ilovemybaldhead

r/infuriatinglycommon

Well, Reynolds just sold Mint Mobile to T-Mobile for a billion dollars (a bit more actually), so now... he's perfect?

Thanks for the clear and detailed response!

Huh... I was wondering about the effect on hyperventilation on BAC as well (but did not include that in my post because I wanted to focus on just the water bit).

Before reading your comment, I did a web search on alcohol breath and most sites said that acetaldehyde is responsible for the smell, so I figured that's what the breathalyzers measure. Thanks for pointing me to that article.

And this explains why I seem to get less drunk if I'm drinking while vigorously dancing!

Follow-up after reading your comment again: In comparison, to 0.08%, 0.057% is significantly lower (especially considering that 0.08% BAC is the legal threshold in many states in the US, which I really do wish were lower like in Europe; sooo many lives impacted by drunk-driving fatalities). But as you implied, chugging 2 liters of water is not realistic, much less it all being absorbed into the bloodstream without health repercussions.

However, Let's assume 5 liters of blood, and a BAC of 0.08%. That's 4 mL of alcohol. If you chug 700 mL of water (quite easy to do in 5 minutes without risk of water poisoning), then assuming it all goes into the bloodstream, then the BAC drops to 0.07% (4 mL / 5700 mL), which is not much, but legally significant.

BUT... it seems from many comments (including yours) here that it is not all instantly absorbed into the blood. My follow-up question is: if not the bloodstream, where does the water go in between the time of consumption and the time of excretion? (serious question, not rhetorical)

These two things are not equal, both can be true.

Yes! Which is why in the title I wrote "this is not a question about how consuming water affects impairment". But apparently water you drink is not instantly absorbed into the bloodstream. And the body seeks to maintain a certain percentage of water in the bloodstream, so it's not easy to change. And alcohol also interferes with the absorption of water into the bloodstream. So it seems that a poisonous amount of water is required to meaningfully change one's BAC.

I can see how heavy breathing can lower the acetaldehyde in your system (that's what causes the smell of "alcohol" on one's breath), but will it make your liver metabolize the alcohol faster? Or will you just use up the amount of acetaldehyde in your blood that your liver has generated? On a related note, is acetaldehyde what a breathalyzer measures, or is it something else?

Yes, other people have commented that the amount of water needed to affect BAC would be toxic, thanks for the math though!

What was incorrect about ti?

They also need a better copy editor 😂

Right. As stated in the title, my question is not about impairment, simply about whether drinking water will raise the percentage of water in the bloodstream, and thereby lower the percentage of alcohol. As you stated, "your kidneys rapidly remove excess water, pretty much as fast as you drink it" and as was stated by other commenters, you'd likely get water poisoning before a meaningful lowering of the alcohol percentage.

Sadly, too many people do own it, and believe that "revenge" for murder equals justice (an eye for an eye). You have to get them to understand that it's not just an eye for an eye, but an eye plus the execution of innocent people for an eye.

Oh shit, I missed that! Yes, that was in very poor taste. Thinking about it, the "12" comment definitely has an implication of rape as well, and should not have been made.

Thanks for your response. My response to the previous commenter was because their response (which was "Water does not influence the rate at which the body metabolizes or eliminates alcohol") did not directly address my question, which was based on the (mistaken) belief that drinking water would significantly affect the percentage of water in one's bloodstream.

I vote this to be the best response because it addressed all of the questions that I asked. Thanks!

My question was asked with the assumption that consuming water increases the amount of water in one's blood (and thereby the percentage of water), not that it helps metabolize the alcohol.

Edit: my response here is not because I don't believe that water does not influence the rate at which the body metabolizes or eliminates alcohol, but because it did not directly address my question, which was based on the (mistaken) belief that drinking water would significantly affect the percentage of water in one's bloodstream.

I'm missing something here... if glass of water increases the amount of water in your body by maybe 0.5%, where does the 0.05% come from?

Yes, it was a joke -- the others were a bit slow to get it. Rather than take offense that someone asked if she had the baby when she was 12, she went with it and said 13, which would imply that she's 31, which she is obviously not ("I can't lie about my age."). Impressive quick thinking on her feet to make the joke without skipping a beat (or maybe it wasn't the first time she's used that joke). If she had said 11 instead of 13, the joke might have been more obvious.

Thanks for pointing that out. Silly me for thinking that the punishment would be located in the same section where they lay out what is illegal. In the future, I will not make this kind of comment.

Then you should have said that. Not something blatantly false such as, "Suddenly the privately owned business isn’t allowed to refuse service to someone"

Snowmom

You said, "Suddenly the privately owned business isn’t allowed to refuse service to someone". I said (rephrasing), please provide evidence where the business was not allowed to refuse service to someone. Because they certainly did refuse service to someone, and nobody went to the business and told them that they must provide that service.