Inpatient rehabilitation programs provide intensive therapy and support for people struggling with alcohol addiction or substance abuse. Heavy alcohol use impairs brain functions, such as memory and reasoning. Scientists have linked frequent alcohol use to depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and self-harm (e.g., suicide attempts and cutting). Alcohol consumption increases your risk of injuries, liver disease, heart disease, gastrointestinal issues, cancer, and more. Not only to the driver, but also to those on the road around the driver operating the vehicle. School-based instructional programs are beneficial for teaching teens not to ride with alcohol-impaired drivers.
Make some solid personal rules regarding drinking and driving
- Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over, which runs from August 14-September 2, aims to educate people about the dangers and consequences of driving drunk.
- Talk to a trusted friend, family member, or healthcare professional about your concerns and ask for their support in finding treatment options.
- Research shows a significant relationship between alcohol and both the perpetration and victimization of road rage.
Jessica graduated from the University of South Florida (USF) with an English degree and combines her writing expertise and passion for helping others to deliver reliable information to those impacted by addiction. Informed by her personal journey to recovery and support of loved ones in sobriety, Jessica’s empathetic and authentic approach resonates deeply with the Addiction Help community. This way, the next time you’re tempted to pick up the car keys after putting down a drink, you won’t even have to weigh your options and potentially make a fatal choice.
Physical Effects of Alcohol
- The alarming rise in fatal road accidents in Kenya highlights the dire need for safety reforms and underscores the tragic impact of road injuries and deaths.
- However, some people have genetic variations that affect the activity of these enzymes.
- It develops when you misuse alcohol despite knowing its adverse effects.
- These findings demonstrate that a driver’s perception of the situation may not reflect objective reality.
Safe driving requires the ability to concentrate, make good judgements and quickly react to situations. However, alcohol affects these skills, putting yourself and others in danger. Driving under the influence (DUI) refers to being under the influence of any effects of drinking and driving substance (including alcohol) and then operating a motor vehicle. Often called “drunk driving” interchangeably, it refers to operating any vehicle (including bicycles, motorcycles, golf carts, etc.) while impaired. A recent study that looked at 15 years of U.S. crash data found that about 15% of alcohol-related motor vehicle fatalities involve drivers with a BAC below 0.08%. In more than half of incidents where this occurred, the drinking driver was not the one who died (8).
Consequences of Drinking and Driving
- Some telltale signs of reduced coordination include trouble walking, swaying and inability to stand straight.
- When you drink it, your stomach and small intestine absorb it into the bloodstream.
- More than three thousand people die from road accidents every year, while more than twice as many are left permanently disabled.
- Some states offer a hardship license that allows you to drive to work or school during the time your license is revoked or suspended, but your driving privileges will still be drastically curtailed.
- Make this plan before going out or drinking at someone else’s place.
- Reasoning and information processing are often measurably impaired.
Penalties for drinking and driving have increased in all states and can vary. If you cause an accident while driving drunk, the penalties are more severe, and even stricter if someone is injured or killed. Getting behind the wheel of a vehicle – car, truck, motorcycle or any other motorized vehicle – after consuming alcohol is a serious crime. Drinking and driving is sometimes called driving under the influence (DUI) or driving while intoxicated (DWI), and involves operating a vehicle with a blood alcohol content (BAC) level of at least 0.08%. However, even a small amount of alcohol can lead to harmful situations.
Operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol poses a threat to you and anyone in your vicinity. Alcohol can impair your judgment, causing you to be unaware of coordination issues such as difficulty standing upright, unsteadiness while standing, or trouble walking. You may also not realize that you are having difficulty inserting the key into the ignition. Motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes were found to have the highest percentage (28%) of alcohol-impaired drivers than any other vehicle types.
Impaired perception makes it challenging to accurately judge distance and speed. After about three drinks, when your BAC reaches .05%, you may also lose control of small muscles in your eyes. Unfortunately, in Kenya, many people face delayed response due to poor infrastructure, inadequate resources, or traffic congestion, which has a drastic effect on survival rates and recovery outcomes for survivors. Many communities in the country have deeply ingrained consumption of alcohol in most of their social practices.
Judgment
Driving drunk happens for many reasons, but the reasons are all based on impulsive decisions that can have ramifications that last a lifetime. Unfortunately, when we’re inebriated, our decision-making abilities are also highly impaired. If you’ve ever driven after drinking in the past, you have a road map to examine all the decisions you made along the way that led to you getting behind the wheel. Researchers have identified seven possible decision points that can lead to drinking and driving (4). The study on Montana young adults also points to how the culture of drinking in one’s family can play a role in someone’s decision to drink and drive.
Even if people feel confident in their driving performance while intoxicated, their driving performance may be considerably deteriorated and unsafe. Despite the fact that it’s illegal to drive drunk, one person was killed every 39 minutes in a drunk driving crash on our nation’s roads in 2022. That’s a total of 13,524 people who died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in one year. In 2022, there were 2,337 people killed in alcohol-related crashes where a driver had a BAC of .01 to .07. In the United States, roughly 28 people die every day in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver.