Want to Know if You’re Sober Enough to Drive? Don’t Ask an App
Put “alcohol” and “apps” into Google and you’ll get dozens of possible downloads for your smartphone. Many are specifically aimed at helping you track your blood alcohol content (BAC), and each works pretty much the same way: You key in info every time you have a cocktail, and the app then uses that to track your BAC and gauges your fitness to drive. It’s just an app, though, and in many cases these tools don’t know how much you weigh; if you’ve taken medication; or even if you’ve eaten recently or had water—all of which affect your BAC.
Aaron White, Ph.D., program director for underage and college drinking prevention research at the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, says the apps have not been tested in real-world situations, so there’s no way to know if they decrease or even increase someone’s drinking. Many, in fact, are actually touted as drinking games.
But they might be something to consider for people who want to use them to limit their drinking. That would be an especially good idea on college campuses. A new study published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research found that college women binge-drink more often than college men do (based on guidelines set by the National Institutes of Health, NIH), according to the results of a survey of 575 female students and 417 male students who reported their drinking every two weeks during their first year of college.
The NIH guidelines recommend no more than four drinks per day, and 14 drinks per week, for men; and no more than three drinks per day, and seven drinks per week, for women. Those recommendations are for healthy adults 21 and over, says Dr. White; no safe recommendations—other than zero—have been set for anyone under 21. “Recommended drinking limits are lower for women than for men because research to date has found that women experience alcohol-related problems at lower levels of alcohol consumption than men,” said Bettina B. Hoeppner, a staff member of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Addiction Medicine and an author of the study, in a press release. (Binge drinking is defined by the NIH as “drinking so much within about two hours that BAC levels reach 0.08g/dL. For women this usually occurs after about four drinks, and for men after about five.”)
“It is always important to take gender into account when studying health or risk behaviors,” says Melissa A. Lewis, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study. Even if a man and woman weigh the same, there are differences in how alcohol is metabolized. For example, men have extra amounts of a key enzyme in the stomach that lowers the amount of alcohol that makes it into the bloodstream, explains Dr. Lewis. “Also, women have less blood going through the bloodstream than a man at the same weight, so alcohol gets more concentrated in [a woman’s] bloodstream…By exceeding weekly limits more often than men, women are putting themselves at increased risk for experiencing effects,” which can include cancer and liver disease, she adds.
A BAC of 0.080 or more is considered “legally intoxicated” for driving in most U.S. states, but limits are typically lower for underage (meaning those under 21) drivers, and some states are considering lowering BAC levels for all drivers, thanks to new pressure from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB reports that in the last 30 years, nearly 440,000 people have died in alcohol-related crashes. The agency asked all 50 U.S. states to drop the legal limit for intoxication to a BAC of 0.050 or lower.
Here are a few of the most popular apps out there. If you do use them, proceed with caution:
Alcodroid is an alcohol consumption tracker, “drinks diary,” and blood alcohol content calculator, which also tracks how much you’re spending on your drinks—which might be one way to help you slow down.
Barhopper lets you input your drinking data and then indicates whether it’s safe to drive, how long until you’re sober again, and puts you in touch immediately with a local cab company.
drinkbuddy also asks to you enter the type of drink you’re downing (a mixed drink with two types of alcohol, for example) and calculates the average amount of alcohol you’ve had with each drink.
(Keep in mind that the apps also don’t know the size of the glass you’re drinking from, either, which makes their calculations only guesstimates.)
Have you used any of these apps? Would you? How would they be most useful to you—tracking drinks? Or tracking how much you spent?
Related Stories on TakePart:
• 10 Apps for a Healthier, Happier, More Helpful Life
• America, You've Got a Drinking Problem
• Driving Drunk Isn't the Only Way Alcohol Can Kill You
Fran Kritz is a freelance writer specializing in health and health policy and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. Takepart.com
