1. What does the BAC calculator do? The BAC calculator estimates your blood alcohol content. Your actual BAC is dependent on many complex factors, including your emotional and physical condition and health, and what you've recently ingested (including food, water, medications and other drugs). * No blood/breath alcohol calculator is 100% accurate. * The best that can be done is a rough estimation of your BAC level. You should not consider this to be a guideline for how much you can drink and still drive responsibly, or avoid being arrested! The best policy is don't drink and drive. Period. NOTE: The basic formula for estimating a person's blood/breath alcohol concentration comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 2. What are symptoms of alcohol poisoning? * Vomiting * Passed out * Difficult to awaken * Slow, shallow breathing 3. How does alcohol poisoning occur? The drug alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that produces numerous behavioral, emotional, and physical effects as it acts upon specific parts of the brain. First to be affected is the cerebrum, the part of your brain that controls advanced functions like recognition, vision, reasoning, and emotion. At low intake levels, alcohol reduces inhibitions and affects judgment; vision, movement, and speech are impaired as alcohol levels rise. When the next brain area—the cerebellum—is depressed by alcohol, problems with coordination, reflexes, and balance result. The medulla controls basic survival functions such as breathing and heartbeat and is the last portion of your brain to be affected. When you've consumed so much alcohol that the medulla is affected, your brain's ability to control respiration and heart rate is severely diminished. Your heart rate can drop and breathing ceases, resulting in a coma and then death. 4. How much alcohol is lethal? The lethal dose of alcohol is clinically defined as the amount that would kill half the population. Most authorities place this dose at about .40%, or about five times the legal limit in New Mexico. However, there are many cases in which death occurred from alcohol poisoning at much lower, and in some cases, higher levels. For a 120 lb. man or woman drinking very quickly, it would only take about 9-10 drinks in an hour to reach the lethal level. It's important to note that the body oxidizes about one ounce (approximately one drink) an hour. Depending upon how much you drink, how quickly you drink, and what else is in your stomach, it may take from about 30-90 minutes after you stop drinking before you reach your highest level of intoxication. This occurs whether the individual is conscious or passed out, thus it is critical that someone who is semi-conscious or unconscious be constantly evaluated. 5. What should I do if I suspect alcohol poisoning? There are steps you should take if you encounter someone who could be suffering from acute alcohol poisoning. It is dangerous to assume a person will be fine by "just sleeping it off." 1. First, determine if the person is at all attentive. Are they unconscious? Can they be awakened? Try and call their name. Pinch their skin—they should have a reaction. (Remember, alcohol is a depressant that numbs the nerves so pinching the skin will help you gauge how far along in the "overdose" process they are.) 2. Turn the person on their side and do not leave them alone. Placing them on their side will keep the airway open should they vomit. 3. Check skin color and temperature. If their skin is pale or bluish, or cold or clammy, call 911! They are not getting enough oxygen. 4. Check the person's breathing. If it is irregular with a few breaths and then nothing for a while, call 911. If their breathing is too slow or shallow—less than 10 breaths a minute—this is another signal to get help. 5. There are no absolutes and these are just some of the potential signs of acute alcohol poisoning. A person may have one, or all of these signs. There is no guarantee that if a person is breathing 11 times a minute they will be fine, or if they are breathing 8 times a minute they will die. If you cannot wake the person up at all, it is a serious situation. If you are at all concerned, don't hesitate to get help. 7. What if it is a false alarm? In the end it's all about friendship. You may not want to act because you're afraid when your friend wakes up he or she will be mad at you. But at least your friend will wake up! And how upset can anyone really be when they realize you did it out of concern and friendship? There is only one response you can trust at that moment—"better safe than sorry." The drinker may risk a policy sanction and maybe some embarrassment, but it will pass. None of these consequences compare to losing a life. Don't let fear about how your friend will respond tomorrow prevent you from getting help when needed. Make sure you and your friend have the next day to talk it over. It may be the greatest thing you could ever do in the name of friendship! 8. What is water intoxication? Water intoxication (also known as hyperhydration or water poisoning) is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits, ironically by that which makes up the majority of it—water.[1] Normal, healthy (both physically and nutritionally) individuals have little to worry about accidentally overconsuming water. Nearly all deaths related to water intoxication in normal individuals have resulted either from water drinking contests, in which individuals attempt to consume more than ten litres over the course of just a few minutes, or long bouts of intensive exercise during which electrolytes are not properly replenished, yet massive amounts of fluid are still consumed. 9. How many alcohol related accidents are there a year? There were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 – 39 percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), "A motor vehicle crash is considered to be alcohol-related if at least one driver or non-occupant (such as a pedestrian or pedalcyclist) involved in the crash is determined to have had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .01 gram per deciliter (g/dL) or higher. Thus, any fatality that occurs in an alcohol-related crash is considered an alcohol-related fatality. The term 'alcohol-related' does not indicate that a crash or fatality was caused by the presence of alcohol." Nationwide in 2005, alcohol was present in 24 percent of the drivers involved in fatal crashes (BAC .01-.07, 4 percent; BAC .08 or greater, 20 percent). The 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 (39% of total traffic fatalities for the year) represent a 5-percent reduction from the 17,732 alcohol related fatalities reported in 1995 (42% of the total). The 16,885 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes during 2005 represent an average of one alcohol-related fatality every 31 minutes. Of the 16,885 people who died in alcohol-related crashes in 2005, 14,539 (86%) were killed in crashes where at least one driver or nonoccupant had a BAC of .08 or higher. The drunk driving statistics show that raffic fatalities in alcohol-related crashes fell by 0.2 percent, from 16,919 in 2004 to 16,885 in 2005. [Note that this figure for 2004 is higher than what we've shown for 2004 (16,694 deaths) because our data came from preliminary reports. The final government report counted more drunk driving deaths.] NHTSA estimates that alcohol was involved in 39 percent of fatal crashes and in 7 percent of all crashes in 2005. The national rate of alcohol-related fatalities in motor vehicle crashes in 2005 was 0.57 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. An estimated 254,000 persons were injured in crashes where police reported that alcohol was present — an average of one person injured approximately every 2 minutes. 10. What is binge drinking? Binge drinking used to mean drinking heavily over several days. Now, however, the term refers to the heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time (just as binge eating means a specific period of uncontrolled overeating). Today the generally accepted definition of binge drinking in the United States is the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks. 11. Why Do People Binge Drink? Liquor stores, bars, and alcoholic beverage companies make drinking seem attractive and fun. It's easy for a high school student to get caught up in a social scene with lots of peer pressure. Inevitably, one of the biggest areas of peer pressure is drinking. Other reasons why people drink include: * They're curious — they want to know what it's like to drink alcohol. * They believe that it will make them feel good, not realizing it could just as easily make them sick and hung-over. * They may look at alcohol as a way to reduce stress, even though it can end up creating more stress. * They want to feel older.