What Tests Can Be Used to Test Your Alcohol Levels?

Alcohol is a depressant that can prevent people from thinking and functioning normally. It is illegal to perform certain activities with when your BAC (blood alcohol content, or the concentration of alcohol in your bloodstream) reaches a certain level. Law enforcement officials and other personnel can test alcohol levels using blood, breath, urine and saliva samples.

Blood

• One of the most effective ways to test BAC is using a person's blood. The person being tested must give a blood sample for this test, generally taken from a vein in the arm. The sample is then analyzed in a lab, resulting in one of the most accurate BAC tests. This method, however, is invasive, expensive and time-consuming, and is not preferred as a field test.

Breath

• Breath alcohol tests are relatively common among law enforcement officials because of their portability and fast results. These tests use a breathalyzer to estimates the BAC by measuring how much alcohol is in a person's breath. To perform the test, the subject must blow into the device, which then gives an estimate of BAC.

  One of the biggest drawbacks to breath tests is that several factors can cause inaccurate readings, including blood in the mouth or electrical interferences from cell phones or other devices.

Urine

• Urine tests are one of least expensive blood alcohol content tests to administer. The subject must simply provide a fresh urine sample, which is then analyzed at a lab for the most accurate results. The test is very accurate and can be administered with relative ease in the home or in a doctor's office.

  Because the test involves a private function and because it can take up to two hours for alcohol to show up in a person's urine, these tests are not effective for many purposes, particularly with law enforcement.

Saliva

• Another kind of alcohol level test works by analyzing a person's saliva. The subject must provide a fresh swab of saliva which is also analyzed in a lab. It's relatively inexpensive as well, and saliva tests provide a fairly accurate BAC test without invading the subject's privacy, which makes saliva tests another popular choice. Saliva tests are also generally more accurate than breathalyzers.