Drink Responsibly

Drinking beer is grand. Drinking beer with friends is superb. Don't let a fun night with friends result in death or jail time. Please don't drink and drive.

Plan Ahead

Know your limit. Some time, you really should do an experiment at your home. Consume more than two drinks an hour and have your friends video tape you. Have yourself complete some sort of brain teaser and a physical coordination challenge. During the evening, add an additional drink to the hour and make a note on how soon the hourly challenges go from easily done to requiring more effort on your part. Ask your friends at which point they thought you started to show signs of bad decision making or physical clumsiness.

Before heading out, try to set up a ride home. Can one of your friends be a designated driver? If not, there are many organizations and companies that offer free/discount rides. AAA provides a page that lists various organizations and businesses they work with for rides. Note, that some of the services on the list require that you have AAA membership. You can also check out the National Directory of Designated Driver Services for programs in nearly every state (none currently in Alaska, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Vermont).

If you are going to be consuming food, drinking one bottle of beer per hour with food is generally safe for driving.

Enjoy Your Beer

Part of watching how drunk you get is to limit how much you are drinking over a period of time. Any steps you take to drink slower will help.

Sip your beer. Enjoy the flavor. You can better understand the flavors, feel, and other characteristics of the beer you are drinking when you drink it slowly.

Eat while you drink. Cheeses and nuts are particularly helpful in affecting your body's ability to absorb alcohol and taking breaks from drinking to eat some food will help space out the beers you drink.

Have an occasional non-alcoholic drink. Whether you want to cleanse your palate with water or grab a tea, coffee, or soda between bottles of beer, this will also help you space out how often you drink alcohol.