You should treat the answer as “none” – if you plan to drive, don’t drink at all.

Key point

Even one drink can slow your reactions and judgment, and there is no fixed number of drinks that is guaranteed to keep you under the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit because it depends on things like your weight, sex, how fast you drink, food, medications, and health. Many countries set the legal limit around 0.05% BAC (and 0.08% in some places), but you can be noticeably impaired well before that.

Why “how many drinks” is the wrong question

  • The same number of drinks can give two different people very different BACs.
  • Guidelines like “2 drinks for men, 1 drink for women” are only rough rules of thumb and still leave many people over 0.05%.
  • Medications, being tired, and drinking quickly can make you much more impaired for the same BAC.
  • Enforcement cares about your measured BAC , not how many drinks you think you had.

A rough example from one guide: for many men, 2–3 standard drinks in the first hour may be enough to hit about 0.05%, and for many women 1–2 standard drinks may be enough – but these are only estimates, not guarantees and can easily be too high for some people.

Legal limits and consequences

  • Many places use a legal limit of about 0.05% BAC for fully licensed drivers, with zero limit for learners and some professional drivers.
  • Exceeding this can lead to heavy fines, license suspension, and sometimes jail, even for “low‑range” readings.
  • Beyond the law, even “mild” impairment greatly increases crash risk and can cause permanent injury or death to you or others.

Safe, practical rule

If there is any chance you will need to drive:

  • Plan to drink 0 and stick to non‑alcoholic options.
  • Or, if you want to drink, plan transport first : ride‑share, taxi, public transport, or a completely sober friend.
  • If you’ve been drinking and are unsure, don’t drive – your feeling of being “fine” is not a reliable measure.

The only reliably safe and legal answer to “how many drinks to drive” is: don’t drink if you’re driving.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.