Could your time of the month put you over the drink drive limit?
You had a tipple the night before — but think you’re safe. Wrong! And it’s not just due to how much you drank
Curled up on the sofa watching an old film on the television, I finally felt my body start to relax after a particularly stressful day.
Thursday night and I’d already had some white wine with my supper and a glass of Ouzo — from a recent trip to Greece — while catching up with my husband after he got in from work.
But I could still feel the tension in my bones as I sank into the sofa.
So I reached for the vodka bottle and poured myself a generous measure with a splash of tonic. I helped myself to two more before floating happily up to bed a couple of hours later.
This was much more than I’d usually drink — all the spirits would have been classed as doubles in a pub — but I needed it to relax, and, I reassured myself, I was not working the following day.
Thank goodness for that. For when I woke up at 7am, I carried out a little experiment. I had been sent a police-standard breathalyser, thanks to my work as a health j ournalist. That morning, I decided to put it to the test.
The results astonished me. For despite feeling clear-headed after a night’s sleep, I was told by the machine I would have been twice over the drink-drive limit.
It was a terrifying revelation, not least because usually I’d be about to ferry my 11-year-old daughter Sophie to school or be dashing off to a work appointment. Thankfully, on this Friday Sophie was sleeping over at a friend’s house.
I’m not a big drinker and don’t have alchohol every night, but I did wonder how often I might have been unwittingly over the limit the morning after.
I totted up how many units of alcohol I had drunk the night before and calculated I had a maximum 15 over the course of five hours (a unit is classed as around 25ml of a spirit. A typical 175ml glass of wine represents two to three units, depending how strong it is).
Frankly, I’m more than a little ashamed. Official guidelines recommend that women drink only 14-21 units a week.
Still, I think most of us know how easy it is for the units to mount up when you’re relaxed and at home. And I suspect that like many middle-aged women, I was surprised to find myself over the limit the next morning
I shudder when I think of the evening last month when I drank several glasses of wine and vodka as I watched the General election unfold on TV.
The following morning, I got up early and jumped straight into the car as normal. But was I over the limit? Most likely, if last Friday’s breathalyser results are anything to go by. B ecAuSe I never become roaring drunk, I’d always assumed that a good night’s sleep would eradicate booze from my system. How wrong I was. ‘The problem is that many motorists who’ve been drinking the night before have no idea that alcohol can affect their bodies the following day,’ says Paul reddy, a leading motoring lawyer.
‘even if they feel fine the next day, the law remains unequivocal — if you drive with too much alcohol in your system, you will be prosecuted. This can lead to a fine, a ban or, in some cases, prison.’
research by road safety charity Brake has found that one in five motorists admits to driving the morning after drinking heavily the night before.
And it’s not just men; increasing numbers of women are being prosecuted for drink-driving. They account for 17 per cent of all convictions, up from just 9 per cent in 1998. I’m willing to wager many were ‘morning-after’ casualties. It’s so easy to do, as I found out. So what led to my Thursday night binge last week?
I’d had problems over a project at work, and burned the shepherd’s pie I’d made for my family’s dinner. Then I had an energy-sapping row with my daughter over my not wanting her to go to a sleep-over on a school night (she won).
Athough I wasn’t drunk, at the end of the evening I drifted up to bed in something of a warm haze.
And while I woke up refreshed and
without any trace of a hangover, any pleasure I got from feeling revived was swiftly destroyed by the results of the breathalyser test.
I used the AlcoDigital Platinum Breathalyser (£179.95, alcodigital. co.uk), a home-testing kit with police-grade accuracy. You blow into it for a few seconds and then wait for a reading on the screen.
The current drink- drive limit is 35mg per 100ml of breath. This equates to approximately four units of alcohol for an average man and two to three units for an average woman (though this can vary considerably, depending on the size and weight of the person).
Yet after a six-hour break from drinking, my reading was 73mg — more than twice the legal limit. According to Paul Reddy, had I been stopped, breathalysed and successfully prosecuted, I’d face a driving ban of 17 to 22 months.
‘And that’s before considering the huge margin for error when you drive with that amount in your system,’ he says. HAVING covered many stories about the devastating impact of drink- driving, I consider myse l f supremely aware of its effects.
I was particularly shaken after interviewing Phil and Amanda Peake whose children Ben, eight, and Arron, ten, died when drunk f ootballer Luke McCormick ploughed into their car at 97mph.
So how could I have been so cavalier about ‘next day’ drunkenness? I’ve never knowingly driven while over the limit — yet I’ve thought nothing about jumping into the car to go to t he school, t he office or Sainsbury’s the next morning.
But whether the intention is there or not, I’m just as culpable and irresponsible as if I’d just fallen out of a pub .
As women, we are especially vulnerable to the effects of alcohol because we tend to be smaller than men. In very broad terms, it takes an hour for the liver to break down one unit of alcohol.
But this can fluctuate considerably, depending on the person’s age, weight, gender and metabolic rate. Women have less tissue to absorb alcohol and a higher ratio of fat to water, so are less able to dilute alcohol within the body. It’s why we will tend to have a higher concentration of alcohol in our blood than men after drinking the same amount.
Alcohol also stays in a women’s system longer before being metabolised than it does in a man’s because we have lower levels of a chemical called alcohol dehydrogenase which breaks down alcohol in the liver.
‘The rate at which our bodies br ea k down alcohol varies enormously,’ says David Lloyd, consultant liver surgeon at Leicester general Hospital.
‘If you’re not used to drinking regularly, and perhaps only do so at weekends, your liver might process alcohol slowly, which means it may stay in the bloodstream longer.
‘Or, for women, it may well be that being pre- menstrual i ncreases blood-alcohol level for reasons not yet adequately explained. So women should drink even less at this time of the month.’
My drinking experiment took place during the pre-menstrual stage of my cycle.
One theory that this has an effect is the variation caused by hormonal fluctuations, especially in regard to oestrogen. Elevated oestrogen levels have been found to lead to slower alcohol metabolism. What’s more, adds Mr Lloyd, spirit drinkers like me tend to lull themselves into a false sense of security.
‘You may see someone drinking several glasses of wine or pints of beer and think: “Well, I’m only having two or three vodkas”,’ he says.
‘But wine is 15 per cent alcohol and vodka is 40 per cent. So a few vodkas will be enough to push you over the limit the next day.’
I didn’t drive for a full 24 hours after breathalysing myself. But I wondered if the results would differ if I carried out another morningafter experimient.
So, at the weekend, I went to a friend’s party, a walk from where I live. Knowing I was walking home, I had five drinks: t wo lychee martinis (each containing 70mls of vodka) and three l arge drams (43mls) of very strong whiskey (57.5 per cent alcohol content).
So I had a similar amount of alcohol as I had on the previous occasion and the same amount of sleep (six hours). But my reading the next morning was different.
I registered at 41mg. Still over the limit by 6mg, but nothing like as dramatic as the previous occasion.
I’d eaten more as I drank, which might explain the difference. But this proved you can never know whether you’re over the limit the morning after, unless you breathalyse yourself.
One thing’s for sure, I will never get in a car again if I’ve had more than one drink the night before.
And I’d urge other women to think twice as well. How many of us could withstand the shame of a criminal record and the horror of a spell in jail? not to mention the guilt of harming another human being through our recklessness?
I for one couldn’t. I am j ust counting my lucky stars that I have found out the error of my ways before anyone was hurt.