It is not surprising to know that you shouldn’t drink alcohol when scuba diving, just like pickles and coffee, can’t do well together. 

In your open water diving course, scuba Instructors will warn you about the risks and consequences of scuba diving under the influence of alcohol, and most scuba divers worldwide regard it as a common sense not to drink and dive. But what about drinking after diving?

It’s not a common thing to see scuba divers go straight from their dive boat to the bar to relax and drink ice cold beers or any other alcoholic beverages. This may be tempting, after a long day in the sun and water, but drinking alcohol after diving is considered a bad idea.

3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Drink Alcohol When Scuba Diving

The reasons to not drink alcohol when scuba diving lies in that this can increase the risks of the following medical conditions:

Decompression Sickness

When you drink alcohol when scuba diving, this can lead to severe dehydration, which can cause problems to you regardless of your location. The problem of dehydration affects your body’s ability to absorb and eliminate nitrogen, causing you to have a horrible decompression sickness experience. 

Hypothermia

While scuba diving, your body loses heat much faster than when you are on dry land and you should keep yourself warm enough and make that your priority to enjoy a safe dive. 

Alcohol can make you feel warm while it is draining your needed heat reserves. It may also prevent your body from shivering, that leads to not realizing your temperature is falling to dangerous levels. Without realizing this drop of temperature, you can easily potentially develop hypothermia.

Impaired Physical and Mental Response

Although scuba diving is a fun activity, it is considered a serious sport that requires scuba divers to be physically fit. Even when drinking alcohol on dry land, you will suffer from fatigue, the ability to think well will impaired or have proper actions and even feel illness. 

Having alcohol in your routine when you dive will make you feel too weak to swim if you are in a strong current, may make you lost or cause vomiting, which can quickly cause death by asphyxiation.

Drinking After Diving

As a scuba diver, you should keep in mind that even after surfacing, your body is still trying to eliminate the nitrogen that is absorbed in your body when being underwater. It is the main reason that flying after diving is not considered recommended either, as when you ascend  to an altitude after scuba diving, that can cause a high risk for decompression sickness. Similarly, when you drink alcohol when scuba diving, this can accelerate the absorbed nitrogen in the body to be transformed into bubble form. This, in turn, makes you at a high risk of Decompression Sickness ‘The Bends‘.

Dehydration

Alcohol dehydrates your body and lowers the volume of blood in circulation. It also increases the heart rate. That makes the absorbed nitrogen in your blood pump through your body at a faster rate, which in turn increases the amount of nitrogen that turns into the gaseous state of tiny bubbles, instead of breaking it down into smaller soluble states and escaping from the body and blood stream safely.

Excess Nitrogen

Simply, scuba divers need to keep in mind that their body contains excess nitrogen and sufficient time is needed to be able to escape at a safe rate before putting any additional strain on the body. 

Hot baths aren’t considered recommended after diving for the same reasons. When you submerge your body in hot water after a dive, this can accelerate the elimination process of nitrogen and  cause the formation of bubbles. 

So, before you think about what to drink after scuba diving, especially when you are going to do multiple dives (keeping in mind that there is more residual nitrogen in your body), think of the bends. Just as you need a one or two days off before flying after diving and risk, give your body enough time before going to a bar. 

As an expert from DRAR Diving Center, water is considered the best recommended post-dive beverage, as even sodas contain dehydrating caffeine. Drink responsibly and enjoy safe diving!