There is no way to become undrunk quickly. Your liver processes alcohol at a fixed rate of about one standard drink per hour, and nothing you do can speed that up. No food, no coffee, no cold shower, no supplement will lower your blood alcohol level faster. The only thing that sobers you up is time.
That said, there’s a lot you can do to stay safe, feel better while you wait, and avoid making the situation worse. Here’s what actually matters.
Why You Can’t Speed Up Sobriety
Your liver does almost all the work of breaking down alcohol, using an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase. This enzyme works at a near-constant speed regardless of what else you put in your body. For most people, that means your blood alcohol concentration drops by about 0.015 to 0.020 percent per hour. If you ate before or during drinking, the rate tends to sit at the higher end of that range. If you drank on an empty stomach, it’s closer to the lower end.
In practical terms, if you had five drinks and stopped, it could take five or more hours for your body to fully clear the alcohol. There are no shortcuts. Your liver simply processes one drink at a time, in order, at its own pace.
What Coffee and Cold Showers Actually Do
Coffee makes you feel more alert, but it does not reduce alcohol’s effects on your body. The CDC is clear on this: caffeine mixed with alcohol can make you feel like the alcohol is affecting you less, but your coordination, reaction time, and judgment remain equally impaired. This is actually more dangerous than feeling drunk, because you’re more likely to overestimate your ability to drive or make good decisions.
Cold showers work the same way. A blast of cold water will wake you up and might make you feel sharper for a few minutes, but it has zero effect on your blood alcohol level. Your liver doesn’t care about your water temperature.
What Actually Helps While You Wait
You can’t sober up faster, but you can make the next several hours less miserable and reduce the odds of a rough morning.
- Drink water, but know its limits. Alcohol dehydrates you, and dehydration causes its own set of symptoms: headache, fatigue, dizziness. Drinking water addresses that dehydration, but research shows it has only a modest effect on preventing a hangover and doesn’t reduce hangover severity the next day. Dehydration and hangover are two separate consequences of drinking that just happen to occur at the same time. Still, staying hydrated keeps you from feeling even worse than the alcohol alone would make you feel.
- Eat something. Food won’t lower your current blood alcohol level, but it can settle your stomach and provide your body with fuel it needs. Simple carbs and bland foods are easiest to keep down.
- Stop drinking. This sounds obvious, but every additional drink resets the clock. If you’re trying to sober up, the single most important step is to stop adding more alcohol to the queue your liver is already working through.
- Rest. Sleep lets time pass and gives your body the chance to recover. If you’re helping someone else who is very drunk, keep reading before letting them sleep unsupervised.
How Long Until You Can Drive
The legal limit for drivers over 21 in the United States is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent. For drivers under 21, it’s 0.01 percent in many states, which is essentially zero. Commercial drivers face a limit of 0.04 percent.
Here’s where people get into trouble: they assume a few hours of sleep is enough. If you were heavily intoxicated at midnight with a BAC around 0.15 percent, your liver needs roughly 10 hours to bring that to zero. At 6 a.m., you could still be above the legal limit. Many DUI arrests happen the morning after drinking, not the night of. If you’re unsure, you’re not sober enough to drive.
When Someone Needs Emergency Help
Alcohol poisoning kills people, and it can progress even after someone stops drinking because alcohol continues absorbing from the stomach into the bloodstream. Call emergency services immediately if someone shows any of these signs:
- Breathing slows to fewer than 8 breaths per minute
- Gaps of 10 seconds or more between breaths
- Slow heart rate
- Extremely low body temperature (skin feels cold and clammy)
- Unconsciousness or inability to be woken up
- Vomiting while unconscious or semi-conscious
While waiting for help, place the person on their left side in the recovery position: their right knee bent forward to keep them from rolling onto their stomach, and their head resting on their right hand to keep the airway clear. This prevents choking if they vomit. Do not leave them alone, even for a few minutes.
The Honest Timeline
If you’re searching “how to become undrunk,” you’re probably looking for a trick that doesn’t exist. The real answer is planning. Once alcohol is in your system, you’re committed to waiting it out. One drink takes roughly one hour to clear. Four drinks take roughly four hours. Eight drinks can mean you’re still impaired well into the next day.
The most useful thing you can do right now is stop drinking, drink some water, eat if you can, and find a safe place to wait. If you need to be somewhere soon, arrange a ride. Your liver is already working as fast as it can.