Let's say that last night you went out drinking with a group of friends. Knowing that you would be too drunk to drive home that night, you made arrangements to park your car in the neighborhood and sleep in the spare bed at their house. After sleeping through the night, you get up, go to your car, and start driving home. All of a sudden you get pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence. Known as a morning-after DUI, drivers that wake up early in the morning after trying to sleep off intoxication may still find themselves over the legal limit.

But I Thought I Slept It Off…

Waking up in the morning after drinking will likely make you feel tired, groggy, and slightly hung over. These issues can work to mask the fact that you are still not sober enough to get behind the wheel of a car. Just because it has been a few hours since your last drink does not mean that the alcohol is no longer affecting your system. But what about sleeping it off?

How fast alcohol leaves your system based on:

• Size and weight
• Metabolism rate
• Food intake
• Amount of alcohol consumed
• Speed of consumption

It also generally holds true that on average, alcohol will leave the bloodstream at .015% blood alcohol content every hour. Therefore, someone that has partied hard the night before and left the bar with a BAC of .20 and slept for 7 hours, would still have a BAC of .095 after waking up.

Day-after drinking DUI arrests are more common than you may think. A driver may have the stale smell of alcohol on them when they are stopped by police, giving officers even more evidence to test them on. In order to prevent a morning-after DUI from occurring, make sure that you stop drinking long enough to let the alcohol leave your system before getting into a car.