Six Drinks, a Prescription, and 'She's Fine'
A 34-year-old woman, about 135 pounds, arrives at 8:10 p.m. with two coworkers and orders a mai tai. By 11:30 p.m. she has had four mai tais - each made with 2 oz of 80-proof rum - and two 1.5 oz shots of tequila, and she has eaten only a plate of fries. With her second drink she mentions she took her anxiety medication at 6:00 p.m. Her speech has slowed, she has told the same story about her boss three times, she knocked over a water glass and left it, and on the way back from the restroom she kept one hand on the wall. She is cheerful, not aggressive. At 11:30 p.m. she orders 'one more round for the three of us' and puts down a card that is declined twice. Her coworkers laugh: 'She's fine, she does this every Friday.' One of them adds that she drove.
1. Estimate where she likely stands and decide whether the next round is served. Show the arithmetic and its limits.
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Rough arithmetic. Four mai tais at 2 oz of 80-proof rum each = 8 oz of liquor, about 5.3 standard drinks. Two 1.5 oz shots = 3 oz, about 2 standard drinks. Total roughly 7.3 standard drinks, or about 4.4 oz of pure ethanol, spread over about 3.3 hours.
Using a standard Widmark estimate for a 135-pound woman: (4.4 × 6.0) ÷ 135 ≈ 0.196, minus about 0.015 × 3.3 ≈ 0.05, gives roughly 0.14–0.15. Treat that as an estimate only - body composition, food, hydration, and pour accuracy move it a lot.
But the decision is not the number. She is visibly impaired in several domains at once: speech, memory, motor control, coordination. The medication (a benzodiazepine-type anxiety drug) adds sedation on top of the alcohol without changing the BAC. `
Decision: refuse the round. This is not a borderline call, and Hawaii's 0.08 DUI figure is a driving threshold, not a service threshold - you can be far below it and still be too impaired to serve.
2. The coworkers insist she is fine and 'does this every Friday.' How does tolerance change your analysis?
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It does not change the duty - it changes how much you can rely on appearances.
A heavy regular drinker develops tolerance to some effects, so they can walk and talk at a BAC that would put an occasional drinker on the floor. Tolerance does not restore judgment, reaction time, or driving ability, and it does not make service lawful. If anything, a tolerant drinker is more dangerous behind the wheel because they feel normal while impaired.
The friends' assurances are not evidence. They are drinking too, they may be impaired themselves, and their real motive is often to avoid a scene or a ride home. Similarly, her declined card is not your problem, but it is a reason to stop adding to a tab.
What matters is what you observe: repeated story, slowed speech, spill she did not notice, wall-touching, ordering rounds for strangers. Those are objective, dateable observations you can put in a log. The standard is your reasonable judgment that she is intoxicated - not her self-report, and not her friends' vote.
3. She has been refused, and you know she drove. What do you do, and what can you not do?
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Keep her inside and keep her away from the driver's seat without a confrontation.
Offer water, food, and a rideshare or taxi on the house; ask a coworker to sit with her; get the manager involved. If she has already handed over keys, do not hand them back until a sober driver arrives. If a friend or family contact is known, call it.
What you cannot do: physically restrain her, take her keys by force, lock her in, or follow her into the parking lot and grab her arm. Those acts create their own liability and can escalate a calm situation into a fight.
If she walks out and gets in the car, call 911 with the plate, the direction of travel, and 'possibly intoxicated driver.' That call is appropriate and is far better than silence. If she shows alcohol poisoning signs - cannot be woken, slow or irregular breathing, repeated vomiting, bluish lips - call 911 for medical help.
Document the time, what she drank, what you observed, what you refused, what you offered, and when she left.