Types of Alcohol Tolerance

Alcohol is a substance that alters our reaction time, speech, and coordination by affecting our neurotransmitter receptors. However, chronic drinking can lead to the development of higher alcohol tolerance. This does not mean that your blood alcohol content/concentration (BAC) is lower than before you started drinking; it means that you show fewer signs of being inebriated after drinking.

There are several types of alcohol tolerance that you can develop due to alcoholism or alcohol dependency, including:

• Functional – this occurs when the brain learns to compensate for the effects of alcohol, which can lead to physical dependence and organ damage.
• Acute – a subset of functional tolerance, acute tolerance is the same as its predecessor, yet describes a phenomenon where brain compensation can happen immediately in a drinking session rather than having to develop over a long period of time.
• Environment-dependent – tolerance occurs faster as a result of the environment. For example, social drinkers may train their bodies to process alcohol faster upon entering a certain location if they always drink there, like at the same bar day after day.
• Environment-independent – the ability to process alcohol faster than normal develops whether or not someone always drinks in the same atmosphere.
• Learned – also called behaviorally augmented tolerance, this type refers to a person practicing a specific task while intoxicated in order to become better at performing it even when drunk.
• Metabolic – the liver produces more of the enzymes that process alcohol so that it can get flushed out of your body faster.

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Whether or not you have developed a high level alcohol tolerance, your BAC continues to rise as you drink. Driving with a BAC over .08% can lead to a DWI charge, which can land you in jail. If you or someone you know has been jailed for a DWI or for other reasons, contact Austin jail release lawyer Ian Inglis today at 512-472-1950.