How long does alcohol stay in your system?

Your liver metabolizes alcohol at a roughly fixed rate, about one standard drink per hour, and this is the single most important fact: it cannot be accelerated. Coffee, cold showers, greasy food, and exercise change how awake or nauseated you feel but do nothing to your blood alcohol level, which is why a wide-awake drunk person is still legally and physically impaired. Food eaten before drinking helps only by slowing absorption on the way in, not clearance on the way out.

Detection windows depend on the test. Alcohol itself shows in blood for up to around 6 hours and on standard breathalyzers for 12 to 24; ordinary urine tests catch it for roughly 12 to 48 hours. Specialized markers like ETG, used in monitoring programs, can flag drinking for up to 72 hours or more, which surprises people who assumed a day was safe. Rate of clearance varies with body size, sex, liver health, and genetics, so the only reliable way to know you are under a limit is to not be close to it, and the only cure for drunk is time.