10 Tips For Keeping You And Your Friends Safe If You Choose To Drink.
10 Tips For Keeping You And Your Friends Safe If You Choose To Drink.
1. Stay with the same group of friends. This is a great way to watch out for each other's safety. Your friends can keep an eye out on you and your drink.
2. Use a designated driver. It's 2019, the excuses for not having a sober drive home are basically non-existent at this point. If there are no sober drivers around, call an Uber, Lyft, Taxi, Nole Cab, the list goes on. Remember, it is not only about your safety, but it's also about other people's safety too.
3. Eat before and/or during drinking. Having some food in your system prior to or during drinking will slow down the effects of alcohol on your system and help you prevent a hangover too!
4. Keep track of how many drinks you are consuming. Avoid binge drinking. Binge drinking is five (5) or more drinks for men and four (4) or more drinks for women in one sitting. The difference is due to an enzyme found in men's metabolism that helps men process alcohol a bit faster. Also, keep in mind that one beer, one glass of wine, and one shot of liquor all contain the same amount of alcohol. In other words, they all count as 1 whole drink.
5. Stick with only one kind of alcohol. Trust me on this one; your body will thank you later. Mixing different types of alcohol is not necessarily a recipe for a good cocktail. However, it is definitely a recipe for disaster.
6. Avoid drinking games. We get it; games can be fun. However, there are safer ways of enjoying the social aspect they bring. If you are playing beer pong, use water in the cups and sip your drink at your own pace. Do you really want to drink beer mixed with the dirt, dog fur, and hand sweat the ball brought into it?? I doubt it.
7. Determine in advance not to exceed a set number of drinks. Peer pressure is real, but so is self-control. Having a predetermined number of drinks not to exceed will keep you accountable to what "sober you" is comfortable drinking. As a bonus benefit, you are building self-will, which will come in handy many times in life.
8. Have an accountability buddy. Let's be honest. When we are drinking, we're not the best judges. You may feel like things are going smooth when in reality others could see it very differently. Having a friend watching your back is a great strategy to prevent this!
9. Alternate non-alcoholic drinks with alcoholic drinks. This is a great way to prevent dehydration and to not resort to putting more alcohol in our body every single time we get thirsty. Your body will thank you throughout the night and especially the morning after!
10. Pace drinks to one or fewer per hour. Doing so will help your body process alcohol at a steady pace and will keep you in control throughout the night.
Antonio Ruiz Ezquerro is a second semester graduate student with the Higher Education program and the substance abuse prevention graduate assistant for CHAW. aruizezquerro@fsu,edu