The Intoxilyzer: One Beer an Hour Myth with Richard Aitken & Richard Robertson

So, Richard you’re a young guy, lots of friends and yourself go to the Raptors games, have a few drinks and so on, I’m not sure if you’re really aware of the science of this. If you have one beer an hour, you’re having maybe a 12 ounce name brand beer, it’s 5% alcohol, what do you weigh? I weigh about 160 pounds give or take. Alright so that puts you pretty close to the easy example of a 150 pound man. You might have a slight advantage of a few percent but nothing beyond that. So Richard keep in mind if you’re at a bar, and you’re ordering beers, either a bottle or a can that are 12 ounce and 5%, given your weight, for every one of those you have you’re putting in almost 35 mg of alcohol in your body. Now at the same time of course your body is burning it off, for humans typically it’s about 17 or 18 mg an hour, so about half that drink. So for every hour that goes by, the calculation is if you have one an hour, is 35 minus 17 or 18, so you’re gaining 18 an hour. So you’re there with your buddies for two hours, 18 and 18 that’s not going to be a problem. But if you’re there for five  hours, well you’re up to 90 and you’re awfully awfully at risk in terms of blowing over. I gave the example of beer, so if you were to have vodka or rum, standard 40 proof ounce and a half shot, it’s the same as a 12 ounce beer, if you’re having wine, 5 ounces of wine typically 12%, those are all what’s considered a standard drink. And I think that part of the problem here what I’m learning is that the standard drink by the law is not actually the standard drink for society, I don’t know anyone that orders a 12 ounce beer or a 5 ounce glass of wine, we’re seeing 20 ounce pints and 9 ounce glasses of wine being the standard at restaurants these days so in fact, I think I’d have even less time to enjoy the bar. Exactly and if I were to give advice to people, if you’re going out with your friends to drink, I would say that obviously, if you’re tired and you have a little bit to drink you may be impaired for that reason alone, if you’re having alcohol perhaps rotate your drinks so you’re having maybe the beer the first hour and a soft drink the second one, or drink light beer, and try to really avoid the last drink, I’ve had so many clients coming in to my office at 90 or 100 mg, if they had’ve avoided the last drink, they would never have been charged. Also keep in mind, the RIDE programs that work best for the police are Tim Horton’s or McDonald’s drive thrus and so many times now the RIDE programs are set up by the police for 9:00 in the morning on a Sunday morning and not 2:00 in the morning.