BAC Calculator

Estimated blood alcohol from drinks, weight and time.

Kidney function is now estimated with a race-free CKD-EPI equation, a change adopted in 2021 that raised reported eGFR for many Black patients. Blood alcohol estimation depends on food, liver health and individual metabolism, none of which a formula can capture.

Clinical reference values quoted here are the ones used in United States practice: kidney function from the CKD-EPI equation, blood alcohol from the Widmark formula adjusted for sex, weight and elapsed time, and fluid intake from Institute of Medicine guidance. Laboratory ranges themselves differ slightly between labs and assays.

Blood alcohol concentration depends on what was drunk, body mass, sex, food and time, and the Widmark formula captures only the broad shape of that. Elimination runs at roughly one standard drink an hour, and no figure can accelerate it.

A single number sits inside a range that shifts with age, hydration, medication and time of day, so trends across several readings carry more information than any one.

Laboratory values are read against the range the performing lab publishes, and reference intervals shift with age, sex, pregnancy and assay method. A result slightly outside a range is common in healthy people, which is why one out-of-range figure is rarely conclusive on its own.

BAC Calculator sits with the rest of the library's health work, and it rests on the same clinical-reference arithmetic the way a clinical reference table does. Its answer is only as good as the assumptions standing behind it.

The quantities it works from — standard drinks, weight, hours since first drink, typical drink size and typical strength — are the ones a real clinical-reference question actually turns on, and each carries a convention of its own, set out below.

Health figures in the United States are read against reference tables published by federal agencies and professional bodies, and those tables describe populations rather than individuals. One measurement is a data point; a series taken the same way over months is information.

Clinical guidance also shifts as evidence accumulates, which is why a range that was standard a decade ago may no longer be quoted.