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Things I "think" i know:

• Know Your Limits
  • Several factors may affect your limit.
  • The same Race/Class/Gender may have a different limit.
• Drinking one at a time while exiting the Bartender dialogue, may not get you drunk.
  • The more you drink without exiting the dialogue, the more likely you are to get drunk
  • There's probably some CHANCE involved, but generally the more you drink, the more likely you are to get drunk. It feels like there is some memory of how much you have drank.
• Both sleeping and traveling will remove the DRUNK aspect.
• STR, WIL, END, and LUC are increased
• INT, AGI, SPD, and PER are reduced
• Changes are usually increments of "10" but can be 0, 5, 6, 11
  • Generally they will all change by 10 and sometimes by 5. (10s will sometimes include an 11 and 5's will sometimes include a 6
• There are stages of being drunk
  • The initial threshold for getting drunk is usually higher. (I've seen 6 and as much as 11)
  • After you are drunk there is a lower limit for the next reduction. (I've seen 2 to 5)
  • If you have drank your limit, but drink more without exiting the dialogue, you'll likely instantly reach the next threshold with a single drink.
• You can reach "0" in an attribute without dying. (I've seen this in INT.)
  • The next threshold will kill you.
  • There's a glitch that keeps your drunkenness in memory.
    • If you die, but reload the save without closing the game or resting, your LIMIT starts out reduced and just a few drinks could lead to drunkenness or even death.

Thank you for posting this! I bought a drink once, but I've been leery of drinking because I'd read that it can impair your abilities-- although I've had this nagging curiosity about it.

I wonder if the different kinds of drinks have different effects? I may have to do some experimenting to see.

Also, I wonder if drinking tries to raise a stat that's already at 100%? Does it incorrectly fall back down to less than 100%, similar to equipping a magical item which boosts that stat and then unequipping it?

I only did brief testing on variety of drinks and recovery. It "seems" like the type of drink doesn't matter and that you recover stats like you do from disease. 100 is the max and it seems to recover correctly. (I was testing without any extra armor or magic bonuses.) To me it feels like the drunk code is treated like a disease you get from drinking, with the difference that travel will cure rather than making it worse, and sleeping will cure it. I wonder if I can go to a Monk and be cured of my drunkenness?

I did have one occurrence where a Cider drink didn't reduce everything like the other drinks. However, testing it again and it was like the others. I may have left an amulet or magic item on which skewed my numbers.

I'm doing a bit more digging. Info on OpenTESArena is invaluable. However, in actual gameplay, things don't operate exactly like they are described. Basically your "limit" is your END stat divided by 25. Assuming that "25" is in the code, what you have in practice is approximately: (END stat ÷ 25 × 2)

If you are a Breton you are more resistant. (I don't know why - You'll have to make up an "immurshun" for us.) So OpenTESArena says END divided by 12. Which also is about double in actual game play.

OpenTES says that the strength of the effect is based on the cost of the drink times "5". That seems to make sense, since I've discovered that you can have increments of 5, 10, or 15 matching multiplying by 1, 2, and 3 gold. However, again; in practice the 1, 2, and 3 aren't relative to the drink, but rather which tavern you are in. One tavern will move you by 5's and another by 10's regardless of the drink. I had one test recorded that looks like it was all 10's but switched to 5's after about 4 drunk levels and then back to 10's. I'll have to see if I can figure out why. But generally it's the Tavern not the drink. I'm going with: some Taverns sell you the good stuff, while others are watering it down.
With my original testing for initial stat values, I learned that there is some rounding going on with the stats. I'm almost certain this is why I sometimes saw a "6" when the others were all 5's and the same with the "11".

No, Monks can't cure drunkenness and you don't actually have to sleep or travel to remove it. For Bretons (haven't tested yet) it wears off in 2 hr increments, and everyone else in 1 hr increments. So it takes longer for a Breton to become drunk, but they maintain it longer.

And finally: If the "12" for Breton and "25" for everyone else are correct, there's another factor to the "Limit". For Bretons it's about +3 drinks and everyone else, about +1. I haven't fully tested this yet. I think part of this has to do with how quickly the drink "counter" drops drinks. So if you are drinking, but you are active, you don't become drunk right away. That's real life. Your body processes it. Drink too fast and it builds up in your blood. Well the fall off rate in Arena is 1 drink per game minute. That's 5 seconds real time. Although the game-time is paused when you are in the Bartender menu, it's always about 2 minutes later when you exit. So that's 1 to 2 drinks that don't even get added. The only problem is, why are Breton's different. Maybe their fall off rate is also faster. I have a way to test that theory...so....to be continued.

Another cool feature in Arena revealed. Great job guys!

Finished my testing and added all the information to the Arena:Services section of the wiki.