Hangover. Make It Stop.

Pretty much across the board, every time I don't come home from work on a Friday 'til after midnight, on Saturday morning I feel like I got punched in the head. Without fail, I wallow all day Saturday, not being able to get comfortable for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

Friday night I didn't get home 'til like 3, I think b/c I really don't remember, and I'm relying on my lady's word. And yesterday's hangover was particularly bad. If only for the fact that when I woke up, I felt fine because I was still drunk; it was not until I had been up for a couple hours that I felt the wrath of the ? shots of Jamesons from the night before. There was the inevitable, "I'll never drink again" or "Why did I drink so much?" This gave way to the most rejuvenating night's sleep and, because I didn't get super fucked up, I had a Sunday morning that felt like the way that the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" sounds. So that's where I'm at: glad yesterday's over, a little pissed off I missed out on 80% of my Saturday, and knowing that sometime in the next couple months the shots are gonna get lined up again and kick me in the head so I feel piss poor the next morning.

Scientists aren't 100% sure what causes the misery I suffered on Saturday, but they've got an idea. As anyone who has drunk too much, had a lot of water before going to sleep, and then woken up to feel relatively chipper, hangovers are likely caused by dehydration. Another additional cause of the hurt is that when the liver breaks down booze, it produces a chemical that is significantly more toxic than the alcohol itself. Darker boozes, like whiskey, have more of this particular chemical, than do light colored boozes, like vodka. Another cause of the general malaise is that a process occurs that causes the liver to divert glucose from tissues resulting in the tissues having less energy thus causing lethargy. Another supposition is that the hangover is a mini-withdrawal (if this is true, and the pain from the booze is a "mini" anything, then real withdrawal must be absolute hell).

Onto the remedies. The obvious proactive remedies are eat, drink water while boozing, and stick with one type of booze. According to a lot of stuff I looked at vitamin B6 should be ingested before drinking, while drinking, and after drinking. Also, prickly pear extract is supposed to reduce the pain caused by the darker boozes. I gotta say I don't know what I'd think of the person who busted out their vitamin B6 or, worse yet, their prickly pear extract at the bar. That being said, if it works, then who gives a shit what I think. Another remedy that is nasty but effective: purge before sleeping.

Reactive remedies. Eat a big greasy breakfast. Drink water. Sleep more. If you're nauseated, drink fruit juice or soda. I say stay away from milk even if you're not nauseated. I drank some yesterday and felt like I was gonna yack.

Take some pain killers, the stronger the better. Problem is they say that the combo of booze and pain killers, particularly Tylenol or anything stronger, makes your liver work real hard and can be pretty bad for it. I like Alka-Seltzer b/c it feels like it cleans my insides out and its effervescence is oh so nice.

Exercise. Sounds terrifying, but I will say I took a long walk yesterday and, while it was no fun at the beginning, I felt a lot better during and afterwards.

Also, though it's probably not accessible to anyone, if you have access to any saline drips, apparently if you rig that bitch up it will clean you up real nice. A bit more accessible but kind of nasty, I've heard drinking pickle juice works.

According to a number of articles, the remedies sold at convenience stores aren't money well spent. Coffee is a bad idea too b/c it further dehydrates you (but then again abstaining will cause all of us crack head coffee drinkers to go into coffee withdrawal).

Also, as we all know, another drink of booze usually sets you straight. If you find yourself curing the pain with another drink on an even semi-regular basis, then you've probably packed your bags, rolled up your sleeping bag, and have been hiking on the path of alcoholism for longer's than healthy. So there's that.