False!

Men and women, even when they weigh the same cannot handle the same amount of alcohol.

This means that if a 130lb. man and a 130lb. woman both had two drinks over two hours (and we assume they have about the same amount of food in their stomachs), the woman's Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) would be higher than the man's. There are three main reasons for this:

Men have more water in their bodies, so alcohol is more diluted than in a woman's body.
Women have less of the enzymes in their stomachs and livers that break down and process alcohol than men do, so more of what women drink will enter the bloodstream as pure alcohol and it takes longer for the body to metabolize ('burn-off') the alcohol in their systems, so women stay drunker longer.
Women's hormone levels fluctuate during their menstrual cycles and when estrogen levels are higher, premenstrually, the intoxicating effects of alcohol set in faster. Also, if a woman takes birth control pills or other medications that regulate hormones, intoxicating effects will set in at lowers BACs.

Here are a couple of examples:

If each person has 5 drinks over 2 hours, their BAC will be-

140lb man: .101 v. 140b woman: .128

200lb man: .061 v. 150lb woman: .117 <-- This woman is about twice as drunk as the man even though they had the same amount of alcohol! She could drink half as much alcohol as the man, but she would be just as drunk!

170lb man: .078 v. 190lb woman: .086 <-- Even though this woman weighs more, she is still more intoxicated than the man!

To calculate your BAC, check out BloodAlcoholCalulator.org^ or download the Blood Alcohol Concentration Calculator to your iPhone^.

^Please note: There is no BAC calculator that is 100% accurate because of the number of factors that affect consumption and reduction (burn off) rates of different people. These factors include amount of food in the stomach when drinking, medications or drugs that may be in the system, metabolism rates, etc. The best that can be done is a rough estimate of BAC based on the information provided. OPEN provides this link for your information and for the benefit of the Northeastern community. OPEN does not testify to, sponsor, or endorse the accuracy of the information provided on any externally linked page.