As we all know, having a drink or two too many can result in terrible hangovers the morning after. It can also have an impact on our urine, but how long does alcohol actually stay in our urine for?
This question is even more important if you work in a place where urine alcohol tests take place, so it’s important that you understand how the body works if you don’t want to get caught out drinking on a work night.
As a general rule, it takes around 1 hour and 20 minutes for each drink to pass through your system and into your urine. But, the effects don’t stop there. Only around ten percent of the alcohol that gets absorbed into the bloodstream actually leaves the body through urine; the rest is broken down throughout the body through metabolic processes, resulting in a number of other alcohol-related products that can pass through your body.
It’s these products that can still appear in your urine up to 24 hours after your last drink, so that’s when you need to be careful. Although not technically alcohol, the traces of alcohol will still be there and these could easily get picked up in any urine test you may have.
Don't Be Fooled
Some people mistakenly think that drinking certain alcoholic drinks will have a lesser effect on their urine than others, but don’t be fooled. All alcoholic drinks will have the same effect on your urine whether or not they’ve got a lower alcohol content, so remember that when it comes to alcohol, all drinks are the same whether you choose to drink beer, wine or spirits.
As alcohol, or at least the products of alcohol, can stay in urine for quite some time, it’s probably advisable to stop drinking early on if you’ve got a urine test the next day. Even better would be to not drink at all, as that would make you completely sure that there’s not even a trace of alcohol left in your urine!
As you can see, alcohol can have a great impact on your urine and it can stay there for a great deal of time. Make sure to remember that fact if you’ve got a urine test coming up, and always be prepared to give the drinks a miss if you need to.
