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Can I Drink Alcohol After My COVID Vaccine?

Dr Roger Henderson
Reviewed by Roger HendersonReviewed on 26 Jul 2023 | 1 minute readNext review due: 25 Jul 2026
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There is no clear evidence that having a glass or two of alcohol after your vaccine has a negative effect on how well your vaccine works, or makes you feel any worse.

I feel a "but" coming up...

But... everything in moderation, as they say. Drinking too much alcohol (more than 2 units of alcohol a day, where a unit is equal to half a pint of average strength beer or a single measure of typical spirits. A 175ml glass of wine has around 2.3 units in it.) can put pressure on your immune system and therefore reduce your body’s ability to mount an immune response.

In addition, heavy drinking can also worsen vaccine-related side effects.

So see how you feel, perhaps give alcohol a miss for a couple of days afterwards, and binge drinking should certainly be avoided. This allows you to get the most out of the vaccine or booster.

The AI in healthwords.ai refers to conversational search, while the only AI tools used for articles are grammar and language improvements -  medical content remains rigorously authored by healthcare professionals.

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Dr Roger Henderson
Reviewed by Roger Henderson
Reviewed on 26 Jul 2023
Next review due: 25 Jul 2026
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