Detection and General Deterrence Standardized Field Sobriety Test Course Getting the ethanol into the body’s tissues and organs

Session 2 – Detection and General Deterrence

Standardized Field Sobriety Test Course

Getting the ethanol into the body’s tissues

and organs

BASIC PRINCIPLE

Ethanol goes wherever it finds water

Distribution of Alcohol

2-48

Once the alcohol moves from the stomach into the blood, it will be distributed

throughout the body by the blood. Alcohol has an affinity for water. The blood will carry

the alcohol to the various tissues and organs of the body, and will deposit the alcohol in

them in proportion to their water contents.

Brain tissue has a fairly high water content, so the brain receives a substantial share of

the distributed alcohol. Muscle tissue also has a reasonably high water content, but fat

tissue contains very little water. Thus, very little alcohol will be deposited in the drinker's

body fat. This is one factor that differentiates alcohol from certain other drugs, notably

PCP and THC, which are very soluble in fat.

Session 2 – Detection and General Deterrence

Standardized Field Sobriety Test Course

• Which parts of the body have lots of

water?

• The brain, the liver, muscle tissue

• Which parts of the body do not have

lots of water?

• Bones, fatty tissue

• The average male is 68 percent water

• The average female is 55 percent water.

Distribution of Alcohol (Cont.)

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The affinity of alcohol for water, and its lack of affinity for fat, helps explain an important

difference in the way alcohol affects women and men. Pound for pound, the typical

female's body contains a good deal less water than does the typical man's.

This is because women have additional adipose (fatty) tissue, designed in part to

protect a child in the womb. A Swedish pioneer in alcohol research, E.M.P. Widmark,

determined that the typical male body is about 68 % water, the typical female only about

55 %. Thus, when a woman drinks, she has less fluid -- pound for pound -- in which to

distribute the alcohol.

If a woman and a man who weighed exactly the same drank exactly the same amount

of alcohol under the same circumstances, her BAC would climb higher than his. When

we couple this to the fact that the average woman is smaller than the average man, it

becomes apparent that a given amount of alcohol will cause a higher BAC in a woman

than it usually will in a man.

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HS 178 R5/13 33 of 39

Session 2 – Detection and General Deterrence

Standardized Field Sobriety Test Course

Getting the ethanol out of the body:

• Direct excretion

• Breath

• Sweat

• Tears

• Urine

• Metabolism

• Primarily in the liver

Elimination of Alcohol

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As soon as the alcohol enters the blood stream, the body starts trying to get rid of it.

Some of the alcohol will be directly expelled from the body chemically unchanged. For

example, some alcohol will leave the body in the breath, in the urine, in sweat, in tears,

etc. However, only a small portion (about 2-10 %) of the ingested alcohol will be directly

eliminated.

Most of the alcohol a person drinks is eliminated by metabolism. Metabolism is a

process of chemical change. In this case, alcohol reacts with oxygen in the body and

changes, through a series of intermediate steps, into carbon dioxide and water, both of

which are directly expelled from the body.

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HS 178 R5/13 34 of 39Source: DWI Detection and

Standardized Field

Sobriety Testing

March 2013 Edition