Alcohol Tolerance

Kold

K, I've been 18 for what? Just over a week now and I've been out quite a bit. Now I'm by no means gonna make the consumption of alcohol a regular thing because I know too much about it. I mean, all I need is a little bit of hash when I need to relax but the thing is.. I can't take my drink at ALL.

Now I don't want to be a regular drinker but it would be nice to be able to have more than 2 pints without falling about the place. Now is this because I'm not very used to drinking or what? I mean there are other reasons I could mention: I don't have a lot of body fat, I'm half asian, my sleeping/eating habits are messed up. The other thing is that during 1 pint I'll need to piss about twice. It's embarassing how often I make the walk to the jacks.

It's not that bad, on the night of my party I was knocking back all sorts of spirits with pints in between, sure I was wasted but I don't seem to get hangovers yet. But like, for going for a quiet pint with a mate, I can feel the affects after one.

Will I build up a better tolerance over time or am I destined to forever be a lightweight?

Lukin Black

I was watching a BBC programme once that touched on alcohol and Asians, it said that 50% of Asians have a low alcohol tolerance, and one of the theories doing the rounds was that Europeans brewed alcohol to disinfect water, while Asians made tea to do so.

From the BBCi site
There is a strong genetic pattern to food intolerances. Lactose intolerance is less common among northern and western Europeans (10-15% are affected) than Asian, African, Native American, and Mediterranean populations (70-90% are affected). Babies are usually born with higher levels of lactase and lactose intolerance usually begins after about the age of 2 years, as the body begins to produce less of the enzyme. However, many people don't experience symptoms until they are much older. A temporary lactase deficiency may follow gastroenteritis, especially in children. Alcohol intolerance is common among Asian people - 50% are affected.

I don't know if being Asian will effect this, but I think most people I know find that they quickly build up a certain level of tolerance to it if they are drinking regularly, so I'd say you've a good chance of building some tolerance, though to better your chances, and cause it's better in any case, have something starchy, like pasta before you go out, and it should absorb some of the alcohol, and make it 'hit' you less.

Gillie

Hard to say.
Some ppl just can't drink. Depend on your poison as well! I'm a Guiness man and can handle a fair few. Can't stomach lager. Don't really drink shorts either.
Your toleronce should get a bit better than 2 pints.

Anyway what do you care.
If you can get pissed on 2 pints then you'll be forever havin cheap nites out!;)

Capt'n Midnight

Look on the bright side - in the long run you'll get just as pissed but you'll save a fortune and possibly do less damage to your liver - perhaps just get half pints.

Also if you are lighter that will make a difference - some of the heavy (sic) drinkers are probably twice your weight and so would need to drink twice as much to get the same blood alcohol level.

Emboss

you don't realise how lucky you are enjoy it while it lasts

after 18 cans on christmas day i was still hitting the trebble 20's!

Sandi

You may build up a tolerance of some sort. The very first time I got drunk I had 3 pints of Budweiser and was completely twisted! I hate beer now and stick to me girly drinks (Smirnoff Ice, blue WKD and the like) and I can drink about 5 and not be too bad. I have built up a tolerance but there are other factors that contribute to how drunk I get how quickly. ie, how much I've eaten and how recently.

Everyone's different though. Look at the bright side, if you feel like getting locked then it's so much cheaper for you!

Lenny

Pissing during drink is normal, just affects different people, i could drink about 6 cans before my first piss. some of my mates do have 6 and 7 pisses within every 15 minutes. now you think you're bad? imagine having to have over 40 pisses during a session/nite out its madness. they can't hold in there pisses for any minute! that's why dublin bus does be quite wet on fri/sat nites

But about you getting drunk easily. you will save a lot of money, and it would do wonders in town. so what if people slag you over not being able to handle 7/8 pints. just ask to see their wallet when you're leaving the pub
Don't know about building up tolerence, but I suppose yea do as yea get older. but don't expect it to be much.. just wondering. did you not drink before you were under 18?

yellum

You'll build a tolerance from regular drinking but it might take longer and your tolerance might not be as strong due to your physiology.

2 pints is great to get pissed with. Count yourself lucky.

red_ice

Originally posted by Lukin Black
I was watching a BBC programme once that touched on alcohol and Asians, it said that 50% of Asians have a low alcohol tolerance

Im not being racist or anything, but apparently all asians have that same problem and i think its called 'red face'

I myself used to get pissed on 3 cans when i started drinking, but as time went on i built up strengh for handling it. When i was 17 i stopped drinking (more or less) and started again at my 19th bday. Im 20 now and since i started drinking again i cant get drunk at all.

At my christmas party i had 3 JD+cokes infront of me at all times. I drank them asap to meet the next round, we started at 5 and ended at 6. Considering the pace i was drinking at i had at lease 20 jd + cokes and a few shorts yet nothing came of this. Well, i do feel a lil weird as in a laugh a lil more and what not. But i dont stumble, my speach is grand and my train of thought is grand too.

I guess it really just comes with practise - dont give up, some day you may not be able to get drunk too.

Funky

enjoy life and have fun dont care what other people think about how much you can drink!

richindub2

post more topless webcam pics, the more e-fans you have the higher your tolerance for alcohol

(eat more food)

Peace

my tolerance goes up and down depend on how much i'e been drinking in say the precious couple of months. Now that i'm a broke student my tolerance has dropped a fair bit.

But thats just me.

Kold

Originally posted by Lenny
just wondering. did you not drink before you were under 18?

Well I'd have a can or so at parties but I'd be more in a hurry to spark up and maybe chat up a few girls. But 2 cans were enough to start me slurring

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Peace
my tolerance goes up and down depend on how much i'e been drinking in say the precious couple of months. Now that i'm a broke student my tolerance has dropped a fair bit.

But thats just me.

Ever try the donating blood routine - popular at RTC's ?
They give you a glass of guiness to get started and when you go out on the raz afterwards - it takes a lot less drinks to get the same blood alcohol level..
I'm not recomending this (apart from the donating blood if you are able bit.)

Sleepy

It's a lot to do with practice, just like anything else. A few tips to help you stay standing later:

Have a good carbohydrate filled meal before going out lots of bread/pasta will give you a good amount of soakage. Drink a pint of milk/eat a bowl of ice-cream before you go out. It lines the wall of your stomach which reduces the amount of alcohol your system takes from the booze (i.e. your piss has a higher alcohol percentage). Pace yourself, don't get involved in rounds where you'll end up drinking at other people's paces. If none of this helps, start drinking something like Rum and Coke, and then just have a coke every second drink...

Kold

Surely that'll single me out as a... girl

Funky

You dont have to drink as fast as everyone else, i dont concentrate on how much my friends drink in the pub... how about just having every second round or something and working your way up etc.

Eating alot before you go out helps alot too.

Chad ghostal

do you have a few smokes before you go out?? i find this severly reduces my tolerance to alchohol, sleep and the amount of food youv eaten also have a big affect on this,.. .
just relax and drink slowly for a while, youll find out what your tolerance level soon enough, theres no rush. .

Sangre

People are saying that 2 pints is grand and is great to save money but i think that's way too low if you're drinking with friends. If it gets you really drunk as you say then it can be very tempting to get too drunk and nobody wants that.

Eat before you go out is the best thing to do.

Ignore how much others are drinking or how fast, if they comment on how little you're drinking just say you're up earlier the next day or you're too broke to buy anything. Dont let them get you anything

Drink slow and steady.

It also doesn't matter how many times you piss, sometimes I can go ages before pissing but once I do I go every 30mins if Im still drinking pints. It all depends on how much liquids you drank earlier.

I wouldnt consider myself a lightweight at all but I *cannot* drink fast or down things or do certain shots. I just gag and usually get sick, I never down something when people tell to or egg me on to because I know its not worth.

You havent been drinking much so dont worry really, you'll learn everything overtime as we all had to. Not to mention you're in 6th year so dont drink too much.

*Dont do rounds with friends*

rounds are the best. They make sure everyones gonna end up equally wasted.


One thing I learned to do in all my 6th year drinking sessions, was to handle my drink better, as in not be falling all over the place despite the fact I've just drank 15 drinks...

Nowadays I just can't drink a pint quickly though without feeling totally shabby afterwards. Just pace yourself out. Unless you're out for the sole reason of getting wasted, I can't see why a friend would turn around to you and give you shít over not being on your 6th pint just an hour into the night...


btw enjoy not getting hangovers while you can.

Sangre

Originally posted by utility_
I can't see why a friend would turn around to you and give you shít over not being on your 6th pint just an hour into the night...

No, but he might go, ah stop milking that thing, we're here to have fun. He probably doesnt know his limit and is assuming they're not really drinking, of course most people wont admit this is their limit so they will drink too much. Its that unintentional kind of peer pressure.

p

Basic stuff as other people said, eat a decent bit of food beforehand, don't drink on an empty stomach. Take your time drinking.

Alternating between an alcoholic drink and a mineral/water helps too.

Anyways, at the end fo the day you drink to have fun, not to actually consume a lot of liquid.

Sangre

Originally posted by p
Anyways, at the end fo the day you drink to have fun, not to actually consume a lot of liquid.

Exactly.

If you drink a pint of water between pints, it lessens the alcoholic effect and it will give you somthing to hold/drink. If someone questions it say you're really thirsty/hot.

Originally posted by Sangre
If someone questions it say you're really thirsty/hot.

Or that you've just taken a load of e's

Sangre

Dude....that's not cool.

Cake Fiend

Yeah, then everyone will want some. And where will you be then? Up the proverbial creek, my friend.

Caesar_Bojangle

If you get pished easily then you'd be best advised to avoid spirits. As it's far too easy to throw back spirits, and then KABLAMO! you're sh*tfaced.

Delphi91

Ah yes, the old Irish equation for fun is being bandied about a lot in this thread:

Fun = getting totally locked!

Sad, isn't it!

It always interests me to hear people at work on Monday mornings - "Jaysus I had a f***ing fantastic weekend. Went out on the raz Friday night, drank 400 pints, followed by 50 Tequila slammers. Pucked up all over the place, pucked in the taxi, all over the chip shop. Woke up with the mother of all hangovers on Saturday - swore I'd NEVER drink again. But what a weekend it was"!

Am I missing something here? Since when did the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol become a prerequisite for having fun? Doesn't it raise an interesting question about peoples ability to have fun if they need some sort of stimulant to get them going?

BTW, before anyone accuses me of being a tee-totaler, I'm not. I can have a drink no problem. However, like the original poster, I have a low tolerance for it. I can have one, maybe two pints, then two things happen - (1) I start to feel the effects and (2) I start to dislike the tatse of it. Hence that's usually it.

And I can have a good night out like anyone else, the only difference being I don't have to be totally wasted.

Mike

Sangre

Uhhhh, you completely missed the whole point of this thread Delphi. Everyone here is advising how *not* to get ****faced. The original posters problem was he got drunk too quickly and couldnt enjoy a few drinks with friends, the rest gave advice how to drink a bit more and *not* get drunk.

Geddit?

maxheadroom

Its almost certainly due to your asian background. It is to do with having a different form of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase.

Its not a case of being able to build up a tolerance to alcohol if this is true for you - the enzyme involved is unable to handle large quantities and this will not change in any meaningful way if you gradually increase your intake.

You should go to a doctor, explain your concerns and have a test done to determine if you have the different form of ADH.

Sangre

Thats not what ADH commonly stands for is it?

Thought it was Adenoise Dexxyhydrogenbaljgapvbadb or something

maxheadroom

I dunno - its just the abbreviation I saw several papers in medline using when I did a quick search before posting...


(reposting, dunno why this post didn't show up 1st time...)

(-edit from Gordon. Magic. Max, this happened because you posted your post and then had to log in. This will happen every time you post without being logged in. If you don't want it to happen again, please log in before you post.)

Töpher

Try other drinks. I have no beer tolerance, I'm shítfaced after 3 pints, yet can probably drink my body weight in spirits.*
Just try to find what works for you. If you dont like the alcopop girly solution try the red bull and vodka route, tho may mean sparking up will be less effective. I have more fun when píssed on spirits anyways, but maybe thats just me!

*(May be slightly exaggerated for the sake of my point).

Sangre

Ok, what maxheadroom says makes a lot of sense and explains alot.

1 unit of alcohol takes 1 hour to be broken down by the liver, no one (give or take) is any exception to this, 24 units of alcohol takes 24 hours to be broken down and leave the system. Now the effect of alcohol we feel is the remaining alcohol in our blood, the more blood, the more dilute the blood alcohol level is, this is what we can build a tolerance to, the blood alcohol level, overtime it takes a higher blood alcohol level to make us drunk. This change be changed but our ability to break down alcohol can not. So as long as you drink more then 1 unit of alcohol an hour, there will be alcohol in your blood.

However if, as maxheadroom says, asians can be lacking in the ADH enzyme then this would effect this greatly. There are a certain amout of this ADH enzymes in the liver and enzymes can only work on one chemical bond at a time meaning, it has to break down some alcohol then move onto some more alccohol. Obviously we always have the same ADH, thats why it always takes the same time to breakdown alcohol. But in asians a lack of ADH means it takes longer to break down alcohol, so 1 unit of alcohol could take 2hours to break down (for example), this means that asain will have twice the blood alcohol level. So if I drank 2 pints, they drank the equivalent 4.

Vis-a-vis Asians cant drink as much due to less ADH

*note* this may not be totally true, Im skipping some bits and using general knowledge for others.

conZ

Adenosine Dyoxo Hydroxine?

Kold :

: Dont mix your drinks (pint of Bud followed by a pint of Bulmers). (the odd shot isin't too bad - though watch it when drinking 2 and more)
: Drink slowly (I usually drink 1:2 with my friends when were not buying rounds) - No-one really notices though I just say i'm a slow drinker - I dont do it deliberately, i'm just a slow drinker.

I dont make it my business to eat or drink loads of milk before I go out - dont really notice the difference much.

I dunno, i've built up a fairly decent resistance to drink - I'd be out for the night and wouldn't be drunk after a decent amount of pints. I haven't been badly scalded since September (out practically every weekend) - resistance built up by the odd bad night last Summer.

If you feel sick (well, drunk people usually think they're fine and wont get sick) just head out and get some fresh air - stay away from warm fires and ****. Get a coke or something with high sugar level's and drink that slowly - nothing worse than cokey puke.
Dont get a pint for about half an hour - symptoms (head slipping off the supporting arm - friends asking if your gonna get sick) should wear off after a half hour to an hour, and drink that pint fairly slowly.

That should get you through to closing time, half sober .

DMT

Originally posted by Lukin Black
one of the theories doing the rounds was that Europeans brewed alcohol to disinfect water, while Asians made tea to do so.

The Asians BOILED the water to purify it. Tea leaves would do nothing to purify the water.
The teas thing has to do with a story about an emporer who drinking warm water, had some tea leaves blow in the cup and he liked the taste....

Lukin Black

What they were suggesting was that boiling water TO make the tea was the disinfectant. Sorry I didn't make that clear enough, I didn't think that anyone would think that tea (itself) kills germs.

Was an interesting programme - had that fella that does a lot of the other interesting BBC human science programmes. He's got dark, curly hair, moustache and glasses, and I think his name is Robert Wilson or something similar.

Capt'n Midnight

ADH = Alcohol Dehydrogenase And yes there is a gene for it.

http://harvester.embl.de/harvester/P073/P07327.htm
Structure of it - Looks good though

Davey Devil

I have a friend who can smoke more hash and blow more bongs than anyone I know. The guy is a complete stoner. Thing is he can't drink to save his life he's plastered after 2 pints and after a third he gets sick. He's being trying to drink for years, just to be social, going to the pub like everyone else but he's never been able to build up a tollarance. His given up trying now so he just gets smoked out of it now b4 he goes out and then hits the soft drinks when he's out combined with the odd joint in the jacks. He's much happier now he's given up trying to drink.

ferdi

Originally posted by Kold
Well I'd have a can or so at parties but I'd be more in a hurry to spark up and maybe chat up a few girls. But 2 cans were enough to start me slurring

dude, stick to the sparking up rather than the puking up. alcohol is bad bad stuff. i just go for maximum 3 pints of smithwicks (under 4% - keep the lights on). the smokeage of the ropeage is far better in every way, it took me a while to figure this out but its so true

what Davey Devil said (the post before this one) about his mate is totally the way to go.

dont bother trying to "keep up" with your mates - thats such bull**** which should be left to 14 year olds in fields.

Kold

Was out last night, when i met up with the group they had already had a couple in em so that was aight. I bought 1 pint of heineken and then spent the rest of the night knocking back smirnoff ice on draught, I was quite tipsy after about 3 pints of the stuff but I was knocking it back a lot easier than I would beer. The thing is though... I still felt a bit girly...

Sleepy

Of course you did, it's a girly drink :P Seriously though, that has the same alcohol percentage as most beers so in theory you'd have been in the exact same condition after that number of beers...

tinkerbell

Jus eat loads before you go out and you won't get drunk quick or at all!!

SheroN

about 2 hours before you go out....have a big feed...I always find plenty of red meat, bread and spuds do the trick. I also recomend drinking half a pint of milk too.

][cEMAN**

Besides it's all relative anyway. Some nights I get a nice buzz (happy) off maybe 8 pints, but then other nights i'm drinking pints and tequila all night and it's not getting me anywhere close to tipsy

Just don't push it....it's cheaper the way you are. I kinda wish I were like that - but then i've never been like that. Trust me it's far worse when you're downing anything you see at a party just to try and cop a buzz. Sometimes you end up drinking yourself sober and that just totally misses the point....

Sangre

Ah crap, crap, crap!

I think I spent 100 euro on drink last night. Crap, crap, crap.

KlodaX

if you get a vodka and red bull... and drink the full red bull with it.. it doesn't seem girly...
I'm the same... hamered on 4 pints
I can drink vodka better... *as long as its not a full bottle!*

eat LOADS before you go out... and don't mix shmoke with it.
this is of course you have to drink.
I'd agree that shmoke is much better.
and mingle ... that way you don't have to keep up with everyone elses drinking pattern ... they don't know how many drinks you have had if you haven't been sitting with them the whole night.... that way you can drink at your own pace.

rounds suck the big one. they are my biggest weakness.

][cEMAN**

I wouldn't really recommend vodka and redbull in large amounts.

I've had 2 instances of drinking the stuff. Once I found myself at 3 in the morning walking down the street with a broken bottle looking for a fight (for no reason whatsoever - it just put me in a fighting mood) and then last week I started drinking them like small glasses of lemonade. Drank about 10 along with the rest of my pints and after 2 hours of sleep (party after the bar) I got up for work the next morning and was buzzing on the caffeine. I didn't realise at first that it was that I was buzzing off as I felt like I was still alseep yet my dreams were just TOO vivid.....

dendenz

Hvae a meal and there should be no problem, you could have two oe three extra pints ?

crowbar

if i eat before i go out, i stop drinking during the night because i feel full, especially if i'm drinking guinness. anyway, doesn't that old saying go 'eating is cheating'?

i've definitely built up an increased tolerance in the last couple of years - going from drinking 4 or 5 pints every friday (after which i'd be unable to walk straight) to going on the pints three or four times a week and usually managing to stay in rounds. for me, i can sink guinness or bud all night. i fare worse on heineken and carlsberg, and even worse on bulmers, though apparently i'm quite funny to watch after six ciders. i've also done my time with red bull and vodka - ugh. couldn't get to sleep at all once i got home, and felt like a zombie for the whole of the next day ... at work.

Töpher

There shall be no bad mouthing of the Red Bull!