Alcohol doesn’t come with an instruction manual, so our guidance usually comes from things we’ve learnt from family, friends or experiences.

To make things more difficult, there are plenty of myths around alcohol that date back generations.

Lions Club information hub Alcohol&Me has collaborated with some national and international experts to bust a few common myths and set the story straight.

“At the end of the day, alcohol is alcohol. It doesn’t matter what form it comes in, whether it’s a beer or wine or spirit, it still needs to be processed by the liver in exactly the same way,” said Alcohol&Me spokesperson Jude Walter.

The adult liver can only process one standard drink – 10g of pure alcohol – per hour, explained Walter.

If you’re drinking faster than one standard drink an hour, the excess alcohol enters your bloodstream while it waits for its turn to be processed by the liver.

Walter said the single biggest misunderstanding is that a standard drink is one glass of wine or one bottle of beer.

“This is not necessarily the case. A glass of wine or champagne that you are served in a bar or restaurant will be 150ml or 1.5 std drinks.

“This means it will take you 1.5 hours to process the alcohol in each glass. One bottle of 5 % beer or cider is 1.3 standard drinks which is 1.3 hours of processing for that single bottle.”

Walter said there is a common misbelief that mixing your alcohol – for example having a wine and then a beer – will make you feel more ill.

“Ultimately, it’s not the mixing per se because the liver is still doing exactly the same job.

“It’s more about the way the person’s body is reacting to the ingredients.”

There are plenty of myths and misconceptions when it comes to drinking like “eating is cheating”, “coffee and a cold shower will sober you up”, “beer before liquor will make you sicker”, “throwing up will help you sober up and stop hangovers”, “eating before bed will reduce your hangover”.

“Eating while you’re drinking is good, but it’s not great,” said Walter.

“The best thing you can do is to eat before you start drinking, during drinking, and after drinking because the food helps to fuel your body, including your liver, which is often going to need fuel to keep doing its processing for several hours after you think you finish drinking.”

Walter said the other benefit of food is that it helps to absorb some of the excess alcohol, but it doesn’t make you process alcohol any faster.

Ultimately the adult liver can only process 10g of pure alcohol per hour, and there is nothing you can do to speed up this process.

“A cold shower and a coffee might help you wake up, but it won’t speed up the body’s ability to process the alcohol you have drunk.

“Time is the only cure – remember it takes one hour to process each standard drink.

“Alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream almost immediately so throwing up will only remove the small amount of alcohol that is actually in your stomach at any one time.”

Additionally, alcohol is a diuretic which means that vomiting will dehydrate you further and you’ll likely have a worse hangover the next day.

“It is worth remembering that drinking alcohol doesn’t have to come hand in hand with a hangover.

“It is you and the decisions that you make before, during and after drinking that lead to a hangover.”

To find out more about making smarter drinking choices check out Alcohol&Me’s fun, interactive and highly informative online quizzes here.

For more information visit their website or their YouTube channel.

If you have a particular myth or misunderstanding that you would like Alcohol&Me to investigate, email alcoholandme@lionco.com and they will get the experts on to it for you.

These experts include health professors, anthropologists and experts in drug and alcohol issues, as well as nutritionists.