h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today, I have had an alcoholic drink for the first time in about a year. After a glass and a half of Baileys I have found I am at a very pleasant state where I have a nice, glowing perspective on the world and feel a warm glow, without reaching the stage of telling my friends, "I love you" or wanting to start a fight with someone. How can I - precisely and scientifically - maintain the exact level of intoxication I am at now? In the past I have found that I would reach a pleasant level of intoxication and carry on drinking to the point that I am too drunk to function. But two glasses is "nice" , "glowy" and I feel at peace with the world. How to carry on where I am?

Use an IV drip.

There was a series of sketches by Mitchell & Webb a couple of years ago about a secret society/illuminati-style conspiracy of people "just slightly less than two drinks drunk". The priciple being as the Groob has discovered, that it's a lovely mellow place to be and engenders a feeling of peace and happiness to ones fellow humanoids. One of the society members was mainlining liquer chocolates, one had a merlot drip , there were some other methods mentioned too that I can't now recall. The new recruit was promised great things, all on the basis of being lightly tipsy. It may well be on youtube or similar sites.

Spoiler alert!!!

It all finished badly when the recruit to the society who was by now President (possibly of the world) carried on drinking beyond the comfortable, warm, glow stage and had "got a bit fight-ey". Through the window of his office, the embers of a post-apocalyptic war-zone could been seen...

Walk along a line and measure your mean deviation.

Calibration:
Ingest determined volume of alcoholic beverage, converted to grams of 100% EtOH.
Measure blood alcohol level at 10 minute intervals.
Calculate your personal rate of alcohol metabolism, in grams per hour.

Perform experiment:
Ingest 1.5 glasses of Baileys (or corresponding amount of 100% EtOH)
Continue to ingest EtOH consistent with your personal metabolism, e.g. one drink per hour, in a controlled slow rate.

Report back please.

That sounds like enough science to keep you sober.

This all depends on the basic assumption on linear alcohol metabolism rate.
It might be dependent on alcohol levels in the blood - higher rate at higher concentration, or even lower rate at higher concentration, I don't actually know. If it's not linear, you may have a harder time keeping the correct level...

I see what you mean. And so many other things might affect the rate of metabolism too - when you've eaten, when you've slept, how physically active you are at a given time, your level of hydration...

Yes, at some point your liver says uncle and stops filtering out toxins for the day. (This is a key reason why so many prescription drugs are not to be taken with alcohol as they recycle through your bloodstream increasing their effective dose.) So, at that point your rate of intoxication over time will increase.


Also, I am a bit of a Mitchell and Webb fan so I found the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4

NLP practitioners believe it is possible to 'anchor' a feeling through hypnotic suggestion, which can then be 'triggered' later on to enable you to experience that feeling again.