Does drinking water alongside alcohol prevent you from getting as drunk?

Question

Whilst out on thursday night, I decided to take my moms advice and alternate my alcoholic drinks with water. However, it made me think, "wont all this water increase the water potential of my blood, causing the alcohol to be abosrbed into my blood stream faster, and then stay there for longer? Resulting in me getting more drunk?"

Answer 1

initially it will help.. since alcohol has a spectrum of effects and in the long run it's certainly better than not.. but it will involve a lot of trips to the toilet. Once alcohol reachs a certain concentration in your blood it will first cause an osmotic diuresis, causing you to produce a lot more urine.. much the same as the effect of a high glucose in a diabetic.. this is when you start to lose water regardless of how much you drink.. after a while your alcohol level will reach a point where it will affect osmo receptors in the hyperthalamus stopping the production of ADH (anti-diauretic hormone) otherwise known as AVP (arginine vasopressin) whose job it is to cause reabsorption of water in the kidneys.. At this point you can no longer concentrate your urine so any water you drink will just pass straight through you... If you want to slow the effects of getting drunk, or stop a hangover whilst still drinking the same amount you need to make you body better at dealing with the alcohol and alcoholic biproducts. Most health shops sell L-cysteine supplements.. this is a co-factor for the break down of alcohol and will help your body to remove it from your system.

Answer 2

What it does is dilute the alcohol in your blood as though it were a cordial and stop you damaging your body all in one go. It doesn't prevent you from getting drunk but it can help stop you getting 'Bladdered'. More importantly it helps you have a great night and reduces the chance of a bad hangover almost by half.

However, an approach I prefer is to drink normally with my friends until I start to feel like I've had enough and then switch to water for the rest of the evening. This means that you've had as good a time as everyone else(if you need to drink to have a good time) but feel a hell of a lot better than they do in the morning. It also helps you be a little more conscious at the end of an evening when you need to be concentrating on gettin home safely!

Hope some of that helps.

Answer 3

Drinking water with alcohol doesn't affect how quickly, or otherwise, you may get drunk. Alcohol doesn't need a change of water potential to be absorbed into the body's tissues - it's fat soluble so it can pass straight through.

Drinking water makes you feel "full" faster so you might drink less on the night.

It's good for preventing a hangover in the morning, though. They're caused by severe dehydration, alcohol being quite a powerful diuretic.

Answer 4

Hi there , U do have a logical thinking but you need a light to carry it to the end
First you need to understand that Alcohol is a diuretic ( means it takes away water from ur body) so you would have seen it yourself that when you drink more Alcohol u feel more thirsty .

Secondly if you taking Alcohol with water it has no concern with its absorption in blood stream ie it wont be absorbed in blood stream fastly because Alcohol is Breaken in Liver and it has a capacity of 35-50 ml breakage\Hr so more amount you take the more times it shall stay in your blood stream ,
Yes the only advantage of adding water is that next morning u shall have less headache and nausea which people complain as alcohol swells the brain temporarily and drains water from body.

Thirdly the best way to have alcohol is to have the same with some snacks which should have Salads ( Fibres) combined with Cheese as these things protect your sensitive Stomach Lining which also gets irriated with Alcohol ( Avoid Oily and Salty food)

Lastly have alcohol in small Bits and No's , divide the same into intervals so that your liver can assimilate to its capacity and in case u tend to have more you tend to get drunk easily

And after taking your dooze of booze don't forget to have atleast 2 glasses of Lemon \Tomato\Orange juice or any Citrus drink

Answer 5

Alcohol slows down production of vasopresine, hormone which prevents you from loosing too much water. That's why when you drink alcohol, you must more often go to the toilet.
When you overuse alcohol and wake-up 1st thing which you can think about is: I'm thirsty. Because your blood is too "sticky" - contains not enough water (it's in the bladder).
Drinking water prevents this, as well as smoking, which increase production of vasopresine.

P.S. Lack of water is not the only cause of hangover.

Answer 6

No but it lessens the effect of dehydration which is part of the cause of a hangover. If anything drinking alcohol with water may make you more drunk. If you are drinking spirits, the stomach can react badly and lessen the uptake of alcohol into the bloodstream. Diluting the alcohol might prevent this and make you drunker faster.

Answer 7

The French when they drink wine also intersperse it with water. This prevents the body and more specifically the brain from becoming dehydrated. It's the dehydration of the brain that gives the awful headache and hangover.
I drink a pint of water before retiring after a few drinks.
I never have a headache or any other ill effects from drinking.

Answer 8

u drink some water before the alcohol. that way something is in ur stomache. Eating before u go out is good too, but not necessary a heavy meal due to vomitting if u are in a dancing establishment. But u cant subsitute the meal for water, u have to drink the water still. Your mom gave u great advice. If u drink on a regular basis I would follow such advice. never eat anything with salt, (popcorn, peanuts, pretzels) they absorb the alcohol yes but the salt makes u more thirsty resulting in buying more drinks and u get wasted beyond ur normal capicity.

Answer 9

I think that in the absolute, if you drink an important lot of water, you have no pleasure to drink more alcohol, since you absorb a great quantity of liquid. But , the feeling to be drunk depends of the amount of ethanol swallowed and I doubt that he water will help you

Answer 10

I don't know but it will help prevent a hangover. Maybe not 100%, but a hangover is mostly dehydration from drinking alcohol. Water consumption helps.