酒精會在體內停留多久?大綱
How Long Does Alcohol Stay in Your System?
酒精會在體內停留多久?
We’ve all known not to drink and drive. But how long does alcohol stay in your system? Should you worry about driving, say, the morning after a night out with friends? We asked an expert to explain just how long it takes your body to rid itself of alcohol.
喝酒不開車，這個道理我們都懂。但酒精會在體內停留多久呢？如果前一晚和朋友出去喝酒，第二天能不能開車呢？專家給我們答疑——酒精在人體內多長時間可以排乾淨。
For starters, we’ll give you a refresher on what happens to your body when you drink. You’ve probably heard that alcohol use—depending on how much you drink—can harm your liver. But you may not have been warned about just how much stress you put on this vital blood-filtering organ after even just a few hours of partying.
首先，我們先聊一聊喝酒時身體發生的變化。你也許聽說過，喝酒傷肝——取決於喝多少。但也許並沒有人告訴你，僅狂歡幾小時就會對這一重要的血液過濾器官施加極大壓力。
“When you get alcohol in your blood, it passes through the liver, and the liver breaks it down,” explains George Koob, PhD, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the NIH.
“人體血液含酒精時，酒精會流過肝臟，被肝臟分解，”美國國家酒精濫用和酒精中毒研究（美國國立衛生研究院的下屬部門）的所長喬治·科布（George Koob）博士解釋道。
The main job of your liver is filtering blood that’s flowing from your digestive tract to the rest of your body. In the process of breaking down the alcohol you consume, your liver encounters toxins. Heavy drinking can make your liver fatty and cause scarring that can eventually restrict blood flow. This can cause liver cells to die and, consequently, halt liver function.
“肝臟的主要功能是過濾從消化道流向身體其它部位的血液。在分解酒精的過程中，肝臟會‘中毒’。酗酒會導致脂肪肝，形成限制血液流動的疤痕。進而導致肝細胞死亡，最終，肝臟停止運轉。”
So, how long does alcohol stay in your system? Individuals metabolize alcohol at different rates. In general, Koob says most people can break down half a drink every hour. He also explains it in terms of your blood alcohol content (BAC). “If you’re at 0.08, if you don’t drink anymore, in two hours you’d probably be [at] about 0.05,” he says. So, that translates to your BAC lowering at about 0.015 an hour. (In the US, your blood alcohol content is calculated as a percentage of the grams of alcohol you’ve consumed per every 100 milliliters of your blood.)
那麼，酒精會在體內停留多久呢？不同的人代謝酒精的速度是不同的。總體而言，科布表示，大部分人每一小時可以分解半杯酒。他還從血液酒精濃度的角度進一步解釋。“如果你的血液酒精濃度爲0.08且不再繼續喝酒，2小時後即會降到0.05左右，”他說道。所以，換言之，血液酒精濃度每小時降低0.015。（在美國，血液酒精濃度的計算方法是：每100毫升血液含有的酒精克數比。）
Again, keep in mind that people’s bodies react differently to alcohol. All the averages you hear when it comes to alcohol use are just that. What happens to your friend when she has four drinks might not be exactly what happens to you if you try to drink as quickly as her.
切記，每個人的身體會對酒精做出不同反應。所有關於飲酒一事的平均數就是這麼個道理。你和你的閨蜜同時喝了4杯酒，但最後的結果卻可能截然不同。
