Drinking & Diving

[Splitlip]

i say its friday night and i'm drunk right now.......

lets go diving at 1:30am in a thunderstorm! ok maybe drunk diving is bad. but r u drunk after 1 beer 3 hours later? if u are, where did ur wife put ur balls?

In her purse.

 

[Lobzilla]

Do you also refuse to dive with people who've just had a glass of orange juice?

You missed TSandM's point entirely by quoting incorrectly.

Three hours after one beer, if you are fairly good sized and if you had food with it, your blood alcohol level will be low.

But it will not be zero. And I would not dive with you as a buddy. Nitrogen is bad enough.

And one beer will have an effect on your hydration status, because unlike caffeine, alcohol is a powerful enough inhibitor of normal fluid retention processes that the net effect of an alcoholic beverage is fluid loss.

What eliminates some people as buddies is their attitude about safety. That used to be rule number one before PC permeated scuba.

Is it a coincidence that someone who thinks 300' on air is a good idea would skip over the comment in bold face and try to justify diving inebriated?

Most of your post portray you as a very logical and rational person. How can someone, who believes that thought and not luck rules your day, be so cavalier about ANY substance that messes with your cognitive processes?

In other words, there are many folks who walk through life boozed and drugged and are fine as long as they paint with big brushes. It shows at the hair-wide pin stripes when you are not at your very best.

In diving that would be fumbling with clips, misreading MOD labels, screwing-up compass headings, tying a line sloppily, etc. Is that going to be safe or even fun when we are buzzed, narced, intoxicated, or whatever we want to call it?

 

[scubafanatic]

For those who have been on liveaboards with such drinking rules...
How late and how much will the crew allow a customer to drink at night?

I can see how drinking too much or too late the night before...and then waking up to do an early morning dive might not be a good idea. In fact, depending on several different factors, it could be worse than having one beer at noon and then diving 3 hours later.

If memory serves, ALL of the liveaboards I've ever been on have this policy: diving for the day ends immediately after the 1st alcoholic drink of the day. As far as the definition of 'day' , one boat (SPREE of TX Flower Gardens/Dry Tortugas fame) uses midnight 'boat time' as the cut off time, meaning if you are drinking @ 12:01 AM in the morning, you will not be diving the ENTIRE next dive day!

 

[k374]

I agree with DevonDiver, if you can't hold it until after the diving then there may be some other alcohol addiction issues and who knows if 1 beer will turn into 3 or 4 and then you may have additional susceptibility to DCS. I personally do not consume alcohol for at least 12 hours before a dive. After a days diving I will surely have 2

Regarding the LOGIC behind it..I personally think it's a very low risk to consume a single beer and then dive 3 hours later but it's not allowed as I said due to opening up a whole set of issues, who is to monitor how many beers one has had? and on a smaller person who doesn't drink often even 1 beer may have a huge effect.. it's simpler just to ban it completely.

 

[AzAtty]

There's no "residual alcohol time" table issued by any certification agency. Regardless of data concerning how long it takes to eliminate alcohol, each individual has varying susceptibility to impairment. Some people can down a keg and may *appear* operate quite well. Others can take a sip of wine and be lit up like Las Vegas.

While alcohol is elminated from the body at a relatively predictable rate (0.015% BAC per hour), there is not necessarily a corresponding restoration of performance ability. That is, your BAC may be going down, but it doesn't mean that your impairment is lessening at the same rate. Moreover, the ability to perform "divided tasks" requiring multiple actions is affected to a much greater degree than a "single task" action following consumption of alcohol. Think of any action in diving that requires multiple actions (like ascending from a dive) as opposed to something like lifting a tank. In the latter case, probably no impairment will be noted, while in the former case the diver will likely perform the tasks much slower and sloppier. Thus, it's impossible to incorporate "safe drinking" into a dive plan with any degree of certainty.

Furthermore, our bodies act differently under pressure than they do at the surface, and substances can affect us differently. For example, DAN cautions divers against using certain decongestants while diving Nitrox because it may increase susceptability to oxygen toxicity.

Properly educated divers understand that while the most common substance which we actually plan to load during diving (think NITROGEN) may be modeled by tables and computers, in the end we just don't know for sure EXACTLY how we load and unload it. Educated divers understand that even if one follows the table or a computer to the letter, one can take an "undeserved hit." Thus, educated divers would be hesitant to inject another intoxicant into the mix without being able to model its effects with some statistical degree of certainty (which is all a dive table/computer does).

Then, of course, there's the liability issue. If one of my clients was injured on a dive and told me the divermaster leading the dive had a drink three hours before the dive, I'd tell him to get out his stick because the insurance company just became a cash pinata. Thus, I'd advise a boat captain to make sure alcohol didn't come near his vessel.

 

[Paladin]

Personally, I don't drink and I've never been drunk. I don't see any sense in ingesting toxic, mind-altering chemicals to make myself look and act like an idiot. I make enough stupid mistakes without compounding the problem. I agree with TSandM in that I won't buddy with anyone who does. The instant I find out that the person I'm supposed to be diving with drinks or uses illicit drugs, I become a solo diver.

 

[Tortuga68]

You missed TSandM's point entirely by quoting incorrectly.

What eliminates some people as buddies is their attitude about safety. That used to be rule number one before PC permeated scuba.

Is it a coincidence that someone who thinks 300' on air is a good idea would skip over the comment in bold face and try to justify diving inebriated?

Most of your post portray you as a very logical and rational person. How can someone, who believes that thought and not luck rules your day, be so cavalier about ANY substance that messes with your cognitive processes?

In other words, there are many folks who walk through life boozed and drugged and are fine as long as they paint with big brushes. It shows at the hair-wide pin stripes when you are not at your very best.

In diving that would be fumbling with clips, misreading MOD labels, screwing-up compass headings, tying a line sloppily, etc. Is that going to be safe or even fun when we are buzzed, narced, intoxicated, or whatever we want to call it?

I did not "try to justify diving inebriated" - I said that 3 hours after 1 beer your BAC would be zero ie you wouldn't be inebriated. Obvioulsy I'm fairly familiar with the effects of nitrogen narcosis and I agree with Lynne that you don't need to make them any worse by being under the influence of alcohol (not to mention the increased risk of DCS)

Personally I don't have any problem not drinking until at least a couple of hours after the last dive of the day (longer if I've done a deep dive)

I'd be more concerned about the many, many resort divers who are out drinking every night until 3am and then turn up for the morning dive still half pissed and/or dehydrated/hungover than I would about someone who enjoys a single beer with their lunch 3 hours before a dive

My reference to orange juice was because studies have found that it can contain up to 0.9% ethanol alcohol

PS It's also not an accurate representation of my outlook to say that I think 100m on air is a "good idea" but that's another topic

 

[Token]

Personally I don't have any problem not drinking until at least a couple of hours after the last dive of the day (longer if I've done a deep dive)

I'd be more concerned about the many, many resort divers who are out drinking every night until 3am and then turn up for the morning dive still half pissed and/or dehydrated/hungover than I would about someone who enjoys a single beer with their lunch 3 hours before a dive

IMHO, you are probably right. In my view, however, a person can drink, OR a person can dive. If the two are mixed in any scenario, it is an accident waiting to happen no matter how finely the hairs might be split.

If I were doing a liveaboard trip, my first drink wouldn't occur until I had tipped the captain and lugged my gear off the boat for the trip home. If I have a couple of drinks in the evening, I can feel it the next morning even if I didn't get tipsy [yeah, I'm a cheap date...]. I'd look askance at anybody who couldn't or just didn't care to leave off the booze...even a single beer...for 24 hours before a dive.

 

[Tortuga68]

Heh, just thinking that there'd be a lot of broke resorts and bars in the tropics if people actually applied the 24 hour rule with any sort of discipline. Of course, that could be a good thing in some respects...

 

[BrianKon]

When I was learning to dive I was told that drinking and diving was a no no. At that time it made sense because of what was said of dehydration and possibly impair my judgement

When doing liveaboards we are told that our 1st drink meant that we had done our last dive of the day.

My question is..
If I have a beer at lunch (noon) and want to dive at 3:00, how is that going to impair my judgement or dehydrate me?

First let me say I love beer! as a previous posted said" I commend you for stopping at one" However, alcohol leads to dehydration in any amount, also constricts blood vessels, which could cause you to get cold on the dive, cramping, etc. All of which can lead to DCS. Have an Water or a Sports drink instead, get hydrated before any dive and then after the dive have two beers!

good diving to you

brian