Think You Can Handle Your Alcohol?

If anyone ever tells you they're okay to drive drunk because they drink all the time and can "handle" their alcohol, don't listen to them.  They don't know what they're talking about, and here's the science to back it up from  MedicalXpress.com.

A new study found heavy drinkers aren't any better at driving while impaired.  They're just better at hiding how drunk they are, and less likely to realize they're drunk.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego had a bunch of light drinkers and heavy drinkers get liquored up and do different tasks.

One task was fitting pegs into specific holes to simulate the type of simple motor skills you need to put a key in your car door.  Heavy drinkers were actually better at that one.  And they also might be less likely to do stuff like spill their drink.

But they weren't better at more complex tasks that were designed to activate the same parts of the brain as driving.  They were just as bad at them as light drinkers were.

Heavy drinkers were also more likely to think they were pretty sober.  So they're more likely to drive drunk, and might not realize they're drunk until they're on the road.

They could walk out of a bar . . . open their car door . . . put their car in gear . . . and feel sober the whole time, because those things only involve simple motor skills.  They might not realize they're drunk until they actually start driving.