Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 4: Hide signs of intoxication
• Method 2 of 4: Learn to trade while you drink
• Method 3 of 4: Act sober
• Method 4 of 4: Controlling drunkenness
• Warnings

Acting sober can be easy or difficult depending on how drunk you are and what you're doing. The goal is to know your limits. If you drink uncontrollably, at some point you will no longer be able to act sober, no matter how good you are. However, if you are self-aware, you can fool many people around you into making them believe that you are sober. The trick is to know how they spot drunk people. Learn how to avoid sending the wrong signals and acting sober enough to fool most, if not all, people.

To step

Method 1 of 4: Hide signs of intoxication

1. Keep your eyes open and clear. People who are under the influence often have sleepy or drooping eyes. Make a conscious effort to keep your eyes open and fight the urge to close them. Blink quickly and often. When you're drunk, your eyes can get irritated easily. Use eye drops to reduce redness.
2. Find a seat and sit there. When you start walking around you will draw attention to yourself and probably stumble or fall. People probably won't notice how drunk you are if you hide your lack of coordination. If you have to walk, get to your destination quickly. Forward force keeps you from dizzying. Place your hands on a stable object (railings, tables, chair backs) as you move to help your brain compensate for your imbalance.
3. Be careful. People often get absent when they are drunk. They get lost in their own thoughts and ignore everything around them. Stay involved with your environment. Listen to friends' conversations, see what's going on in the room, and respond if someone tries to get your attention.
4. Limit your utterances. Speaking unclearly, bragging, repeating things, and making inappropriate statements are recognizable signs of intoxication. Alcohol affects your judgment, so you won't hear how drunk you sound. Don't let your crazy talk give you away. Limit your share of conversations to short answers.
5. Stick to simple topics. Complicated thoughts are difficult to express when you are intoxicated, and trying to explain what you mean can be a giveaway that you drank a few (or several). Fight the urge to express all the 'fantastic thoughts' you've just come up with: a new business idea, your desire to marry a woman you met 15 minutes ago, etc. They may sound overwhelming now, but the opportunity is great that they are not.
6. Claim that you are sick or tired. Natural fatigue often resembles intoxication. If someone asks if you are drunk, give plausible excuses for your behavior. People are likely to give you the benefit of the doubt.
7. Eat strong smelling foods. Oranges, chips, peanut butter, curry, garlic, onions and breath mints mask alcohol (and smoke) while breathing. These scents are powerful and potentially unpleasant, but they are common enough that people will not suspect that you are trying to cover up the smell of booze.
8. Wear perfume or scented deodorant. When you're drunk, your whole body smells like alcohol, not just your breath. Until your liver metabolizes the alcohol, your body will give off that slightly sweet, identifiable drunken smell. Use perfume or a strong deodorant like Old Spice to hide the smell.
9. Brush your teeth. Alcohol dries out your mouth and stimulates the growth of bacteria. People have come to associate the smell of an unhealthy mouth with the smell of alcohol. If you can't mask the smell of alcohol with strong foods, clean your mouth instead. Brush your teeth, rinse with mouthwash, and drink plenty of water to rehydrate.

Method 2 of 4: Learn to trade while you drink

1. Pay attention to your basic instincts when inhibitions are removed. One of the biggest effects alcohol has on you is limiting your inhibitions. If you're usually concerned about how people feel about you, drinking can help you relax and stop worrying. This also means that some of your basic instincts can be revealed. When you hold back a mood, things can get out of hand when you're drunk. When you know you have such a problem, you should not only work on your self-control, but also try to change your natural tendencies.
   • If you are maliciously drunk, you will find that you have a tendency to be angry during the day. If so and you want to act sober, consider anger management classes. There it is possible to learn techniques for not getting angry in the first place.
2. Ask friends what they see when you are drunk. If your judgment is affected by alcohol, your sober friends may be able to recognize your state through your behavior. Ask them to share changes in your behavior. See if they want to give you examples. Record these behavioral changes in memory. You have to work on hiding them in order to act sober.
   • One way to ask your friends about your drunk behavior is to ask what kind of drunk you are. Even if they don't have specific examples of your strange behavior, they can have an overarching sense of who you are. Happy drunks are usually highly motivated the more alcohol they consume. Angry drunks are usually mean and problematic. There are many other types, but this would start the conversation.
3. Record yourself when you are drunk. You probably also know how to behave normally. If you record yourself when you are drunk, you may see more than your friends. This will allow you to confirm your friends' observations if you think they are implausible. In addition, you will have clear documentation of your strange behavior. This gives you a good starting point when trying to identify your behavior.
   • You don't have to do this alone. For example, have a friend answer you on their phone when you are not looking. You can even use your phone to make an audio recording to see how you sound later when you are sober.
4. Write down your behavior. If you don't want people to know that you are drunk, you have to stop acting abnormally. Drunk people can often be identified by their unique behavior. Asking friends about your strange behavior or watching / listening to a recording gives you information. Your goal is to identify and record your behavior. This will give you a list of things to work on.
5. Test the limits of hiding your drunken behavior. You can avoid this behavior in part with practice. You do have to maintain a degree of non-intoxication. Once you have a list to work on, you will get drunk. In your drunken state, try to act as normally as possible. You need to review your list of behaviors and avoid engaging in abnormal behaviors. If that's too hard, you may be too drunk. Limit drinking for now until you get the hang of acting sober in a lower state of intoxication.
   • Keep in mind that the more drunk you are, the more difficult it will be to cover up your behavior. If you keep drinking, you won't be able to hide it in the end.
   • Not all behaviors can be avoided. You want to prevent people from having the opportunity to observe the typical drunken behavior. For example, if you know you have alcohol in your breath, don't get too close.

Method 3 of 4: Act sober

1. Practice hiding your drunken behavior while drinking. You can push your limits. If you find yourself too drunk to avoid showing characteristic behavior, practice overcoming it. You can ask your sober friend to evaluate you. Practice acting sober while you're drunk until you can convincingly get away with it from your sober friend.
2. When trying to act sober, keep your context in mind. Not all locations are conducive to your sober behavior. Being sober at a bar is very different from being sober at a traffic stop or in front of angry parents. If you push your limits, you may not be able to act sober in every scenario. If you know that you may be moving into a new scenario, let your drunkenness diminish a bit more before trying to sober up.
3. Practice sobriety testing. When you are stopped on the road, there are certain tests that the authorities can use to test your sobriety, in addition to a breathalyzer test. Many of these tests are designed to get progressively more difficult the more intoxicated you are. The novelty of these scenarios means that if you are not practiced, you may be too nervous to act sober.
   • Have a sober person judge you. Make him watch for behavior that the police are watching. He may be able to tell you what you are doing wrong.
4. Avoid situations where it is impossible to pretend to be sober. Some physical behaviors give you away because they are inevitable. Even if you learn to control yourself enough to act sober, your body may not be as sober as you want it to be. A respiratory test can show that your body has not metabolized alcohol as quickly as you would like. The vocal cords, eye muscles, and legs may not work like a sober person. When your body is acting beyond your ability to hide your drunkenness, avoid scenarios where they can give you away.
   • If you are stopped by a police officer you must submit to their requests. Refusing to take a sobriety test or blow for an alcohol test is generally a bad idea. By obtaining your driver's license you can give implicit consent. Refusal to cooperate with law enforcement can result in additional fines.

Method 4 of 4: Controlling drunkenness

1. Eat before you drink. This will buffer your stomach so that alcohol is not absorbed into your blood too quickly. This can cause a spike in your intoxication. Such peaks temporarily prevent you from being sober. The goal is not to reach that point. Acting soberly is largely a matter of maintaining drunkenness that doesn't stop you from controlling your behavior.
2. Keep a close eye on the number of drinks you drink. This is an objective way not to get too drunk to act sober. You have to know your limits. When you start drinking, record the time. Then keep track of how many drinks you've had since then. If you know you can no longer act sober, remember how much you drank and try to stay below that next time.
   • How your body deals with alcohol depends on the number of drinks, time, weight, and biological gender. Your body will continuously metabolize alcohol, but only at a certain rate. If you keep track of your drinks over a period of time, you can calculate your blood alcohol level. This can help you later identify a blood alcohol level where you can no longer act sober. Stay under that.
   • Drinks come in a number of standard sizes. A can of beer contains about the same amount of alcohol as a glass of wine and a splash of hard liquor. If you drink beer at a party, save the bottle caps or aluminum tabs to keep track of your drinks. If you're in a bar, ask the bartender how many drinks you've had.
3. Alternate alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Not only does this help not to get too drunk, but it also reduces the severity of a hangover. The goal is to keep the alcohol diluted in your blood by continuously adding water to your body. Alcohol causes your body to lose water. This will help keep your body from drying out.
4. Bring a sober friend. Having a designated driver may help you avoid drunken behavior. For example, by getting lost when you go back to your car. There are some cell phone apps that can help in some of these situations. However, a sober buddy can also let you know when you've had too much. They can tell you when you can no longer act sober. Let them watch you so you know your limits. This way, you can keep your alcohol consumption at a level that allows you to act soberly.
5. Increase your drinking tolerance in a healthy way. Our body develops a tolerance to alcohol over time. If you've been sober for a while, you may find that it takes fewer drinks to have an effect than in the past. Drinking regularly increases your tolerance. With this increased tolerance, you can drink more over time and continue to act sober successfully.
   • Of course, don't drink alone to build stronger tolerance. Doctors recommend a daily limit of two alcoholic drinks for men and one for women.

Warnings

• No matter how sober you feel you can act, don't drink while driving or participate in other activities that could endanger your own safety or that of others.
• Seek emergency medical attention for anyone who stops responding while drinking. Alcohol poisoning is often deadly.
• Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to brain damage, liver damage and blackouts.