When you think of a blood alcohol test, you might picture a Breathalyzer at a traffic stop. But you might need one for other reasons, too. And there’s more than one type.
To check your blood for alcohol, your doctor uses a needle to take blood from your arm and measure the amount of alcohol. The other tests you might get for alcohol, like a breath or urine test, don’t use blood samples.
Each of these tests has the same goal: to check how much alcohol is in your body. Usually, you get a result called blood alcohol concentration (BAC). It’s a small number, like 0.05.
The higher your BAC, the more alcohol is in your system. And that affects your judgment, control, and lots of other things.