By Kim Bo-eun
People often get drunk at year-end and New Year parties. While it is a must to stay away from driving while under the influence of alcohol, it can be a useful tip to know how long it takes until one can take the wheel after a night of drinking.
The National Police Agency posted on its official blog Sunday a formula that can be used to calculate how long it takes for one’s body to process alcohol according to the type of alcohol, gender and weight.
The Widmark formula named after Swedish physiologist is used to calculate the degree of alcohol in the blood when it cannot be done through a blood test or breathalyzer.
According to the formula, a man weighing 70 kilograms who has had one bottle of soju, which has 19 percent alcohol, can drive after four hours and six minutes.
Even though the same amount of alcohol is consumed, the required processing time varies according to weight. It takes five hours and 44 minutes for a man weighing 50 kilograms, and two hours and 50 minutes for a man weighing 100 kilograms to become sober.
The formula indicates that it takes longer for women to process alcohol. For a woman weighing 50 kilograms, it takes seven hours and 12 minutes, about an hour and 30 minutes longer than men.
Assuming the standard weight for men is 70 kilograms and 60 kilograms for women, for 2,000cc of beer, the processing time for a man is five hours and 22 minutes, while it is seven hours and 53 minutes for a woman.
For four glasses of hard liquor, the required time is six hours and 28 minutes and nine hours and 28 minutes, respectively. For one bottle of wine, it takes five hours and 50 minutes and eight hours 34 minutes, respectively, to process the alcohol.
For more information, visit https://polinlove.tistory.com.