A person’s blood alcohol content level gets used in measurements to determine if someone is “safe to drive” or not.
But how exactly does BAC level corelate to how intoxicated a person may feel? In reality, there is less of a relation than you may suspect.
Alcohol and intoxication
The University of Notre Dame discusses the feeling of intoxication. This is a sensation that is highly personal to each individual who experiences it, and many different factors will impact or influence a person’s reaction to alcohol.
Impacting factors can include a victim’s gender and weight, their metabolic rate, and their fat percentage. On top of that, different alcohols can impact the body in different ways. The type of “drunk” a person feels from beer may differ greatly from how they feel when intoxicated with gin or vodka, for example.
However, there are enough similarities between percentages of intoxication that it is possible to predict how someone will feel or behave at certain stages.
How intoxication generally feels
At 0.020-0.039 percent, a person may experience relaxation and slight euphoria, but no depressant effects. At 0.040-0.059 percent, people may experience a lowering of caution and minor impairment, but will largely have positive effects like warmth and euphoria.
At 0.06-0.099 percent, people experience impaired reasoning and memory but continued euphoria. They become physically impaired, as well. Of course, this is where the legal limit of 0.08 percent comes in.
At any level higher than this, not only is it illegal to drink and drive, but people experience increased and more severe impairment all the way up to alcohol poisoning and potential coma. Thus, it is dangerous for the driver as well as anyone else on the road.
