Many of us will try to offset the effects of alcohol after a fun time, whether it was a big night of drinking or just a few glasses of champagne.

Many people have been encouraged to believe that coffee might make you more alert, whether it’s the caffeine or the occasionally harsh flavour.

We decided to conduct extensive research to see whether coffee actually had any sobering effects in order to separate the truth from the fiction around this argument.

How Caffeine and Alcohol Are Metabolised

Caffeine is a well-known stimulant that can increase alertness and, to some extent, improve performance.

The calming chemical ‘adenosine’ is disrupted by caffeine. By preventing the brain’s release of this hormone,.

This can continue for up to two hours when blood alcohol levels are still high. But between two hours and six hours after drinking alcohol, objective drowsiness measurements rise and the alertness starts to wane.

A Hazardous Combination: Coffee and Alcohol

While coffee can surely increase your alertness, it cannot’sober you up’. It would be risky to believe that. The alcohol that is already in your system is not replaced or eliminated by it.

If you’re over the legal limit, you can drink as much coffee as you like, and your alcohol level will stay the same and drop more quickly than it would have if you hadn’t.

In fact, once alcohol enters your circulation, your levels may keep rising. Other ideas contend that while coffee won’t replace alcohol in your body, it will help you control it. However, that is also false.

In comparison to someone who is sober, your reaction times will continue to be slower, and your ability to make decisions will still be compromised.

After a night of drinking, there is no evidence to suggest that coffee will make you more alert behind the wheel. In actuality, the only method to become sober after consuming alcohol is to wait.

Does Coffee Aid in Hangover Recovery?

Dehydration is a cause of hangovers. Alcohol is a diuretic, thus it causes you to use the loo more frequently because it doesn’t hydrate you as well as water does.

Dehydration results from the combination of these two, especially the morning following a night with no rehydration.

Coffee is a diuretic, just like alcohol, therefore it’s not the ideal beverage to choose in the morning to ease a hangover. Rehydrating with lots of water is generally recommended for treating hangovers.

Sports drinks, however, could also be a good choice because they include electrolytes that can assist your body quickly replenish lost nutrients. 

Why Coffee Doesn’t Make You Safier

Coffee does not truly make you more awake or less tired, however it can. Here are a few explanations:

• Blood alcohol concentration (BAC), a measurement of the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream, is unaffected by coffee. Coffee does not genuinely sober you up because it does not reduce BAC levels.

• Coffee does not speed up alcohol metabolism – Coffee may raise blood pressure and pulse rate, but it has no effect on how quickly the liver breaks down alcohol. Coffee does not impact the liver’s ability to handle a particular amount of alcohol per hour.

• Coffee can disguise the effects of alcohol – Coffee can awaken and energise you, which can disguise the effects of alcohol. This does not, however, imply that you are sober. You could still be inebriated, putting you at risk for mishaps or other undesirable outcomes.

The Dangers of Dependence on Coffee for Sobering Up

Relying on coffee to help you wake up might be risky and cause you to feel secure in a false sense of security. Here are a few dangers:

• Enhanced risk of mishaps – While coffee may give you a sense of increased alertness and vigour, it does not truly counteract the effects of drinking. When operating heavy machinery or while driving, this can result in an elevated risk of accidents.
• Delayed reaction time – Coffee may give you the impression of being more awake, but it has no real effect on your ability to react quickly. This implies that even if you feel more aware, you could still have slow reaction times and poor judgement.
• Dehydration – Because alcohol is a diuretic, it can increase urine production, which can cause dehydration. Dehydration brought on by drinking coffee can worsen the harmful effects of alcohol.
• Increased heart rate and blood pressure – People with underlying medical issues should avoid drinking coffee because it can increase heart rate and blood pressure. Additionally, it may cause anxiety and other unfavourable effects.

Conclusion

Drinking coffee after a night of drinking can brighten the senses and give the impression that we are more awake and vigilant, but this is really an illusion, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

It takes the liver some time to absorb the alcohol that is still in our systems before we start to experience the consequences of sobriety, and as caffeine has no impact whatsoever on this particular process.

it is quite doubtful that drinking a cup of coffee to combat intoxication will have any positive effects at all.