A GP has issued a warning over drinking and driving this Christmas as he urged people to be aware when getting behind the wheel after a night out.
Over the festive period, you'll probably be out celebrating the season with friends and family and a few drinks might be in order. While it's common knowledge that driving after drinking is illegal, you should also be very careful about driving the following day too.
Alcohol can remain in your system for longer than you think even if you've "lined your stomach" before having a drink, RSVP Live reports.
Dr Denis McCauley, chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation's GP committee, has explained why this is just a myth, and has given his expertise on the amount of time it takes for alcohol to exit your system completely.
He told the Sunday Times: "You metabolise all alcohol at a very steady-state rate. If you have one pint, it will metabolise at the same rate.
"If you have three pints, it will metabolise at the same rate. So it actually comes out of your system at a slow enough rate."
In Scotland, the legal limit for drink driving is 50 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (the 'blood limit') and 22 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath (the 'breath limit').
Standard drinks, such as a pint of beer, a small glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits (35.5 ml), a typical gin, vodka or whiskey all take around one hour to process in your body.
The average adult will have a blood-alcohol level of between 20mg and 50mg after consuming one standard drink.
Dr McCauley continued: "They can probably recognise when they have quite a high level of alcohol in their body, but the drink driving limit is only 50mg.
"At that level, you probably won't be able to recognise it. All that unsteadiness will have cleared up, really, but 5mg is a relatively low level."
It's often thought that "lining your stomach" or eating a big meal before drinking can minimise the impact of alcohol on your body.
But the GP says that this is nothing more than a myth, and explained that this can actually make the alcohol take longer to leave your system.
He said: "If I had a cheese sandwich before I went out for a drink, I would metabolise even slower, because it would take longer for me to absorb that alcohol into my system, so it actually delays the alcohol absorption.
"Everybody varies and it varies from individual to individual."
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