Still Feeling Dingy After a Night of Binging?

If you think that maybe you’re still not quite back to normal the morning after a night of drinking, you could be right! Alcohol leaves the body and isn’t detectable with a breathalyzer within 8 hours of your last drink, but impairment from drinking may persist for hours after the alcohol is gone. MedPage Today reported that “...alcohol intoxication adversely affects task performance even after the alcohol is no longer in the body.” A study conducted by Damaris Rohsenow, PhD of Brown University in Providence, RI and reported in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research showed that although heavy drinking disrupts sleep, the poor quality of sleep doesn’t correlate with the performance of the tasks.

In light of these findings employer drug and alcohol testing of employees, periodically and randomly, is especially important. Tests conducted early in the morning could reveal alcohol use from the night before and prevent on the job accidents due to lingering impairment. Previous studies show mixed results on alcohol’s effect on next day performance, however this study looked specifically at neurocognitive tasks.

One notable fact from the study is that the study participants could not tell that they were impaired and when tested while driving, they felt that their ability wasn’t affected by the previous night’s drinking. Previous studies had shown, as did this one that different types of alcohol influenced the severity of the hangover experienced by drinkers. However, this study reported that the severity of the hangover did not correlate to task performance. Those who drank bourbon felt worse the next day than those who drank vodka, most likely due to the additives found in bourbon that are byproducts of the fermenting process. No matter what you drank the night before, you are still impaired for several hours the next day.

ANY LAB TEST NOW® can work with employers to determine the specific types of tests that are most appropriate for your environment as well as how best to administer them. Protect your assets, your other employees and your business by contacting us now.