Originally Posted by
highfarfast
Someone I was flying with a while back mentioned everyone he knew that drinks has their own blood alcohol content meter. I was a bit curious and looked into it and saw they weren't that expensive and bought myself one and played around with it a bit. Based on my experience, I'm fairly certain he would not blow a .17 if he hadn't drank for 12 hours. In fact, I'm doubtful he'd blow a .17 if he hadn't drank in 8 hours. This guy was drinking well within the drinking limits, FAR or company policy.
And yes, alcoholism is a disease. A disease that involves choice, as does many. But it is a disease.
It’d have to be pretty extreme but I knew people in college who could drink 20-30 units of alcohol a night. That would be alcohol poisoning, borderline fatal to a non-drinker, but your body does adapt to chronic alcohol use. (I know that number sounds insane, but if you look at some DUI arrests .3-.4% is not uncommon.)
That’s going to take a long time to process at approximately one unit an hour.
No excuses, if you choose to drink before duty you need to make sure you’re fit in the morning, but for a hard drinker it would be possible to quit 12 hours before show time and still be drunk at the airport. I’ve met people that use 8/10/12 (whatever the company minimum is) as their only guideline and this is one way that line of thinking can bite you.