We know that the holidays often times involve celebratory wine and beer. Even the New Year is synonymous with celebrating with champagne. It’s easy to go a little bit overboard during the holidays and end up buzzed or even drunk. While the easiest way to avoid a DWI entirely is not to drink. Still, we can understand the desire to imbibe a little bit, so here we’ve compiled some great tips to help you this holiday season.
1. Come up with a Game Plan
If you’re going to a holiday party, decide what you are going to do. You can choose to eat beforehand, which will allow you to have a drink or two, or eat while you are there and have a drink or two after. If you are going by yourself, you will want to make sure that if you are drinking at all that you’ve had adequate food consumption, and you don’t drink too much. Make sure to keep track of how much you have had to drink and make sure there is enough time between your last drink and the time you decide to leave.
If you are going with someone else, work with that person to decide if one of you can drink while the other person remains sober. If both of you would like to drink, you may want to bring another person to act as a designated driver or call a taxi, Uber, or Lyft both to and from where you are going (so you aren’t leaving your car anywhere and it will be impossible for you to get behind the wheel). Decide what your plan is before so you can safely imbibe as much as you would like.
2. Keep track of what you are drinking
Everyone is different. What is a “little bit” for someone may be too much for someone else. There is no magic number or equation for alcohol consumption that will determine when you are “too drunk” to drive. You know your body the best, so when you start to feel fuzzy and buzzed, stop drinking if you intend to drive.
Remember that food consumption, age, and height can all affect how much you can drink before getting buzzed or drunk. Eating before drinking will help to stave off the effects of alcohol. Remember to pace yourself too, as your liver can only handle so much alcohol per hour. You don’t want to end up in the hospital during the holidays either!
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
If you drank a little bit more than you intended, don’t be afraid to ask your host or friends for help. Ask if you can leave your car while you call an Uber, or ask if someone who is sober can drive you home. You can also ask to stay over for the night and sleep through your intoxication. Don’t think that you have to get into a car and drive home at the end of the night.
4. Try an App
While you might think that you’re not too drunk to drive, you may be unaware of how altered your response time, memory, and more can be. There are a variety of phone apps out there that can help test your cognitive ability, or may help you to calculate your current blood alcohol level.
These apps can be used to help you, but should not be taken as any sort of surefire indicator to how drunk you may be.
DrinkTracker – This App can help you to track your intake and give you a general idea of what your blood alcohol content level may be.
Check out more drunk driving DWI prevention apps on Tom’s Guide.
5. Don’t Drink
Finally, the best way to avoid getting a DWI during the holidays is not to drink at all. This is the easiest way you can avoid a DWI this holiday season.
