How To Build Alcohol Tolerance: Top 9 Tried and Tested Expert Tips

Many people want to build alcohol tolerance to party for a long time with friends and drink as much as they can without losing their senses, vomiting or experiencing nausea.

This process includes understanding the difference between different drinks, choosing the right food to enjoy with your drink, choosing your ABV (Alcohol By Volume) level, and drinking lots of water.

Aside from these, there are also other ways of building your alcohol tolerance.

In this complete guide, we will discuss all the tried and tested methods to gradually develop alcohol tolerance so you can drink without any impact on your behavior and physical state for the time being.

How To Build Alcohol Tolerance

Imagine this situation: you are all set for the holiday party and planning to impress your friends, boss, or loved ones. However, after just a few sips from your can of beer, you start behaving rudely or shouting at them. This will have a chance of ruining your plan and reputation.

This is why strengthening alcohol tolerance is important for some people, as this helps them handle alcohol much better. If you are looking for some advice on how to do this, don’t worry as we have got you covered. These methods are easy to apply, so anyone can follow them and enjoy their favorite drink to their heart’s content.

• Don’t Fall For Alcohol Dependence

Although it isn’t linked directly with building alcohol tolerance, we couldn’t help but mention this so that you don’t fall into the trap of alcohol dependence. Alcohol tolerance will help you increase your consumption but won’t make you dependent on it.

On the contrary, when you become dependent on alcohol, it will even regulate your body functions, so you must avoid alcohol dependency to run your daily life without inconvenience. Also, too much alcohol dependency might affect your stomach and other body parts. When you party and drink a lot, you must not consume too much alcohol regularly.

• Understand Alcohol Strength

You must realize that not all alcoholic beverages will have the same strength. Usually, the smaller the serving is, the more powerful the drink. For instance, a whole beer can is less strong than a few servings of vodka and whiskey. Thus, when you sip a few servings of whiskey, you will most likely become more drunk.

This means you need to understand the difference between the strength and alcoholic measurement of the drink you choose.

Moreover, different people will handle alcohol differently, which means that you can consume more whiskey than vodka or vice versa. So ask yourself, “Which alcoholic beverage affects me more?” When you find out the answer to this question, you are well on your way to learning more about what types of alcohol to avoid.

Isn’t it amazing?

• Choose Your Drink Wisely

We have mentioned that not all drinks will have the same level of strength, so you might consume one alcoholic beverage more and handle it better than another drink. Because of this, you have to choose your drink wisely during parties or drinking sessions to increase your alcohol tolerance.

ABV

This brings us to the importance of knowing ABV. ABV refers to “Alcohol By Volume,” which further refers to the presence of an alcoholic amount in your drink. For instance, a drink rated 7 percent ABV will more likely make you drunk faster than a drink with a 4.5 percent ABV rating.

Congeners

However, other factors will also affect the alcoholic feature of the beverage. Generally, darker drinks contain more congeners than clear drinks. Congener refers to the chemicals present within the alcohol that runs through your stomach and veins. This causes the headaches you experience, so when your drink has more congeners, you will feel dizzier.

Sugar

Furthermore, it would help to not consume too many sugary drinks. Since sugar can increase your blood sugar rapidly, you will start feeling tired sooner and will eventually crash. This will also force you to stop drinking more, and this is the last thing you want on Game Day.

What To Do

Assess your drinking habit to find which drink affects you more. When you find it, try to avoid it and choose the drink that affects you less. Also, don’t go for sugary or high ABV drinks unless you are confident enough to drink them with control.

Many drinks will have an ABV rating written on their label. So you can easily choose a drink with less ABV rating to consume more alcohol without any embarrassing moments while also gradually developing alcohol tolerance.

• Enjoy Your Food

One of the main reasons people get drunk quickly and start spilling out their secrets is that they often drink too much on an empty stomach. Consuming too much alcohol on an empty stomach could be detrimental to your health.

With this in mind, you should never drink alcohol without eating any food beforehand.

When you go to a party, have a full meal before attending the party. A full stomach will be less likely to behave differently even after drinking alcohol more than you could handle.

What To Eat

Even if you are in a hurry and don’t have the time for a hearty dinner, at least devour a big and thick hamburger or sandwich before attending the party. This is vital as Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is affected due to different external elements including gastric output rate. So when your stomach is full, there’s less chances of a gastric attack and you may consume more alcohol with confidence.

Also, try consuming proteins and fats more during the day of your party. These nutrients take more time for digestion and stay longer in your stomach. It will stop the spinning magic of your stomach and keep you free from vomiting and dizziness.

• Take Breaks

You should never drink in a hurry. Take a few sips, chat with your friends, and drink merrily. When you are tired and try to drink faster, one serving might act like multiple servings. This is a simple rule, since tiredness will lead to more drunkenness and you losing control faster.

Research published at the University of Rochester suggests that consuming too much alcohol in a shorter period of time will make the stomach and liver less efficient. Consequently, you will become more tired and lose control over yourself.

So the idea is simple: drink slowly and allow your liver to work with the already consumed alcohol to win the race in the long run.

Don’t you remember the story of the tortoise and rabbit?

Be the tortoise if you wish to build up alcohol tolerance.

• Use Water To Dilute

It is tempting to add soft drinks with your alcohol to reduce its effect, but this is a rookie’s mistake and is the last thing you should do at a party. You should only add water to your alcohol to dilute it slightly. Don’t ever use soft drinks if you don’t want to give up in the middle of the race.

If you are wondering why you should only add water and not soft drinks, the answer lies in the chemical formulation of alcohol. Yes, alcohol is a strong diuretic, which causes the drinker to pee more, and consequently, you will become dehydrated sooner.

When you become dehydrated, your brain will receive less oxygen and it won’t function efficiently, leading to headaches, dizziness and other consequences. When you use soft drinks, their sugary portions will increase your tiredness, so stick to water.

What To Do

Try to mix one can of alcoholic beverage with one full glass of water. Although it will make you pee more, it will remove your dizziness and you can think clearer and better.

• Don’t Go Over the Recommended Unit Suggestions

The alcohol unit most preferably refers to the alcoholic beverage you consume and the percentage of alcohol present within the drink. For instance, a single serving of scotch will be one unit that is approximately 25ml of scotch. On the contrary, 1 pint of beer with an ABV rating of 4 percent will make up 2.3 units of alcohol.

Long story short, 10ml of pure alcohol measures 1 alcohol unit, so you need to count the mixture and drink accordingly to improve alcohol tolerance.

Nonetheless, the recommended alcohol unit for men and women is 3-5 units and 2-3 units, respectively. This equates to 2 bottles of beer with a 4.5 percent of ABV rating for men. When you stay within the sensible range, it will gradually increase your alcohol tolerance and make you less drunk over time.

–What To Do

Have a few sips of your drink, enjoy it, have fun, and when you are close to your suggested alcohol unit limit, take a long break or head on home. It will keep you in the good books of everyone at the party, and you will receive many more invitations in the future.

• Increase Your Weight

When you want to build up alcohol tolerance for a long period of time, the best way is to increase your weight. As you gain weight, your metabolism works better, and you can consume more alcohol without being drunk or losing control.

Particularly, focus on gaining muscle mass. Your body’s muscle tissue will consume and metabolize alcohol faster than fats, which will help you build alcohol tolerance in the long run.

• Use Supplements and Avoid Caffeine

Like alcohol, caffeine is also a diuretic product and will dehydrate you faster than you anticipate, but it will keep you awake anyway. Thus, you should take caffeine moderately so as not to dehydrate you too much.

Alternatively, you can also take vitamin B before attending a party. Vitamin B will absorb alcohol better and faster and help you remain in full control of your senses.

Check out our cool article about How Many Trulys To Get Drunk. We made it simple and fun just for you, so you can learn all about this interesting topic and enjoy your hard Seltzer even more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here is the answer to a frequently asked question about alcohol tolerance.

Does BMI affect alcohol intolerance?

BMI can affect alcohol intolerance as body fat can’t absorb alcohol leading to higher blood alcohol concentration.

How to drink more and not get drunk?

To drink more without getting drunk, pace yourself, hydrate between drinks, eat before drinking, and choose drinks with lower alcohol content.

What Is Alcohol Tolerance?

Alcohol tolerance is the body’s response to the ethanol in alcoholic drinks; a high tolerance means that a person can consume more alcoholic beverages with less effects on their behavior and physical actions. Thus, they won’t feel dizzy, vomit or have any changes in their attitude. Having a high tolerance means you can consume more alcohol than your usual limit.

When you consume alcohol, it will affect your health and behavior largely. You might get out of control and behave madly, shout or even burst out of anger unnecessarily. Thus, drinking too much alcohol or having more than you can control can potentially ruin your reputation with others.

To fully know the effects of alcohol on the body, you need to understand how your body works with alcohol consumption. First, alcohol will run partially to the small intestine then go through the veins, leading the alcohol directly to the liver.

The enzymes in the liver will metabolize the alcohol. By the time the process ends, you may become drunk, so you will need to increase alcohol tolerance to make you last longer.

• Different Factors

Also, it is affected directly by the type of alcohol you will consume, the presence of different food in your stomach, and your drinking rate.

However, building alcohol tolerance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. In addition, it is not something that you can build overnight. You will need to practice and follow a few suggestions to raise your alcohol tolerance, and we have described them in the sections above.

Long story short, drinking alcohol will affect your behavior and different bodily functions. Thus, increasing alcohol tolerance is crucial for your health if you are a regular alcohol consumer or party-goer.

Thankfully, you can develop alcohol tolerance by gradually and slowly consuming more servings over time. As we have learned, there are also other ways to build your alcohol tolerance, so practice the suggestions we gave before and during your drinking session.

Final Words

A lot of people are understandably concerned about their alcohol tolerance, as losing control of your actions and behaviors due to drinking can lead to undesirable results.

• Alcohol tolerance allows you to consume more drinks in one sitting with fewer effects of it on your health.
• You should have a full stomach before drinking to stop gas buildup that might cause nausea and vomiting.
• Always build alcohol tolerance gradually. The best way is to take your drink slowly and allow your body to consume it adequately.
• Usually, a person is allowed to drink 3 to 5 units of alcohol, which is close to 2 beer cans. Always follow the suggested limits.
• Finally, gain a bit of weight if you want to develop alcohol tolerance for the long term. Muscle mass will burn the alcohol faster to increase your tolerance.

The key to increasing alcohol tolerance is to balance your drinking, social activity, and parties well. This way, you will build alcohol tolerance and enjoy your drinks without a worry.