Drinking culture comes loaded with advice passed down through generations. Some of it holds water, but much of it is complete fiction. These myths shape how people drink and what they expect from alcohol, sometimes leading to poor decisions or false confidence. Understanding what is actually true helps you drink smarter and stay safer when you are enjoying quality spirits and wine.
Beer Before Liquor Makes You Sicker
This saying has survived for decades, suggesting that the order you drink different types of alcohol determines how sick you feel later. The reality is far simpler. The total amount of alcohol you consume matters, not the sequence in which you drink it.
Your body does not distinguish between ethanol from beer, whisky, or wine. What causes hangovers and sickness is drinking too much alcohol too quickly, regardless of whether you started with a pale ale and moved to bourbon, or vice versa.
The myth probably persists because people often start evenings with lower-alcohol drinks like beer, then switch to spirits later when they are already buzzed. By that point, they have lost track of their consumption and drink the stronger alcohol faster, leading to worse outcomes. The liquor gets blamed, but the real culprit is simply drinking too much.
Coffee Sobers You Up
When someone has had too much to drink, well-meaning friends often suggest coffee to help them sober up. This does not work. Caffeine makes you feel more alert, but it does nothing to reduce the alcohol in your bloodstream or speed up how quickly your liver processes it.
Your liver metabolizes alcohol at a constant rate, roughly one standard drink per hour. No amount of coffee, cold showers, or fresh air changes this. What coffee actually does is create a wide-awake drunk person. You might feel less tired, but your coordination, judgment, and reaction time remain just as impaired.
This false sense of alertness is dangerous because it can lead people to think they are okay to drive or make other decisions when they are still very much intoxicated. The only thing that truly sobers you up is time.
Alcohol Warms You Up
Standing outside in cold weather with a whisky or rum might give you a warm feeling, but alcohol actually lowers your core body temperature. The warmth you feel is blood rushing to your skin as alcohol dilates your blood vessels. This process pulls heat away from your vital organs and radiates it outward.
In genuinely cold conditions, drinking alcohol puts you at risk of hypothermia. You feel warm temporarily, which can lead you to underestimate how cold you actually are or fail to take proper precautions. Your body cannot maintain the temperature your organs need when alcohol is diverting warm blood to your skin where it cools down.
The perception of warmth is entirely superficial. If you need to actually warm up, alcohol is one of the worst choices you could make.
Drinking Helps You Sleep Better
A glass of red wine before bed feels relaxing, and many people swear by this nightcap ritual. While alcohol might help you fall asleep faster, it significantly disrupts the quality of your sleep throughout the night.
Alcohol suppresses REM sleep, which is the restorative phase where your brain consolidates memories and processes emotions. You spend less time in deep sleep and more time in lighter sleep stages. This means you wake up more frequently during the night, even if you do not fully remember these awakenings.
People who drink before bed often wake up feeling groggy and unrested, even after a full eight hours. The sedative effect wears off quickly, leaving you with fragmented, poor-quality sleep. Over time, regular drinking before bed can create a cycle where you feel increasingly tired during the day.
Red Wine Is Good for Your Heart
For years, studies suggested that moderate red wine consumption offered heart health benefits, largely due to antioxidants like resveratrol found in grape skins. This led to the popular belief that a glass of wine each day was actually good for you.
More recent research has challenged this conclusion. The health benefits previously attributed to wine likely came from other lifestyle factors common among moderate wine drinkers. These individuals tend to exercise more, eat better, have higher incomes, and see doctors regularly. The wine was not the cause of better health outcomes.
Any potential benefits from antioxidants in wine are far outweighed by the risks alcohol poses. Even moderate drinking increases your risk of several cancers, liver disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. If you want antioxidants, eating grapes or berries gives you the benefits without any of the alcohol-related risks.