If you’re drunk right now, the most important things are to stop drinking, sip water, eat something if you can, and get to a safe place to rest. There’s no trick to sobering up faster. Your liver clears alcohol at a fixed rate of about one standard drink per hour, and nothing speeds that up. What you can do is keep yourself comfortable, avoid danger, and let time do its work.
Stop Drinking and Start With Water and Food
Put down the drink. Every additional sip adds to the line your liver has to process, and it can only handle roughly one standard drink per hour (lowering your blood alcohol by about 0.015 per hour). Switching to water won’t sober you up, but it will help with the dry mouth and headache that come from alcohol pulling fluid out of your body.
Eat something if your stomach can handle it. Food eaten after drinking increases the rate your body clears alcohol from the bloodstream by 25 to 45 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University. Starchy, filling foods like bread, rice, or crackers are easy on the stomach. A meal won’t make you suddenly sober, but it gives your body more to work with and can settle nausea.
Things That Won’t Sober You Up
Coffee, cold showers, fresh air, and exercise are all popular suggestions, and none of them work. The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control states it plainly: time is the only thing that removes alcohol from your system. Caffeine is especially misleading because it makes you feel more alert while your coordination, reaction time, and judgment remain just as impaired. The CDC confirms that caffeine does not reduce any of alcohol’s effects on your body. All it does is trick you into thinking you’re less drunk than you are, which can lead to riskier decisions like driving.
How to Rest Safely
If you’re ready to lie down, do it on your side rather than your back. This is critical. Vomiting while on your back can block your airway, and intoxicated people may not wake up in time to turn over. The NHS recommends a specific position: lie on your side with your bottom arm extended out in front of you, your top hand tucked under your cheek, and your top knee bent at a right angle to keep you from rolling onto your stomach. Tilt the head back slightly so the airway stays open.
If you’re helping someone else get into this position, stay with them. Check that they’re breathing normally and haven’t rolled onto their back. Don’t leave a very drunk person alone to sleep it off.
Skip the Painkillers for Now
It’s tempting to take something for the headache, but be careful about what you choose. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and alcohol both tax your liver. Heavy or regular drinkers are at higher risk because alcohol depletes a protective compound in the liver that normally handles acetaminophen safely. The Cleveland Clinic warns that the biggest danger of combining the two is liver failure. If you drink heavily on a regular basis, daily doses should stay under 2,000 mg.
NSAIDs like ibuprofen are generally less dangerous with alcohol, but they’re harder on your stomach and kidneys, which are already under stress. Your safest option is to wait until you’re no longer intoxicated and then take a painkiller if you still need one.
What to Do While You Wait
Boredom and restlessness are normal when you’re drunk and trying to wind down. A few practical things to do while your body processes the alcohol:
- Keep sipping water or a sports drink. Hydration won’t cure a hangover (research shows water consumption has only a modest effect on next-day symptoms, since hangovers and dehydration appear to be separate consequences of drinking), but staying hydrated still helps you feel less miserable right now.
- Stay off your phone. Drunk texts and online purchases are easy to send and hard to undo. Put your phone out of reach or hand it to a friend.
- Don’t drive or bike. Your judgment of your own impairment is the least reliable sense you have right now. If you need to get somewhere, call a rideshare or ask someone sober.
- Keep snacking. Small bites of bland food can help settle your stomach and support your liver’s work.
When Someone Needs Emergency Help
Alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency and kills people every year. If you or someone around you shows any of these signs, call emergency services immediately:
- Slow breathing: fewer than eight breaths per minute
- Irregular breathing: gaps of more than 10 seconds between breaths
- Skin that looks blue, gray, or pale
- Unconsciousness or inability to be woken up
- Seizures or repeated vomiting while unconscious
Don’t assume someone will “sleep it off.” Blood alcohol can continue rising after a person stops drinking, especially if they consumed a large amount quickly. If something looks wrong, it probably is. Place them in the side-lying recovery position described above, keep them warm, and stay with them until help arrives.
How Long Until You’re Sober
Count the standard drinks you’ve had. Your body eliminates roughly one per hour. So if you had five drinks and stopped at midnight, you’re looking at being mostly clear around 5 a.m. A “standard drink” is 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor. Cocktails, strong craft beers, and generous pours often count as more than one.
Body weight, sex, how much you’ve eaten, and how fast you drank all shift the timeline slightly, but the one-drink-per-hour rule is a reliable rough guide. If you’re planning to drive, add a buffer. Feeling “fine” doesn’t mean your blood alcohol is actually at zero.