Why carbonation makes you more drunk

Carbonation increases pressure in the stomach, which helps to force alcohol into the bloodstream via the stomach lining. So, the next time you have a bloated feeling while drinking a carbonated alcoholic beverage, it will do you well to note that your discomfort is having the interesting side effect of getting you intoxicated faster.

Of course, I should remind everyone that our blog entries are for your information only and are not intended as medical advice. Date March 30 Written By James Madeiros. As explained above, if there is already food in your stomach, it will take some time to break down in the stomach before moving onto the small intestine.

So even if bubbles are what cause the carbonated alcohol to reach the small intestine quicker, if there is already food in the stomach, the liquid will not be able to pass through as quickly. Another way to keep things under control is that you should simply space your drinks out.

If you find that you tend to get drunk faster on beer or champagne, then perhaps space the drinks out. Take it slow and do not knock back drinks too fast. If the alcohol is being absorbed quickly anyway, you do not need to have as many drinks. Besides, getting drunk is not always the end result that one is looking for when they consume alcohol. It can simply be a way to enjoy a social gathering.

By spacing your drinks out, you may end up drinking two through dinner instead of four. It can make a huge difference to how you feel in the morning! After all, enjoying a night of partying only to feel terribly uncomfortable the morning after is hardly worth it.

There is certainly some evidence to show that carbonated drinks may get you drunk faster. Many of the theories out there are quite convincing and make sense that bubbles in the drink may cause you to feel lightheaded and drunk faster. However, not all bodies are built the same. For some people, even a fourth glass of bubbly may not make them feel drunk. While others may feel drunk on even a single glass of champagne.

Besides, some people may even enjoy the feeling of being drunk sooner in the night than later. Fizzy drinkers were also less vigilant, having more trouble spotting sequences of three odd or even numbers within a random sequence. But there was no difference in how the two drinks affected memory or general reaction times.

At the end of the experiment, the bubbly drinkers were visibly worse for wear. It emphasises the importance of not drinking anything before driving, says Ridout. For non-drivers, one trick to avoid getting so plastered is to drink champagne from a shallow goblet.

The large surface area allows the bubbles to dissipate quickly, whereas flutes preserve the fizz New Scientist magazine, 25 December But it remains a mystery why bubbly gets you drunk quicker. Normally, we absorb 20 per cent of any alcohol we drink in the stomach and the remainder in the intestines.

One theory is that carbon dioxide in the bubbles somehow speeds the flow of alcohol into the intestines.