Does a cup of coffee sober you up?
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Does a cup of coffee sober you up?

On Behalf of | Mar 3, 2022 | DWI

Say you’re out with your friends having a few drinks, and it becomes time to go home. You feel a little more intoxicated than you expected, and you mentioned that you don’t think it’s quite safe for you to drive yet.

One of your friends tells you that a great solution is simply to have a cup of coffee. If you sit in the coffee shop for 20 minutes and drink one, is that going to sober you up enough so that you can drive home without worrying about getting a DWI?

This is a myth

People say this all the time, but it is a myth. Coffee doesn’t sober you up. Neither does a cup of water. Neither does eating a meal. None of these things are going to reduce your blood alcohol concentration.

Why does this myth keep getting repeated? There are a few reasons. For one thing, drinking on a full stomach can make it take longer for the alcohol to get to your bloodstream and through your digestive system, so people assume that putting something – food or coffee – into that system after the fact will make you feel more sober. But the alcohol has already entered your bloodstream at that point, so that’s not going to impact it.

Additionally, coffee does make you feel more awake due to the caffeine. People probably confuse feeling alert with being sober, even though the two are not the same thing.

Have you been arrested?

If you took this advice and got arrested when you thought that you were sober enough to drive, it’s very important for you to carefully consider all of your criminal defense options at this time.