Remedial Drinking
Inspired by Girl Friday's post regarding hangover hell and one of the misguided comments about water being the best thing for a hangover, I decided to do some educating.
Now I know that the overwhelming majority of people who read this blog are heavy drinkers (and I'm very concerned about you all) so this post may not concern you but we here at The Head take our job here very seriously. These are things I thought everyone knew but some people just suffer through a hangover, thinking it's some kind of penance for the night before. Ridiculous.
So, without further ado, The Head's Hangover Tips.
First off a lot of advice starts with limiting your drinking or alternating an alcoholic beverage with a nonalcoholic one. Yeah right. We here at The Head are realists. Nothing more to be said here.
OK, so you don't have to limit your drinking. One of the things I found is that one of the things that exacerbate the hangover is a lack of sleep. You know, you're going clubbing, out at 10, in at 4. That's no good. C'mon people, we're not 22 anymore. Happy Hour. Did you hear that? HAPPY HOUR! One of the greatest anti-hangover strategies ever. Out at 5:30, unconscious by 10:30. Full night's rest and you're halfway there.
This next one is a nobrainer but so many people, myself included, forget it. Eat dinner. Preferably starchy. Sandwich, gyro, burrito, something.
Take a shower before you go to bed. Another exacerbator (is that a word?) of hangovers is the psychological aspects. You know, you wake up all greasy and smelling of booze and cigarettes. It's not good for your morale. Seriously, no matter how much the bed, couch, floor's siren song is tempting you, get in that fucking shower. This is where it's useful to have someone there to spot you in ther shower so you don't fall and to make sure you actually soap us and don't just stand under the water. Someone else is also good if they weren't out with you. You climb into bed thinking you're as fresh as a daisy and they kick you out and make you take a shower because you reek of whiskey and cigarettes.
Multivitamin. Before bed. Seriously. You need those B-complex vitamins. Especially niacin. Also zinc, riboflavin, etc. A lot of these are either reduced by alcohol intake or act as cofactors for either the alcohol dehydrogenase (breaks down the alcohol) or the aldehyde dehydrogenase (breaks down the aldehyde that alcohol is broken down to - this compound is what gives you the hangover!). Trust me on this one. Before you argue - is it that fucking hard to swallow a pill? What's it gonna hurt?
Next, Gatorade (or another sports drink), NOT water. It's not just the fluids, it's electrolyes as well. Think about drinking as running a marathon. You're losing fluids. And not just water. It will help that deep down body thirst. I also hear pedialyte is good but that's basically expensive Gatorade so, eh. Both before bed and the next morning.
Keep it relatively cool in your bedroom, or wherever you're sleeping. Nothing's worse than waking up hungover and it's hot. I recommend 60-65 farenheit. Yeah, well that's why you bought that down comforter, ass.
OK, that's bedtime preparation. Now to the next morning. Gatorade or apple juice of course. Constantly.
If it's the weekend, fight down a beer or something. It's will help with the withdrawal.
I recommend Excedrin for headaches. Triple threat. Asprin, acetominophen, and caffeine.
Pepto-bismol. Sometimes you can take this before bed as a preventative measure. But it's gold the next day.
Greasy breakfast. Don't even think about health here. I know a guy who feels guilty in the morning b/c he drank the night before so he wants to eat healthy. Bran muffins, etc. Huge friggin mistake. Corned beef hash/ pork chops/ steak and eggs; biscuits and gravy, hash browns, etc. Lady Head found some magic cheese grits that work well for her.
Jerk off. And not that slow, romantic self-love you usually perform when you're alone on a Saturday night. Savage yourself. All bizness.
Kurt Russell movies if it's on the weekend.
OK, that's the primer for you being hangover free. As an added bonus I will tell you the recipe for my amazing antihangover shake.
1-2 cups Milk
Ice Cream
1 TB fresh coffee grounds (seriously, it makes a delicious and caffeinated shake)
Banana
1 TB creatine
1 shot vodka, rum, etc
Drink with a multivitamin and 2 Excedrin.
Have a great day!
posted by The Head @ 9:47 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
I did say to do that ED.
Head, i must intervene and make an important correction in your recommendations before you harm the countless drunkies that subscribe to your postings. Under no circumstances should you ever endorse the administration of acetaminophen (aka Tylenol, aka Excedrin) to people who have or will drink. Acetaminophen is extremely harsh on the liver, and if taken during a time when the liver is already being insulted (i.e. after drinking, when hungover) you are increasing the risk of serious liver damage. I'm not joking, people. The hepatotoxic effects of Tylenol and drinking are well substantiated in the literature. Because Lady Head cares about all of you, here is her recommendation: take aspirin or ibuprofen for your alcohol related woes. Take them freely. But only use Tylenol for non-alcohol related pains. Unless you are a legitimate alcoholic. Then NEVER take Tylenol EVER, because your liver is already fucked. People, i'm just trying to help you keep your drinking shoes on. Once your liver falls out, you can never be a successful, degenerate, charming drunk again.
It's still up in the air.
See J Fam Pract. 2003 Mar;52(3):187-8.
Drug Metab Dispos. 2002 Dec;30(12):1413-7.
Arch Intern Med. 2001 Oct 8;161(18):2247-52.
etc., etc.
Keep up with the literature, sweetie.
And GF, we should all be drinking more.
The current literature, at best, only offers that the findings are contentious. And even more interestingly, the source of the funding on some of those studies was, well, you guessed it, drug companies. Cause they are really just curious now, arent they? However, do you want to take the chance of recommending your readers take a drug that definitively has been shown to be harsh on the liver, independent of alcohol, and has been implicated as a suspect in a dangerous interaction between the two substances? And you know diaminobenzidine tetra-HCl is a "suspected" carcinogen, and you still handle that with gloves, dont you? We know aspirin and ibuprofen are safe alternatives. Its like having a heated argument that you arent wearing a seatbelt because its unlikely that you will be in an accident in the 5 mile drive back to the house. When you could just wear the seatbelt and not have to worry or argue at all. Jackass.
Now what's wrong with Lady Head's seatbelt analogy? It's logic-impaired. After all, not wearing a seatbelt doesn't lessen the pounding, pounding, incessant-pounding-why-god-doesn't-the-pounding-ever-stop-I-think-my-head's-gonna-explode while acetaminophen does to some extent.
Nice point Hot Rod. My liver doesn't hurt, my head does.
Ash-hole, when I started writing this that it was targeted to the non-magic-hat-having demographic.
Not to controvert medical science, but there is a certain medicinal herb, illegal in many uncivilized municipalities, that remedies your nausea, headaches, and that incessant overheated feeling that you get from a hangover. A liberal dose of this, along with lots of water or Gatorade and the recommended greasy breakfast and you will be right as rain.
Of course if you just got irie in the first place you wouldn't be hungover.
Not to controvert medical science, but there is a certain medicinal herb, illegal in many uncivilized municipalities, that remedies your nausea, headaches, and that incessant overheated feeling that you get from a hangover. A liberal dose of this, along with lots of water or Gatorade and the recommended greasy breakfast and you will be right as rain.
Of course if you just got irie in the first place you wouldn't be hungover.
Agreed Guru!
alright, i will confess, i loves me some excedrin migraine in the wake of a bender-- aspirin, acetominophen & caffeine, or better yet, hydrocodone w/ acetominophen but i have heard six ways from sunday of the combined damage done the liver by alcohol & acetominophen.
I know Lady Head is right but . . . i shouldn't have had that much to drink in the first place. In the end, it depends on whether or not one is more concerned with the short-term or the long-term.
Oh, my favorite line "savage yourself".
better, though, is if you wake up with someone you like well enough to savage and have savage you.
No good Bella. You're hungover. You don't want to have to worry about someone else's rocks (as to whether or not they are getting them off).
You've gotta take care of bizness. Like a caged chimpanzee. Furious masturbating. Imagine how St. jude does it.
ah, this might be a gender difference.
Is it too late to comment on this? Never!
Assuming the hangover for the sake of discussion, I am a fan of pot and/or clonazepam. Ideally, you had enough fun the night before to keep morale up. If you are pounding your body without enjoying it, you might as well either quit living or drinking. Greasy meal, yes.
Also, do you really need to be awake? Sleeping it off is perfect. Hanging over is sexy. Do it with someone and you get to know a lot about them. Besides, as The Head said, 'we're not 22 anymore.' Sleeping it off is the drunk's way of stopping to smell the roses.
I never take any OTC medicine for a hangover. It's just impolite where I come from.
Great post - Outstanding comments!
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