How and when to drink alcohol?

At the U.S. Naval Academy, when I was a senior, we had to take a leadership course called Navy Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Program, or NASAPP—pronounced ‘nay-sap.’ I still get a woodie over really good acronyms.

I got the same training at The Basic School in Quantico, the result of going on a bender and signing up for the Marine Corps on a dare while my roommate went nuke subs completely sober and pencil neck-like.

We were taught that the only thing that could get alcohol out of your system is time. No amount of coffee, cold showers, or exercise could speed it up.

The liver is the organ that gets rid of alcohol. The average adult male liver can metabolize about an ounce of alcohol per hour. Through our probing questions of the Navy physiologist teaching the class, we determined that a 180 lb man could pound four beers right off the bat, then consume one beer per hour all night and never go over 0.10 BAC, the threshold for DUI at the time.

That knowledge served me well, whether it was driving on the opposite side of the road in Okinawa with 10 drunker Marines crammed into a Nissan Joy Luck minivan, or driving a moped in Bermuda after spending the evening at the Swizzle Inn. Follow that rule, and you were golden.

In my early Marine aviation career, the rule was “8 hours bottle to throttle.” It was changed to “8 hours bottle to brief” at some point, which essentially meant 10 hours bottle to throttle.”

I only violated this rule once. I was navigator on a low-level training flight in our trusty EA-6B Prowler, and I was extremely hung over. My pilot/roommate had not over-indulged, and he took extra sadistic pleasure in those 5.5g turns and aileron rolls. I suffered through the nausea and splitting headache so as not to lose face...but he knew. He knew.

When to drink: after a hard days work, after you have spent some time with your emotional support rooster, but before you cook supper.

How to drink: pour two fingers of Ezra Brooks Kentucky bourbon whiskey into a coquetail glass that your wife stole from a restaurant, add another two fingers, then top off with a splash of Coca Cola. Repeat at least three times. Go to bed.

And finally, always remember: buzzed buying is still drunk buying.

 

wow you must get hammered to have to wait 24 hours for your body to process all that. that would equal almost a 30 pack in one night. haha
Im just bustin your chops

 

20 years ago a 30 pack. Now days it takes 3 days to recover from a 6 pack.

 

There's nothing worse than wanting an ice cold beer after a long, hot day, going into the truck stop and finding out you're in a state with blue laws on a Sunday.

 

I hear ya man

 

Don't forget to pound some water/Gatorade before hitting the sack. The 1st bad bad hangover i had was from some cheap vodka called poppov or something. Somewhere around 15 years old, had one of my older cousins pick me up a bottle for new years. Me my brother and like half a dozen other friends got clobbered. I think i was the only one that didn't puke that night.

I got stuck cleaning it all up before my mom woke up. I remember dad wasn't home he got called out on a job that night. So what do I do instead of washing all the clothes/towels that were soaked in puke? In my drunken stupor i thought the wood stove was perfectly acceptable place to hide the evidence. No more evidence Lol. My brother and one of my friends both slept next to the toilet that night

Somehow i was able to clean all of it up w/o my mom ever finding out, minus a few missing towels

 

No alcohol on a CMV. Pretty sure that one is universal in the US. Probably Canada too.

As for when you can drink, I have one rule that works for me. If I drink, I stay out of the truck for 24 hours. No exceptions. I either drink on home time, or drink on the first 10 hours of my 34 and stay in a hotel instead of in my truck for 24 hours after.

Now, I only drink about a case of beer a year, so drinking is not really a big thing for me. If drinking is a regular thing for you, then you are going to need to be very careful monitoring yourself.

 

The best rule is don’t ever drink 24 hour before driving, and when drinking for a 34 hour restart in the hotel , stop 24 hours before going back to gear jamming mode.

 

I've been told by a Canadian driver that alcohol is legal to have in a truck as long as it isn't within reach of the driver. Since Canada doesn't have a federal equivalent of the DOT, the laws regarding alcohol might be different depending on the province.

 

Thought this fitting on a thread about booze and driving.