have found that when they drink more regularly they drink less when they do drink, or is it just me?

I thought I would also add, as its relevant to when I drink, what are you comfortable drinking the night before when you are driving the next day?

 

[Ali]

Whilst I don't work out rates of breakdown of alcohol etc, I have found that I am drinking much less now. This is because I drive disadvantaged adults to their place of work in the morning and collect them in the afternoon. It wasn't really a conscious decision as such (more subconscious), but I now don't have anything from Sunday to Thursday nights, leaving just Friday and Saturday nights. The odd thing is that even when I allow myself to drink, even this has gone down to the point where I only drinking a pint each night at most. Wonder if there is any point in carrying on homebrewing?.....

 

[dps51]

due to ill health I am at home must of the time
as I only drive once or twice a month I do tend to drink that bit more than before
as I was a coach driver for many years so did not drink much the day before work if any
but since I started home brewing I do drink more I think this is down to boredom more than anything

 

[Steved53]

Four pints is about the most I would drink - more often 2 or 3. At the moment, however, that is every day. At those rates, I am not concerned by driving the next morning, as I would have had around a 10 hour gap between my last drink and any driving.

Having large quantities of beer on tap is potentially my problem, as well as a lack of discipline! At lunchtime I think, 'I'll give the beer a rest today', and then by 5 o'clock I think 'oh, bugger it, I'll just have a couple.' I'm keeping my eye on any developing beer gut, but it's almost inevitable.

3 pints a day is about 750 calories x 7 = 5250 calories approx!

I need to start doing a bit more cycling to burn that lot up!

 

[geetee]

I have a phobia about not having a bottle of beer in the house but once it's there I rarely touch it. I can go 4- 5 days and not drink and then maybe have a couple. Usually only out 1 night a week and maybe have 4-5 pints then but rarely in the house. I do still need to know that there is some there if I need it.

Over the years I got to drinking later and later as I find if you start early you tend to drink more so I started drinking later on and therefore less. This is even more complicated since I am mainly a night person who may stay up to 2-3 in the morning and have actually waited for my first drink until about 1:00am quite often (no work now next morning either). Maybe it's just me getting lazy but I just keep putting off having a beer and then it's too late to have more than one , or even one sometimes..

As you say homebrewing is a bit redundant when you are not drinking it yourself but I do share it around and family get togethers etc get through it somehow. I still look forward to brewing new beers even if I do only drink a fraction of them. To add insult to injury I upgraded to a 100 litre system a couple of years ago and regularly make up to 40 litre batches, one of the reasons why I would like to make and sell commercially but probably not ambitious/pushy enough (yet)

Yes life definitely is complicated as you get older!


PS
23:50 and just about to open a bottle of Oakham's Citra, first tonight!

 

[Robsparky99]

Interesting... I have increased slightly over the years from not drinking on a 'school' night (work obviously, just me!) to one pint every other day. I've never been a heavy drinker and only would do social drinking which meant I was bladdered by my 5th pint lol.

I've only just started home brewing and feel the attraction isn't drinking the beer myself (although its nice) its the ability to brew something that is actually quite good and then giving away some to friends and family to enjoy. Its loosely a hobby rather than a means to create 15p booze to swill down.

My general rule is 1 pint of beer with a meal if driving, other wise its a bitter shandy on its own. If I have a 3 or 4 pints the night before I would be comfortable driving after 10-12 hours had passed.

 

[BeerisGOD]

Whilst I don't work out rates of breakdown of alcohol etc, I have found that I am drinking much less now. This is because I drive disadvantaged adults to their place of work in the morning and collect them in the afternoon. It wasn't really a conscious decision as such (more subconscious), but I now don't have anything from Sunday to Thursday nights, leaving just Friday and Saturday nights. The odd thing is that even when I allow myself to drink, even this has gone down to the point where I only drinking a pint each night at most. Wonder if there is any point in carrying on homebrewing?.....

It started so well which is why I added a thumbs up. Then it ended with a choke slam.
If anything if u make beer you can leave it for months to mature. I think I had a wherry that was just over a year old last month. Amazing flavours

 

[Ale]

For the record, a man will break down alcohol at about 1 unit per hour from when you start drinking. So if you have 4 bottles at 4% thats about 8 hours, add an extra bottle or make them 5% and its 10 hours. Women are up to 2 hours per unit so double it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

For the record, a man will break down alcohol at about 1 unit per hour from when you start drinking

Having recently done my Driver Certificate of Professional Competence Course ( CPC ) i must point out you have to add an hour for absorption to the total number of hours per units it takes your body to break down the alcohol.

.

 

[Vambrace]

I don't want to sound preachy or self-righteous but if I'm driving at the time (e.g. home from the pub) I don't drink at all and driving the next morning I wouldn't have more than one or two, or possibly even none at all if it was a very early start.

It's not just the being over limit thing, but if anything did happen I would for ever more be examing my conscience and wondering whether things would have been different if I hadn't been drinking. Frankly that's not a situation I want to be in.

Others of course can choose to do things differently and if you drink 6 pints and are under the limit in the morning and you're happy with that, fair enough. :thumb:

 

[dad_of_jon]

Having recently done my Driver Certificate of Professional Competence Course ( CPC ) i must point out you have to add an hour for absorption to the total number of hours per units it takes your body to break down the alcohol.

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As I have a good tolerance to my high strength brews, I do calculate how many units are left because I can feel absolutely fine yet i'd be over the limit as opposed to when I was 18 and under the limit - a can of 2% value bitter i'd feel as drunk as a skunk. I make sure a) I feel alert and well enough to drive & b) have no more than 1 unit in my bloodstream. When calculating this I always err on the side of caution. I have needed to let the train take the strain on the odd occasion rather than driving into work :thumb:

When I start my longer term new job as opposed to my shorter term new job I wont have the option of the train so will just have to drink less or lower abv brews. It's not a problem for me really as I've always been fit for work & sober if I've had a lot the day/night before and don't suffer hangovers ne ways.