statler & waldorf said:
The rate the body metabolizes alcohol was claimed to be 0.015/hr, at least that was the figure used about 30 years ago. Also, the individual response to varying BAC levels. I have seen a BAC of 0.102, falling down drunk, comparable to card carrying sterno drinker at 0.50+. Practice, practice, practice.
One of my friends from the Pharmacy School, with PhDs in both Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology, mentioned to me 20 years ago that the Pharmacy School used to have a Spring Fling in one of the Pharmacy Labs, for seniors. It may have been part of a course, I no longer recall and he is deceased. But, he would borrow the County's Intoxylizer, and in the lab they would have a keg or two of beer. And games involving mental acuity with physical responses, with scores, as well as the standard DUI tests. Students could measure their own intoxication levels as measured by the Intoxilyzer, their personal feelings, and also measure against the game scores.
He reported that at 0.1, which was the then-standard for impairment, most students did not feel or test impaired, but that some would quite obviously become impaired at that level. At higher levels, he said it was interesting to note just how much alcohol could be ingested without showing clinical impairment.
He also noted there was almost no correlation between physical characteristics and levels necessary to produce impairment, except that women generally were impaired more quickly than men, and that smaller women most quickly. As to 0.1 as the "measure," he said there was little evidence that "most" people with that level were impaired by objective medical standards.