The best advice on drinking and driving is do not. It is proven that even one drink can affect your judgment and reactions. This is the advice from MEAS (Mature Enjoy of Alcohol Society), the alcohol social responsibility organisation.

However, as MEAS CEO Fionnuala Sheehan explains, the issue is more than simply deciding how to get home from the pub or a party; “Recent reports over morning breath testing has led to real concerns for people who, although they found alternative methods to get home safely the night before, now feel they may risk being over the drink driving limit the next morning. This highlights a lack of public awareness about the effects of alcohol. Our recently launched website drinkaware.ie can play a vital role in increasing our understanding of how alcohol affects us and how long it takes for our bodies to metabolise and eliminate alcohol.”

According to the website drinkaware.ie, whilst the body's ability to process alcohol varies from person to person and depends on various factors, like your age, weight and gender, alcohol is broken down by the body at a rate of roughly one standard drink per hour.

One standard drink is contained in a glass of lager/stout, or a small glass of wine, or a pub measure of spirit. A standard drinks calculator can be found on drinkaware.ie so you can very easily work out the number of standard drinks in your favourite tipple.

As a rough guide, three pints of average strength lager will take approximately 6 hours to be metabolised by the body.

If you drive before alcohol has been metabolised by your body, you risk being over the drink driving limit. No amount of coffee, cold showers or fresh air can speed up the process. Furthermore, drinking more quickly will have an even greater effect on your body because the alcohol is being consumed faster than the body can remove it.

Tips to keep your blood alcohol level down are:

§ eat before you start drinking

§ pace yourself by not drinking too fast

§ alternate each alcoholic drink with a refreshing non-alcoholic drink.

More useful hints and tips can be found at drinkaware.ie.

As drinkaware.ie explains, drinking heavily in one session not only will affect your driving the next morning, but drinking to drunkenness increases your risks of ending up in the Accident and Emergency Department, getting involved in a fight, not getting home safely, and of being robbed or sexually assaulted. Repeated excessive drinking can have a negative impact on your health, work performance and personal relationships.

Fionnuala Sheehan added “The drinkaware.ie website gives people a point of reference and so enables consumers to make informed decisions about alcohol and their drinking.” Since its launch last November, drinkaware.ie has received some 25,000 visitors and has emerged as the leading information portal for consumers on alcohol and drinking.