You might feel too old to drink, or you may not handle alcohol anymore and have decided to stop drinking. Whatever the reason, you need to undergo an alcohol flushing and eliminate all the alcohol from your body when you stop drinking, which can be a rather challenging experience.
But, you will feel like a new person when the process is completed, and it is a big step in your life toward much healthier and cleaner energy.
The process is much easier with exceptional guidance and a few pieces of advice, and you can even participate in a specialized program. Still, the most important thing is to educate yourself and learn how you can easily flush out all the toxins from your body from your system and start a completely new healthy life!
Although you may have enough information on how to flush alcohol from your body, it is not advisable to do it alone without medical supervision and detox from alcohol at home, especially if you are a heavy drinker, because you can develop different symptoms during the withdrawal process that can provoke serious consequences for your overall health as seizures two days after the withdrawal started. Still, for some, as Day 3 begins, the symptoms become very intense and overwhelming, like massive sweats, heart palpitations, and insomnia.
How Does Your Body Remove Toxins From The Alcohol?
When you drink some alcohol, it builds up in your bloodstream. It is also distributed equally to the heart, muscles, and brain throughout the body’s water, except for the liver, where exposure is more significant. Then, the liver eliminates almost 90 % of the alcohol, and 10% is flushed through urine and sweat.
The liver breaks down the alcohol and transforms it into acetaldehyde, a toxic chemical that is impossible to flush out of the system. Instead, your body turns it into carbon oxide and water, which is easy to remove through defecation and urination.
The alcohol absorption can be slowed if the food in the stomach prevents the alcohol from coming into contact with the stomach lining and passing into the intestines. (1) (2)
7 Effective Detox Drinks For Alcohol Detoxification
Alcohol has a diuretic effect, and if you take it at a higher volume, it can provoke dehydration and make you urinate more frequently, and that is why it is essential to:
1. Drink water
Taking eight glasses of water daily is recommended, but if you drink alcohol, you should drink more to cleanse and detoxify your body after drinking. You can even double the amount, but only for the first week of detoxification. It is also essential to hydrate if you want to detox yourself from alcohol and you have a hangover from too much alcohol.
If you do not like drinking a lot of plain water, you can add some taste to it by adding some fruits–flavored ice cubes.
Try these effective detox drinks.
Alcohol drinks harm your health, especially the health of your liver, so alcohol detoxication is essential to prevent many diseases, and it is in high demand nowadays.
An effective way to detoxify your body and filter out the toxins naturally and safely is with the help of detox drinks that are very popular and used for natural alcohol detox. Still, they are not very much backed by science, and if you are struggling with alcohol, it is best to consult a health provider and visit an alcohol treatment center and seek medical help.
Some drinks that might help you to flush out alcohol more easily are as follows:
2. Lemons and limes
Lemon and lime drinks are rich in vitamin C and ascorbic acid, which promote detoxification. (3)
Vitamin C fights free radicals and restores the PH balance of your body, and it is excellent for your immune system. It is best to have them with hot water first thing in the morning and flush out all the toxins and alcohol from your body.
3. Watermelon
Watermelon has high water content and can help you urinate more often and flush out all the accumulated alcohol toxins. It is a summer fruit, and it is rich in vitamins such as A, B1, B6, and C, lycopene, and iron, which are very important for our body’s functions. (4)
It prevents dehydration and fights oxidative stress induced in your body by alcohol with the help of the antioxidant lycopene.
4. Beetroot Drink
Beetroots are packed with many nutrients and vitamins, such as:
- Magnesium
- Vitamin C
- Iron
and it is a superfood with many health benefits; among others, it is great to support liver detoxification and cleansing because it activates the liver enzymes and increases bile. It is also beneficial when mixed with carrots and apples to fight fatigue, nausea, and body aches after a heavy night of drinking.
For two servings of this detox drink, you will need the following:
- One small beetroot
- Two apples
- Three carrots
Clean the vegetables, cut them into pieces, and press them to make a morning juice to detox your body from alcohol toxins.
5. Green tea
Green tea is another essential liquid when detoxifying your body because it is an excellent weight-loss drink and a drink full of antioxidants that can protect your liver from getting liver diseases and can be very beneficial for alcohol intoxication, as shown in one study. (5)
6. Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar has many anti-microbial and antioxidative effects, and scientific studies show that it protects against oxidative liver injury and prevents lipid peroxidation. (6)
So, apple cider vinegar can help the liver and kidney function harmed by alcohol intoxication. It also fights acid reflux due to the presence of probiotics, enzymes, and acetic acid that help digestion.
7. Beverages with electrolytes
Some sports beverages, coconut water, and even children’s drinks are rich in electrolytes, potassium, and sodium, which can improve the electrolyte imbalance caused by dehydration and minimize the hangover effect.
3 Best Ways To Eliminate Alcohol From The Body Besides Hydration
Flushing alcohol from your system can vary from person to person, and their metabolism, how much alcohol they have consumed, their age, body weight, gender (males metabolize faster than females), and medications they take.
Note: some medications, like opiates, can provoke cardiac arrest when taken with alcohol, and aspirin, when taken with alcohol, may cause internal bleeding.
The best and probably the quickest way to detox from alcohol from the body is by staying hydrated with water or some other detox drinks mentioned above.
Besides this helpful and effective way of eliminating alcohol from your body, you can take some other preventive measures to help you with your detox program, such as:
Get enough sleep
When you do not sleep enough, toxins build up, and your body doesn’t have the needed support for your health; it regulates metabolism and makes the brain recharge, allowing toxins removed from our system. (7)
Adults should sleep at least seven or more hours daily to have optimal health. (8)
Exercise regularly and be active.
Exercising regularly has many benefits for your immune system and overall health, which in turn can ease many side effects that might occur during the detoxication period.
So, you can try making an exercise routine that works best for you and keep going with it during detoxification.
How does exercise help the detoxication process?
- It lowers the stress level and prevents depression and anxiety
- Make you feel alert and have clear thoughts
- It improves blood circulation, which, in turn, helps the flushing out of the alcohol from your system.
- It will make you feel energized.
- It makes you sweat, which helps flush toxins out of your body, so even a short walk is recommendable to release the toxins naturally.
But, ensure that you are adequately hydrated during your exercise, as sweating may lead to severe dehydration, and you are probably already sweating during detoxification.
Change your diet
Some heavy drinkers may experience a loss of appetite, resulting in nutrient and vitamin deficiency. So, eating healthy can ease the whole process greatly, improve your metabolism, improve your immune system, and slow down the processes that cause damage to your cells and the entire system.
You can try taking or removing the following foods from your diet:
- Eat foods rich in vitamin B, such as asparagus, salmon, eggs, avocados, whole grains, and citrus fruits
- Take foods rich in antioxidants such as fruit and vegetables, nut, berries
- Drink a lot of fluids, including green tea and beverages with electrolytes
- Do not take salty and sugary foods
- Do not take processed foods like potato chips, cereals, and processed meat
Even though it can be possible to complete the detox program on your own, some dangerous situations may arise that can be, in some cases, fatal. So, if you have a history of chronic drinking and experience conditions like paranoia, psychosis, double visions, or seizures, you will need medical monitoring and treatment.
How Long Does Alcohol Stay In Your System?
Many factors can influence your BAC ( blood alcohol concentration) and its stay in your system. In addition, the speed of alcohol metabolism is different for everyone. So, it is influenced by the following factors:
- The number of drinks you had (BAC is higher when you drink more)
- Some environmental factors, such as the presence of food in your stomach, the type of drink you have and its strength, and the rate of the drinking (9)
- Some genetic factors (the presence of some enzymes in your liver that are used for alcohol metabolizing, such as alcohol dehydrogenase [ADH] and aldehyde dehydrogenase [ALDH2])
- Body fat (when your body fat is high, your BAC will be higher because alcohol is not absorbed in the fat)
- Bodyweight (the more you weigh, the content of water is higher in your body is higher which can lower your BAC)
- Your age (the older you are, the more alcohol remains in your liver, and, in fact drinking alcohol in old age can be a risky combination that is related to many falls, car collisions, and other types of accidents)
- Gender (men metabolize faster than women, so women tend to keep alcohol in their bodies longer than men)
- Time of the day you had the drinking and smoking habits you have
Does Water Flush Out Alcohol?
Yes, as already mentioned in this article, water can flush out the toxins from the alcohol when the liver has finished metabolizing.
However, the metabolizing process of the liver cannot be sped up, and the water can help the whole process only to some extent, and that depends on the level of alcohol in your organism.
That is why health professionals recommend for both sexes (males and females) drink 14 units per week, which equals 6 pints of beer or ten small wine glasses.
The percentage of alcohol in your body needs to be as low as possible, and the number of fluids will not, unfortunately, metabolize it faster.
That is why you should:
- Never drink alcohol on an empty stomach
- You can alternate alcohol with water
- If you drink regularly, take a few days off drinking to cleanse your system
- Drink one drink per hour, if possible
- Try snacking while drinking, but avoid heavy and grassy meals
- Never mix drinks because this can rapidly increase the alcohol concentration in your blood
When you have a heavy night drinking, you can check your urine, and if it is dark, you should start drinking water as soon as possible.
If you think that the alcohol concentration in your blood is too high, seek immediate medical help.
Conclusion
The process of flushing out alcohol with fluids is highly questionable because fluids can only help you with hydration and improve the physical body’s functions. They can only flush out alcohol to some extent through the urine when the whole metabolizing process in the liver is completed.
Ana Miller is a creative writer. Her topics of interest and expertise range from psychology to all sorts of disciplines such as science and news.
