How to Act Sober

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Learn how to appear sober when you’ve been drinking
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Acting sober can be easy or hard depending on how drunk you are and what you are doing. The goal is to know your limits. If you drink uncontrollably, at some point you will not be able to act sober regardless of your skill. However, if you are self-aware, you may be able to fool many people around you into believing you are sober. The trick is to know how they spot drunk people. Learn how to avoid sending the wrong signals and you can act sober enough to fool most of them, if not all.

How to Seem Sober

Keep your eyes open and clear, stay alert, and don’t walk around too much, as you’re likely to stumble. Don’t talk too often, and when you do, stick to simple topics. If asked, claim you’re just tired or sick. Learn how you act when you’re drunk so you know which behaviors to avoid.

Method 1
Method 1 of 4:

Disguising Common Tells

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  1. People who are under the influence tend to have sleepy or droopy eyes. Make a conscious effort to keep your eyes open and fight the urge to let them start closing. Blink quickly and often. When you are drunk, your eyes can become easily irritated. Use eye drops to reduce redness.
  2. If you start walking around, you will draw attention to yourself and likely trip or fall. People will probably not notice how drunk you are if you hide your lack of coordination. If you must walk, move briskly to your destination. Forward momentum will keep you from staggering. Placing your hands on a solid objects (railings, tables, backs of chairs) as you move to help your brain compensate for your lack of balance.
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  3. Be alert . People often space out when they are drunk. They get lost in their own thoughts and ignore everything around them. Remain engaged with your environment. Listen to friends' conversations, watch what is happening around the room, and respond if someone tries to get your attention you.
  4. Slurred speech, bragging, repetition, and inappropriate statements are tell-tale signs of drunkenness. [1] Alcohol impairs your judgement, so you won't hear how drunk you sound. Don't let your crazy talk give you away. Limit your end of conversations to short answers.
  5. Complicated thoughts are hard to express when you are intoxicated, and trying to explain what you mean could be a giveaway that you have had a few (or several) to drink. Fight the urge to express any "fantastic thoughts" you just came up with: a new business idea, your desire to marry a woman you met fifteen minutes ago, etc. They may sound mind-blowing right now, but chances are they aren't.
  6. Natural fatigue often resembles intoxication. If someone asks if you are drunk, provide plausible excuses for your behavior. People will likely give you the benefit of the doubt.
  7. Oranges, potato chips, peanut butter, curry, garlic, onions and breath mints will mask alcohol (and smoke) on your breath. These smells are powerful and potentially unpleasant, but they are common enough that people will not suspect you are trying to cover up the smell of booze.
  8. When you are drunk, your entire body smells like alcohol, not just your breath. [2] Until your liver has finished metabolizing the alcohol, your body will emit that somewhat sweet, identifiable drunk smell. Use cologne or a strong deodorant like Old Spice to hide the scent.
  9. Alcohol dries out your mouth and encourages bacterial growth. [3] People have come to associate the smell of an unhealthy mouth with the smell of alcohol. If you can't mask the smell of alcohol with strong foods, clean your mouth instead. Brush your teeth, rinse with mouthwash, and drink plenty of water to rehydrate.
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Method 2
Method 2 of 4:

Learning How You Act When You Drink

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  1. [4] [5] One of the biggest effects alcohol has on you is to limit your inhibitions. If you are typically worried about how people think about you, drinking may help you relax and stop worrying. This also means some of your base instincts may be revealed. If you are holding back a temper it may flare up out of control when you are intoxicated. If you know you have an issue like that, you need to work not only on your self-control, but also try to change your natural inclinations.
    • If you are an angry drunk, you may find that you tend to be mad during the day. If that's the case and you want to act sober, you may consider anger management classes. There it's possible to learn techniques to avoid becoming angry in the first place.
  2. When your judgement is impaired by alcohol, your sober friends may be able to tell your state by your tells. Ask them to recount changes in your behavior. See if they would be willing to give you examples. Commit these changes of behavior to memory. You will need to work on hiding them to act sober.
    • One way to ask your friends about your drunken behavior is to ask what type of drunk you are. [6] Even if they do not have specific examples of your odd behavior they may have an overarching sense of how you are. Happy drunks tend to be very jovial the more alcohol they consume. Angry drunks tend to be mean and problematic. There are many other types but this would get the conversation going.
  3. You likely know how you normally behave too. If you record yourself when you are drunk, you may see more than your friends do. This could allow you to confirm your friends' observations if you think they are unbelievable. Furthermore, you will have clear documentation of your odd behavior. This will give you a good starting point when trying to identify your tells.
    • You don't have to do this by yourself or even much of the time. You may have a friend record you with their phone when you aren't looking. You may even use your phone to take an audio recording to see how you sound later when you are sober.
  4. If you don't want people to know you are drunk, you have to stop acting abnormal. Drunk people can often be identified by their unique behaviors. [7] Asking friends about your odd behavior or viewing/listening to a recording will give you information. Your goal is to identify your tells and write them down. This gives you a list of things to work on.
  5. Some tells you can avoid through practice. You have to maintain some level of non-drunkenness though. Once you have a list to work on, get drunk. In your drunken state, try to act as normal as possible. You will have to look at your list of tells and avoid doing any of those abnormal behaviors. If that's too difficult, you may be too drunk. Scale down your drinking for now until you get the hang of acting sober at a lower state of drunkenness.
    • Keep in mind that the more drunk you are, the harder it will be to hide your tells. If you keep drinking, eventually you will not be able to hide it.
    • Not all tells can be avoided. [8] You will want to avoid giving people the opportunity to observe those aspects. For example, if you know you have alcohol on your breath, don't get too close.
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Method 3
Method 3 of 4:

Acting Sober

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  1. You can push your limits. If you find yourself too drunk to avoid showing your tells, practice overcoming them. You may ask your sober buddy to evaluate you. Practice acting sober while drunk until you can pull it off successfully to your sober buddy.
  2. Not all venues are conducive to your acting sober. Acting sober at a bar is far different than acting sober at a traffic stop or in front of angry parents. If you push your limits, you may not be able to act sober at the same rate in every scenario. When you know you are potentially moving to a new scenario, let your drunkenness wear off a little more before attempting to act sober.
  3. [9] [10] When you are pulled over there are certain tests the authorities may use to test your sobriety short of a breathalizer. Many of these tests are designed to be increasingly difficult the more drunk you are. The novelty of these scenarios means if you are not practiced, you may find yourself too nervous to act sober.
    • Be sure to have a sober person evaluate you. Let them study the behaviors a law enforcement agent will be looking for. Then they can accurately tell you what you are doing wrong to the best of their ability.
  4. Some bodily behaviors give you away because they are unavoidable. [11] Even when you learn to control yourself enough to act sober, your body may not act as sober as you want it to. A breathalyzer test may reveal that your body has not metabolized alcohol as fast as you wished it would. The vocal cords, eye muscles, and legs may not perform the way a sober person's would. Whenever your body is acting beyond your ability to hide your drunkenness, avoid scenarios where they may give you away.
    • If you are pulled over by a police officer, you should submit to their requests. [12] Refusing to perform a field sobriety test or blow into a breathalizer is generally a bad idea. By acquiring your license you may provide implicit consent. Refusing to cooperate with law enforcement may earn you additional citations.
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Method 4
Method 4 of 4:

Keeping Drunkenness in Check

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  1. This will buffer your stomach so alcohol won't be absorbed into your blood too quickly. This could cause a spike in your drunkenness. Spikes like these may temporarily leave you unable to act sober. The goal is to not get to that point. Acting sober is largely a matter of maintaining a level of drunkenness that does not prohibit you from controlling your behaviors.
  2. This is an objective way to keep from getting too drunk to act sober. You need to know your limits. When you start drinking, make a mental note of the time. Then keep a count of how many drinks you have had since that time. If you know you are no longer able to act sober, remember how much you had drunk and try to stay below that next time.
    • How your body deals alcohol will vary by drink count, time, weight, and biological sex. [13] Your body will metabolize alcohol continuously but only at a certain rate. If you keep up with your drinks over a period of time, you can calculate your blood alcohol level (BAL). This can later help you identify a BAL at which you are no longer able to act sober. Stay below that.
    • Drinks come in roughly standard sizes. A can of beer will have about the same amount of alcohol as a glass of wine and a shot of liquor. If you are at a party drinking beer, save the bottle caps or aluminium tabs to keep a count of your drinks. If you are at a bar, ask the bartender how many drinks you've had.
  3. This will help not only keep from getting too drunk but also reduce the severity of a hangover. The goal is to help keep the alcohol diluted in your blood by continuously adding water to your body. Alcohol will cause your body to lose water. This helps keep your body from becoming dehydrated.
    • Reader Poll: We asked 169 wikiHow readers how they prefer to pace themselves while drinking, and 54% of them said drinking water in between alcoholic drinks. [Take Poll]
  4. You may find that having a designated driver will help you avoid drunken behaviors. For example, getting lost going back to your car. There are some mobile phone apps that can help with some of these situations. [14] However, a sober buddy can also let you know when you've had too many. They can tell you when you are no longer able to act sober. Have them keep an eye on you so you will know your limits. This way you can keep your alcohol consumption to a level that allows you to act sober.
  5. Our bodies develop a tolerance for alcohol over time. If you've been sober for a while, you may notice it takes fewer drinks to get an effect than it has in the past. Regular drinking will increase your tolerance. This increase in tolerance will allow you to drink more over a period and continue to successfully act sober.
    • Of course, don't just drink for the sake of building a stronger tolerance. Doctors recommend a daily limit of two alcoholic drinks for men and one for women. [15]
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      Warnings

      • No matter how sober you find you can act, do not drink and drive. Do not operate an automobile or participate in any other activity that could risk your own safety or the safety of others.
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      • Seek emergency medical attention for anyone who becomes unresponsive while drinking. Alcohol poisoning is often fatal. [16]
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      • Excessive consumption of alcohol can cause brain damage, liver damage and blackouts. [17]
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      References

      1. ↑ http://www.oregon.gov/olcc/docs/publications/50_signs_visible_intoxication.pdf
      2. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/alcohol-breath_b_898103.html
      3. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/alcohol-breath_b_898103.html
      4. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2033079/Acohol-doesnt-make-behave-badly-just-stops-caring-embarrassment-say-scientists.html
      5. ↑ http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/09/02/making-stupid-mistakes-when-drunk-heres-how/29128.html
      6. ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/the-four-types-of-drunk-personalities/399137/
      7. ↑ http://www.oregon.gov/olcc/docs/publications/50_signs_visible_intoxication.pdf
      8. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/alcohol-breath_b_898103.html
      9. ↑ http://www.jensendefense.com/hereshow/passfieldsobrietytests.html
      1. ↑ http://www.dominylaw.com/field-sobriety-tests.html
      2. ↑ http://www.oregon.gov/olcc/docs/publications/50_signs_visible_intoxication.pdf
      3. ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/martin-kron-explains-why-you-should-take-a-breathalyzer-2013-11
      4. ↑ http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/alcohol,_tobacco,_&_other_drugs/alcohol/alcohol_&_your_body.php
      5. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/technology/drunk-mode-app/
      6. ↑ http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/alcohol/art-20044551
      7. ↑ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alcohol-poisoning/symptoms-causes/syc-20354386
      8. ↑ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alcohol-poisoning/symptoms-causes/syc-20354386

      About This Article

      Article Summary X

      If you want to act sober, do your best to keep your eyes open, since people who are under the influence tend to have droopy eyes. Since walking around can make it obvious that you're drunk, find somewhere to sit and try to stay there. Avoid speaking if you can so you don't exhibit tell-tale signs of drunkenness like slurred speech, repetition, or inappropriate statements. Instead, stick to simple topics or avoid conversation completely by telling people you're feeling sick or tired. If you can smell alcohol or smoke on your breath, consider brushing your teeth or eating some strong-smelling foods, like oranges, chips, or mints. You may also want to apply cologne or scented deodorant to cover up any smells that are coming from your clothes or body. For more advice, including how to identify and overcome your particular drunken behaviors, scroll down!

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