The 411 of beer, wine, etc

<p>So all you wise folk, educate me on all you know about alcohol. There's all this talk about drinking responsibly, so I figured I'd ask about all the different brands of beer etc, the amount of alcohol content between different things (beer, mixed drinks, wine), and all the other stuff. Advice & info?</p>

<p>advice: never drink hard liquor and beer the same night, it'll **** you up.</p>

<p>hard liquor, drank in moderation, is better than beer- less/no hang over etc</p>

<p>try to see how much beer you can drink without feeling sick, that wya you'll have a limit you can set for yourself at parties</p>

<p>beware some mixed drinks, like smirnoff ice, that although might taste softer than beer actually have a much higher alcohol concentration ratio and are a much stronger punch once they get into action.</p>

<p>the smirnoff, mikes hard type beverages have the same alcohol content as beer...drinking beer and hard stuff in the same night is fine just don't go overboard. Drinking too much of anything will make you sick and if you dont drink often your tolerance will be low....Dont drink right after eating or on an empty stomach, both can make you throw up.</p>

<p>yah if you go to a party, pack some gatorade...what causes hangovers is preventable. eat carbs and drink g8rade. when you come back home, have a big PBJ ready :)</p>

<p>Ah... let me try to bring some sanity to this... ;)</p>

<p>Beer is roughly 5% alcohol. Wine is 12-13%, and hard liquor is 40-50%. </p>

<p>12 oz of beer = one small glass (5.5 oz) of wine = 1 shot (1.5 oz) of hard liquor.</p>

<p>Each one of those is a "drink." Boys metabolise 1 drink per hour; girls metabolise about 0.75 per hour. The more you drink, the more your metabolism slows down, and the slower you process the alcohol.</p>

<p>When you drink, be sure to hydrate yourself. This will slow down your drinking and help to ensure that you aren't hung over. Beware of drinking too much water, though (yeah, someone complained about me saying this earlier).</p>

<p>Know your school's policies before you drink. What is the penalty for being caught drunk in public? By the local cops? If you are underage, are there more penalties? What if you need medical attention? What if you are only "caught" because you get medical attention for your friend?</p>

<p>Women - DO NOT DRINK UNTIL YOU ARE IMPAIRED WHEN YOU ARE AROUND PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW WELL. I cannot be more serious about this. Please, please don't become a statistic. Creepy men who would love to take advantage of you in that situation are a dime a dozen; even if they think you are more impaired than you are or if they think you don't need to be passed out, they'll still make a move. </p>

<p>To that end, please don't drink on an empty stomach or drink more than you have before when you're at a frat. If you're with your best girlfriends playing poker, fine. Just be careful. Hell, I'm 25 and still run into problems with men who try to get me drunk for nefarious purposes.</p>

<p>mikes hard/smirnoff ice/other "***** beer" do have the same alcohol content as beer, however they make you much more full. i cannot drink more than 3-4 of these without feeling bad simply because of how full i am. bleh.</p>

<p>warning for some hard liquors like vodka:
IT WILL CATCH UP TO YOU! say you have like 4 shots in 15 min, you dont really feel anything, so you drink more. bad idea. the first few shots will take 20-30 min to catch up with you, so give it some time before you take a few more shots.</p>

<p>When the vodka finally hits, it sucks. Big time.</p>

<p>ariesathena is right.</p>

<p>also, if you go to party, make your own drink. some guys are sketchy and will slip a roofie in your drink (those guys give us a bad name). if you are a t a bar, ask the bartender what all is in each drink.</p>

<p>Uhm just try out stuff yourself with moderation you should be able to "feel" when to stop.. different types of alcohol affect people differently... some might get more smashed with beer than hard liquor when I find beer doesnt do crap to me. Go out and just ease into drinking... this will increase your tolerance to it.</p>

<p>its better to drink hard liquor because it has a lot less calories than beer... so you drink more and dont add a lot of pounds</p>

<p>some of those hangover pills work, some dont. try them out. </p>

<p>girls, try to drink with friends so that no matter what you dont get seperated and raped adn such </p>

<p>if you see someone passed out **** drunk dont let them "sleep it off". they might have alcohool posioning and by letting them sleep it off you WILL kill them</p>

<p>if a person is conscious but needs to lie down, get them to lie down to the side so that when they trow up they dont choke themselves</p>

<p>no cops will get mad at you for calling your friend an ambulance or calling the cops if u think they might be alcohol posioned, theyre just glad no1 got killed... i have plenty of EMT friends/firefighter friends who can vouch</p>

<p>and remember, dont drink and drive and if your drunk dont talk to people your trying to keep secrets from ;-)</p>

<p>I guess i should also stress this...do not pick up a drink after setting it down. With all these new drugs and date rape pills its the only sure way to prevent being taken advantage of.</p>

<p>
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its better to drink hard liquor because it has a lot less calories than beer

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<p>That's ridiculous. Alcohol has a kcal density of ~7kcal/gram, so a shot of 80 proof vodka will still pack a lot of calories. One of the most common beers at any college, Natural Light, has 95 kcal per 12oz serving. That means that per cup/can, natty has the same amount of alcohol as 1.26oz of 80 proof vodka, which would have around 82kcal. That's only a 13 kcal difference per serving. Regardless, people would probably pour a full shot (1.5oz) rather than a 1.26oz shot, so they'd be sucking down around 98 kcal - more than they would in a can of natty.</p>

<p>understand that light beer sucks ass... i much prefer shots to light beer</p>

<p>liquor before beer, you're in the clear; beer before liquor, you've never been sicker.</p>

<p>remember that, and you'll be fine. NEVER drink beer before liquor.</p>

<p>Always make sure there's a DD or that if you have to drive, that you quit drinking at least 2 hours before time to leave (depending on how much you've drank/how drunk you are). </p>

<p>Know what kind of drunk you are. If you're a mean drunk, please save everyone else the trouble and lay off the alcohol. If you're a funny drunk, please drink all you like. If you're a truthful drunk, tell your friends so they keep stuff from you that they don't want others to know.</p>

<p>"Always make sure there's a DD or that if you have to drive, that you quit drinking at least 2 hours before time to leave (depending on how much you've drank/how drunk you are)."</p>

<p>Wow, thats horrible advice. Thirty minutes is more than enough to metabolize alcohol. You should be good to go after watching a episode of Family Guy or South Park.</p>

<p>^^ you have no idea what you are talking about</p>

<p>thrity minutes is definately not enough time to metabolize alcohol, especially if youve had more than one and you should definately not be driving</p>

<p>Yeah, um, I know that from experience. Usually, I feel good enough to drive after an hour and a half (if I've had about 4-5 drinks over the hour or two before that), but I give myself and extra half-hour anyway to be sure and safe.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yeah, um, I know that from experience. Usually, I feel good enough to drive after an hour and a half (if I've had about 4-5 drinks over the hour or two before that), but I give myself and extra half-hour anyway to be sure and safe.

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</p>

<p>This is terrible advice, too. I hope you never injure anyone on the road.</p>

<p>As an experienced drinker, I'd just like to say a couple things. First off, giving yourself half an hour after drinking before driving just isn't enough unless you've had like one beer. With one beer, that's an adequate time if you've taken some time to drink. But if you're like most people, you've had 4 or 5, and you need to take an hour or two or three to be safe with driving. Just remember, your ability to consume alcohol is exponential, but your ability to metabolize it out is linear. Just because you are downing things at a fast rate does not mean your body is speeding up to compensate. Better yet, just have someone else drive so you can concentrate on your main goal, having fun.</p>

<p>Second off, if you are calorie counting while drinking alcohol, then you need to stop drinking. The amount of calories you are downing per shot will be miniscule compared to the amount of calories you will be downing late at night when you are drunk and you and your buddy decide to split a large pizza. I am all for watching your diet and exercising and all that but if you are making the choice to drink let's just say there's some other places you are going to have to cut back from.</p>

<p>Third, let me just say there is no surefire cure for avoiding hangovers. Like they say in Modern Drunkard Magazine, if drinking came without the hangovers, then every jacka$$ out there would be doing it. The only surefire way to avoid hangovers is to avoid drinking all together. That and have a full glass of water after every drink, but who really has the time to do that? There may be some nights where no amount of water and pizza will save you from feeling it in the morning. There may be some nights when you are far more concerned with passing out than downing 10 glasses of water. All I can say is to accept the possibilty that you wake up the next morning hungover. Or still just plain drunk. Oh, and do drink lots of water before heading to bed. That actually does help, and even if you do wake up hungover the effect will be lessened.</p>

<p>Liquor before beer is generally sound advice, but I don't see it as a hard line rule or cure all for all ills. The problem with beer before liquor is that beer takes up alot of space in your stomach, and liquor tends to hit quicker than beer. If you've drank a pretty decent amount of beer and then decide to start hitting the liquor, you've got a full stomach, already feeling the booze, and then you throw on a couple shots of liquor on top of that and you're drunk with a stomach full of bubbly liquid swirling down there. Pretty soon you're feeling sick and then splat! You've just ruined someone's carpet. But as a hard line rule, I don't think it's as big an issue as it's made out to be sometimes. Mixing drinks in general isn't the best idea, but if you've had one beer, still feel good and you're not full, then decide to start taking shots, it won't be the end of you.</p>

<p>Generally, just have fun and try not to do anything too stupid. I've seen people get arrested and seriously hurt under the influence of alcohol. Never use alcohol as a way to absolve yourself of all responsibility. Drunk or not you are still responsible for your own lives. Believe me, when you are drunk what seems normal when you are drunk probably isn't that normal, and what you think is a bad idea while drunk is really a terrible, terrible idea. Please use common sense out there, you will have enough fun without trying out every bad idea you've ever had, plus there are enough dummies out there running around already. Know what kind of crowd you're hanging with, try and stay close to your friends, and at least try to keep a general awareness of your surroundings and what you're doing.</p>

<p>Have fun out there, I'm sure to comment more on this thread.</p>