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Thinking About Your Drinking |
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MYTHS - But a cup of coffee will sober me up, won't it? |
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There are a number of myths about alcohol and this, I am afraid, is one of them. Let's deal with the major ones now.
MYTH - Coffee sobers you up.
FACT - Coffee does not help the liver burn-up alcohol in any way. Coffee will only wake you up, so you have a wide awake drunk instead of a sleepy drunk - if this is a benefit! Similarly a cold shower will get you a wet drunk, and a run round the block will give you a tired drunk. Time is the only factor in the action of the liver removing alcohol from your body.
MYTH - Alcohol warms you up on a cold day.
FACT - It might give an immediate sensation of warmth, but this is because the alcohol dilates your small blood vessels. This allows the warm blood to get closer to the surface of the skin. Unfortunately this also means that the blood gets cooler, and therefore, ultimately alcohol cools you down.
MYTH - It's safe to drive. I've only had a couple of pints.
FACT - This is the most dangerous myth of all. One on three drivers killed in the UK in driving accidents is over the legal limits - and it's two out of three at some periods of the evening.
Do you know that the police can prosecute you even if your blood alcohol level is under the legal limit? Your driving can be impaired even by a single drink.
In a monitored test, the skills of professional drivers were shown to be harmed by alcohol as they drove in and out of bollards. But the most worrying outcome was the belief of the drivers themselves that they had driven equally well as before a drink, if not better!
As we learned earlier, alcohol acts on the brain and affects your judgement as well as your coordination.
And remember that driving after drinking doesn't just affect your health and safety.
The only way to be sure that you are safe is not to drink alcohol when you think that you may be driving.
Click here to start thinking about whether you want to change your drinking...
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