Binge or heavy drinking can lead to severe impairment that significantly impacts memory, balance, coordination, decision-making, and impulse control. During this stage, you can also experience blackouts that leave you with no memory of the evening. Severe impairment also increases your risk of alcohol overdose and loss of consciousness. You cannot flush alcohol out of your system or lower your BAC faster, but you can practice self-care to support recovery after drinking. If you do indulge over the holiday season, understanding how your body processes alcohol and how you can support it is the key to having a healthy holiday season. Whether you’ve eaten or drank something that expired a little too long ago, or had one too many alcoholic drinks at a holiday party, Activated Charcoal can help to “mop up” the toxic aftermath.

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This excess fluid buildup can cause bloating and make clothing uncomfortable. If you consume too much salt, you can detox yourself of the extra water weight. Research suggests that free radical damage plays a role in conditions such as dementia, heart disease, liver disease, asthma, and certain types of cancer (34, 35). If you have difficulties staying or falling asleep at night, lifestyle changes like sticking to a sleep schedule and limiting blue light before bed are useful for improving sleep (19, 20, 21).

The Vital Role of Medical Supervision in Alcohol Detox: Your Path to a Healthier Future

While you cannot flush alcohol out of your system faster, there are a few things you can do to help yourself feel better and support your body as it recovers. As you age, alcohol remains in your system longer because your body becomes less efficient at metabolizing it. Older adults also tend to have a lower volume of total body water, which can slow down alcohol metabolism. Men may metabolize alcohol more quickly than women since they have higher levels of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) in their stomach and liver.

How Long Do The Effects of Alcohol Last?

However, if you regularly abuse alcohol, engage in frequent binge drinking, and then stop drinking, you may experience severe withdrawal symptoms like confusion, hallucinations, and seizures. However, food can speed up alcohol metabolism, especially probiotic foods like sauerkraut, kombucha, and kefir. The primary benefits of enrolling in treatment are minimizing withdrawal symptoms and preventing complications. Medications like acamprosate, benzodiazepines, disulfiram, and naltrexone can help make withdrawal more manageable and sustain abstinence. And being under the care of a qualified provider can help keep you safe if you experience dangerous withdrawal symptoms like delirium tremens, which may occur in cases of severe AUD.

Get Plenty of Sleep

I’ve told you about how alcohol is processed in your body, how long it can stay in your system, and the effects it has on your body. Now I’m going to tell you how to get alcohol out of your system and ways you can support your body’s detoxification process. In order to get alcohol out of your system, you have to understand how long it can stay in your body. I mentioned earlier some of the factors that determine how quickly your body processes alcohol.

• In urine, alcohol can be detected from 12 to 130 hours if a person has been drinking excessively.
• Your body breaks this down at a rate of about 1 serving of alcohol per hour – but the traces will stay in your system for much longer.
• If you have been drinking heavily, alcohol can continue to show up in your urine for up to 72 hours or more.

Someone coming off a long history of chronic drinking can expect to experience severe withdrawal along the lines of convulsions, paranoia, and even psychosis. Under these conditions, round-the-clock medical care and monitoring are needed. Drinking lots of water helps supply your kidneys with the fluid it needs to flush alcohol and its toxins out of the body. When first starting detox, it helps to drink as much water as you can stand.

• Foods rich in potassium include potatoes, squash, kidney beans, bananas, and spinach (51).
• Your body naturally produces these molecules for cellular processes, such as digestion.
• The form found in most alcoholic beverages is known as ethyl alcohol, which is produced during the fermentation process.
• However, the short answer to this is that if you’re looking to flush alcohol out of your system to pass a drug test, you can’t.
• Once alcohol is in your system, the natural question is how to expedite its removal.

You may also become less coordinated, and your speech may begin to slow down. This metabolic process is relatively constant, with the liver able to process about one standard drink per hour for an average person. However, this rate can vary based on several factors, including age, gender, liver health, and whether other drugs or medications are present. We will fastest way to flush alcohol out of your system delve into the body’s process of metabolizing alcohol, exploring effective strategies to support this natural detoxification. With a focus on practical advice, we aim to equip you with the knowledge to responsibly manage alcohol’s impact on your body. If you’re living with alcohol use disorder, treatment at a medical rehabilitation facility is your best option.

Licensed medical professionals review material we publish on our site. The material is not a substitute for qualified medical diagnoses, treatment, or advice. It should not be used to replace the suggestions of your personal physician or other health care professionals. Those who have consumed alcohol, especially in larger quantities or those who are working on detoxing and getting sober, often look for ways to quickly get the alcohol out of their system. Exercise caution if using a sauna or getting into any type of water while drinking, as intoxication increases the risk of injury or death.

Alcohol roughly leaves the body at an average rate of 0.015 grams per 100 milliliters per hour. By increasing your water intake, your body reduces the secretion of the antidiuretic hormone and increases urination, eliminating more water and waste products (49, 50). That’s because when you consume too much salt and not enough water, your body releases an antidiuretic hormone that prevents you from urinating and therefore, detoxifying (48).