There is a popular belief that alcohol helps to flush out traces of THC metabolites from the body. Some people claim that booze increases the chances of passing a drug test. As much as I would like it to be true, it is not.
Consuming alcohol prior to a THC urine test is a terrible idea that might get you into a lot of trouble. Let me prove my point in this article.
Why Do People Think Alcohol Reduces THC Levels?
Here are the main arguments of smokers who believe that alcohol has cleansing properties:
- Ethanol lowers testosterone thus making fat cells burn slower;
- Alcohol makes your body release more liquid than usual;
- THC dissolves in ethanol better than in water.
All of these explanations are partially true. However, it does not mean you can detoxify your body and pass a THC urine test by getting drunk. Let me explain why.
Does Ethanol Help Your Body Eliminate THC Faster?
According to some studies (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15356671), moderate drinking can help you lose weight. Smokers often mention this fact when claiming that alcohol flushes out the weed.
It sounds reasonable given the fact that THC is stored in fat. However, everything is trickier than it seems.
If you want alcohol to speed up the fat-burning process, you have to take about 8 ounces of alcohol every day. This will make your body use stored fats in order to get the energy to burn the calories in the beverage.
During this process, your body destroys some of the cannabis metabolites trapped in the fat cells. Sounds great, is not it? Unfortunately, here comes the tricky part.
If you fail to consume a small amount of alcohol regularly, your body won’t use stored fat.
As a result, you will only become fatter by drinking booze. This, in turn, makes the detoxifying process even more difficult. The more your weigh, the harder it is to flush out THC out of your system.
Even if you manage to drink the exact amount of alcohol (8 ounces) regularly, it might not help you to sober up from weed faster.
The efficiency of this method depends on many variables as every person has unique body properties.
Moreover, there is a chance that your body will burn the fat cells that do not have THC stored in them. If you get unlucky, THC levels in your urine will not change a bit.
To sum it up, getting drunk several days before the drug test is a terrible idea. You will not achieve anything but a hangover.
Is Alcohol a Good Diuretic?
Yes, alcohol will make you urinate more often. No, it is not a good strategy to detox marijuana.
Alcohol is proven to make people pee more. Our kidneys regulate the amount of water in our bodies. When you have more fluid than particles in your blood, your kidneys make you release the excess liquid.
You don’t want to pee when the density of particles in your blood is higher than that of the liquid.
Since alcohol is a liquid, it increases fluid levels in your blood. Thus, drinking alcohol makes you pee.
Additionally, alcohol slows down your body’s release of an anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) that helps your kidneys function correctly. It makes you dehydrated and increases the need to urinate.
Thus, consuming alcohol leads to increased urination indeed. However, it will not help you to detox faster.
Alcohol makes you pee more but does not directly affect THC levels.
It increases the amount of water in the urine and dilutes the THC metabolites available for detection. The lesser the concentration of cannabis metabolites in your urine, the more chances you have to pass the test.
You can use any other diuretic for the same effect. Thus, ethanol does not really help your body to detoxify from weed.
On the contrary, consuming large amounts of alcohol can worsen your situation.
Does Alcohol Dissolve THC?
As I have mentioned earlier, THC is alcohol soluble. This is what makes some people think that booze works like a detox product.
They are wrong.
Alcohol indeed dissolves cannabis metabolites under laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, your body is not a test tube.
Scientists do not even know how exactly ethanol affects THC molecules stored in the fat of a smoker.
Multiple studies have demonstrated that ethanol boosts up the amount of THC in a person’s blood. Even though the participants used cannabis and alcohol simultaneously, booze clearly does not help to reduce the effects of weed.
In order to eliminate THC from your system, you need to get rid of toxins.
By drinking alcohol, you are only adding more toxins to the mixture in your body. Therefore, it makes the detoxifying process even slower thus reducing your chances to pass a THC test.
Final Words
As you can see, drinking booze in hopes of flushing out THC from your system is just stupid and unreliable.
Even though moderate alcohol consumption might help some people to decrease THC levels, this method won’t work most of the time.
Additionally, ethanol might affect some of the target parameters of your urine such as creatinine levels or color. There is a pretty high chance of failing a THC test because of booze!
Considering all the above, getting drunk to beat a THC test is a terrible idea and you should not try it. Instead, use proven solutions that will not have a harmful effect on your body. There are detox products that can actually increase your chance of passing the test with no risks.
I myself prefer the Fast Marijuana Detox kit from GreenFleets.
This company also offers a Stinger 7 Day Detox drink that can fully detox THC from your body within a week. It helped me last year when I had to pass an employment drug test.
You do not have to follow my advice. However, no matter what detox product you choose, I beg you: do not try to beat a drug test by drinking alcohol. Trust me, it is a bad idea.