August 09, 2004

• Perhaps you can legitimately claim illness and go home to recuperate?
• They're advertising a new anti-hangover drug on Comedy Central, but -- I'm rather proud of how effectively I've learned to block out the evil marketing laser beam -- I don't remember what it's called. Meantime, just try not to think of a loud, whomping bass drum just banging at incredible volume. BANG. BANG. BANG. Also, don't imagine a giant locomotive with sheet metal ripping through its gears, creating a wretched screeching sound that echoes through your mind forever.
• The universe is smug today.
• A vodka-based alcopop (for example Smirnoff Ice, if you have that in the US of A), or a Bloody Mary, or something of that ilk. If it's as bad as you say it is, there's nothing you can do to avoid it, but re-consuming a small amount of alcohol (in combination with something sweet plus the obvious large amounts of water that you've already done) can help convert some of the nasty toxins back into, er, happy toxins (I Am Not A Biochemist). The hangover will still hit you like a big train full of nausea at some point, but hopefully you can delay the worst of it until you're in a place where you're allowed to lie down and swear. Vodka is the best form of alcohol for this purpose, because of it's purity and stuff. Obviously, the problem now is - where do you get a fruity vodka-based drink at work? Maybe you could nip out at lunchtime, or something... Oh, and have a bacon sandwich.
• Why bacon? I have andouille sausage, will that work???
• You already know the proper answer is not to drink so much, but I just mention out of completeness. I would advise going to the store and picking up some V-8. Tomato juice is supposed to help tremendously. Don't take anything for the headache, as that's a good way to damage your liver permanently. [On preview: flashboy's recommendations are drifting around this point. Though he says bacon sandwich instead of BLT, tomatoes are good for relieving a hangover.] Oh, and don't drink the body paint. Unless it's organic, then only in moderation. A friend of mine tried the hangover pills, and says they're no help. They are inconsistent at best, and really no better than your normal chances of not having a hang over. Also, skip the sucky vodka when you're drinking and go with something good and pure. Belvedere and Chopin are my vodkas of choice, but experiment. Yes, they cost more, but they taste better and don't leave you with a headache. If you drink too much, you'll still get alcohol poisoning, but you avoid most headaches that way. Life's too short for cheap booze. And, for god's sake, don't mix fruit and alcohol. Tequila with lime may be traditional, but the sugars in the fruit will do terrible things to you the next morning. Really, avoid as much sugar as you can while you're drinking, but I think it's the fruits that do you in the worst. So keep drinking the water, and find some place to throw up, if you haven't already. Keeping it in really doesn't help in the long run.
• Nothing will totally alleviate a hangover except time. That said, one *can* ammeliorate the symptoms enough to function. The night before: in addition to the water, take 3-4 ibuprofen and a multivitamin. The next day, first thing, get up *early* (very hard, I know, but still) and take a long, hot shower, hot as you can stand it. The steam will suffuse you with hydration, and the extra time before going to work will settle your stomach and allow an additional dose of ibuprofen to kick in. Coffee in quantity, along with a bready breakfast - bagel, muffin, that sort of thing. Some Visine for the eyes, double up on the breathmints and deodorant, and gin up a hearty fake. You may still feel bad, but if you *look* like you are all right, and you don't smell like you fell in the vat, no one will be the wiser. Also: look for your best drink, hangover-wise. I love beer, but if I drink a lot of it I get a pretty bad headache-hangover (especially re: Budweiser products); wine, on the other hand, produces a bad gut-hangover. But vodka, otoh, has a light touch the next day, even in quantities that might otherwise elicit morning yaks. So when I know that I have to be on my game the next day, vodka it is. Alsoalso: cultivate your tolerance, This is a long term project, but if you continue to train yourself to handle larger and larger quantities of alcohol, your blowout nights will become less frequent and your hangovers less troublesome.
• My hangover remedy: (a) giant bagel with cream cheese and (b) giant glass of water and (c) 4 Advil. By lunchtime, I'm not so bad off. So on preview, what Fes said. Especially the part where he suggests you build up your tolerance. Good man, Fes.
• Fruit juice is good, it helps restore the enfeebled tissues. Chilled but not too cold is best. If you take aspirin be sure to take solid food along with it. Good luck and better health.
• subway is always a good idea. it's helpful to have the bread in there. don't get turkey, get some fatty goodness like the beef with bacon and extra cheese - for some reason fat helps too. a nice philly cheesesteak can do wonders for a sour stomach and an awful hangover (speaking from experience here - frogs plus one fifth jack daniels plus a long drive to the airport followed by plane ride home would not have been possible without cheesesteak sub at aforementioned airport. car ride was hell though.) ramen noodles i find are also helpful if you can get them, or a ramen cup'o'soup, in a pinch. the oil in the noodles is nice and fatty. there's enough salt to replenish everything you peed out last night (booze makes you pee, y'know, and that makes you lose electrolytes). plus the bonus there is that if you go and barf it all up later you only wasted like, a nickel. (if you buy the expensive ramens anyway.)
• Oh, and here's a bit more on the liver damage thing with pain relievers.
• after reading my above statement, i felt that i ought to specify that the jack daniels was followed by going to bed at 5 am and then getting up early to ride in the car. frogs doesn't drink sour mash whiskey then get behind the wheel, no sir. i don't recommend any of you try it either. it's a damn fool irresponsible thing for anyone to do.
• You've washed off the body paint, right?
• That which wasn't..rubbed off, yes.
• I agree with the V8 juice advice; it's always worked for me, and depending on the level of nausea, a good breakfast. Whatever you crave. Also I agree with not drinking cheap alcohol next time, and keeping sugar content low. And, next time you drink, alternate your alcohol drinks with water, and remember to eat. Hair of the dog is helpful, if you think you can be discreet, but remember you'll be even more under the influence than you already are. If you're in really bad shape, and it's too late for good advice, think up a good excuse to go home. You may do more harm than good by staying at work.
• Interesting link, Sandspider. I'd heard about the Tylenol thing, but I'd always assumed that standard generic ibu (what I buy) is OK in up to double listed dosage, even with alcohol. I don't think my recommendations exceed that (depends on the size of the pill, I guess), but check your label.
• I have just discovered the perfect, 100% guaranteed cure for hangovers. My price for revealing this information is... PICTURES FROM LAST NIGHT. BWAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!
• Oh em gee they'll be on my livejournal.
• Here's some biochemistry - the principle cause of a hangover is not ethyl alcohol, it is methyl alcohol. The body breaks down alcohols by first turning them into aldehydes, and formaldehyde, the breakdown product of methyl alcohol, is _exceedingly_ toxic, and is responsible for the nausea, headache and so on. That's why high quality distilled beverages are generally much more benign for drinking. If the distillation is done right, then the amount of methyl alcohol present should be basically nil. I recall reading a study (I'll try and track the article down) where this was conclusively shown. This is the reason that hair of the dog works - by adding some extra ethyl alcohol, the body breaks this down in preference to the methyl version, giving you a chance to excrete the formaldehyde already made. As an aside, the treatment for ingestion of methyl alcohol is to hook the person up to an ethyl alcohol drip for the same reason. The enzyme concerned is called alcohol dehydrogenase. Different amounts of this circulating in a person's body is responsible for the different reactions people have to drinking (such as the bright red flush some people get). I spent yesterday very unhappy (though mostly food poisoning, not alcohol), so I'm sympathetic and not at all (no no no) smug.
• I would like to thank everybody for giving me a scientific reason to go home at noon and drink a lot and have a huge fatty lunch. Fricking awesome.
• Different amounts of this circulating in a person's body is responsible for the different reactions people have to drinking (such as the bright red flush some people get). Does it account for the speech impediment? I can be fine in my head, but damned if I don't have 3-4 drinks and "participatory" comes out "pissaperphlppppsssstee."* *actual event, which drew significant guffaws from my colleagues in attendance
• Menudo and a limon or three added works wonders.
• Methanol poisoning from the University of Cambridge Hangovers from the international medical student's journal. Review article (pdf) from the NIH.
• I have actually been doing a little research/prcatice on this whole hangover situation over the summer. I have found two things that work Prickly Pear Cactus and N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) The NAC you can buy a any health food store. The combination of these two supplements and a 32 ounce gatorade before bed has all but rid myself of hangovers.
• Also, skip the sucky vodka when you're drinking and go with something good and pure. Also I agree with not drinking cheap alcohol next time Okay, so what exactly is wrong with Stoli? I wouldn't have considered it cheap. I mean, it's not Gilbey's or anything.
• ummmm, isn't the fatty food thing something you tell your friends so they eat it and have to throw up? I will add the recommendation of massive ammounts of water. I used to drink about a quart before going to bed and found it helped hangovers a great deal.
• Heh. You have veisalgia. Also, I assume you've already googled "curing a hangover" and eaten the things like a banana, raspberries, and strawberries. Here's actually my personal favorite recipie; that fucker will demolish a hangover in record time. I'll chase it with coffee and a cigarette and be good for the day and ready to drink again that night. Basically, get lots of cysteine to counteract the acetaldehyde.
• Hangovers are hydration-related, which you knew, but salt helps you *retain* water. I, for one, find salty chips or saltines to be the perfect hangover food, and a gatorade-water mix to be the ideal hangover drink. Avoid any caffeine or alcohol -- they are diarrhetics and will only impede the re-hydration process. I also find that a low-medium dose of ibuprofin kills that nagging headache, but only AFTER getting reasonably well-hydrated. Coming from someone with a lot of practice...
• For nausea you can try dramamine. Vitamin B complex is useful for getting back to normal once the worst is over -- the smell can be off-putting so wait till nausea's gone.
• Yeah, Stoli ain't cheap, and it's good stuff. But don't mix it with ginger beer; it's a waste of good vodka. I normally don't get hangovers if I stick to the same variety of booze and drink lots of water (hard-earned lessons, let me tell you), but if I did, I'd follow Fes's excellent advice.
• Vodka rant: Stoli is *basically perfect*. It has a very slight and quite charming character. I find belvedere quite over rated, personally. The only direction up from stoli in my mind is real russian stoli (not stocked in many places) grey goose and ketel, which has it's own thing going altogether. Okay, update. Went home and had a huge vegetable filled omelette with toast and sausage and so forth with a nice screwdriver with fresh orange juice and 2 aspirin and a banana and some chocolate and I basically feel all right now. Not perfect but a hell of a lot better. Thanks for the help everyone.
• I'm writing that list of things down for future reference, AS... In fact, I want it now. And I'm not even hung over.
• Yeah my lunch fucking rocked.
• Monkeyfilter: the hair of the dog monkey
• Greasy breakfast (heavy on the bacon and cheesy eggs) the next day also works to conver the nasty toxins to happy toxins. Also, drink only vodka next time and you won't have this problem. =) I did the same thing Saturday night and played in an ultimate tournament Sunday against one of the guys I was drinking with. I beat him all day long. =)
• blogRot - I guess anything that makes you retch is a hangover cure? ;)
• What surly said. Next time, get up early enough to get some fried, greasy-ass breakfast. Force them eggs and bacon down as much as you can (really, any kind of fried food will help -- I've done this with Chick-Fil-A nuggets too). I think this was mentioned above, but stay away from coffee, it only makes things worse. Drink water, juice if you think your stomach can handle the acidity.
• I absolutely disagree regarding the coffee. The palliative aspects of the caffeine far outweigh, imo, its diuretic effects.
• I'm a huge fan of the Gatorade thing when dehydrated/sick for any reason. Gatorade tastes like crap, but it does make me feel better. Glad you recovered a bit, though. Argh, cold fingers, badee typee.
• I like the taste of gatorade
• I don't get hangovers. *kicks back, puts feet up, and smiles smugly*
• I have a really weird metabolism, so I get hangovers even without getting drunk. This has taught me many things about hydration and the like.
• Instead of coffee, try tea. It's not as diuretic and has the caffeine you need. I'd recommend Chinese tea myself, because before the diuretic effects kick in, it actually hydrates your body a fair bit. And green tea's good for flushing out toxins. /tea addict
• Green tea is the baking soda of hot beverages -- one million uses and counting.
• Bleh, tea. Coffee!! Great big steaming mugs of ebon elixir! Boiled, black and bitter as ash. My mix: Pint ceramic mug filled 2/3 with Starbucks House blend, sink 2 shots of Ristretto espresso in it, half-shot of Bushmills. Stir, drink, and feel it blossom at the base of your guts like an underground nuke test, radiating out in all directions, bringing fire and life and sharp edges to every bit of laggard flesh and sodden cerebellum.
• I learned this excellent hangover cure from a Robert Heinlein novel. Wash down a handful of aspirin with a quart of water. Then go take a shower. Crank it up as hot as you can stand it as long as you can bear. When you are beginning to get scalded, crank the temperature all the way over to cold cold cold. Stay under until you are thoroughly cooled down. Your heart will be pounding, your skin tingling--and your brain hangover free. Then eat a large breakfast, and the hangover will not come back. Kind of hard to pull off at work, though.
• Gatorade, definitely. Works best the night before the hangover, not morning of.
• Breast milk.
• Breast milk cheese sandwich! [Fried in monkey butter!]
• Why am I not surprised there was already a Curious George on this..? Same situation as what ActuallySettle was in. Yes, I drank too much Beaujolais last night. Yes, I compounded it with a cigar on a school night. And yes, I drank lots and lots of water before I passed out went to bed. No options here at work. Tylenol and water have already gone down the gullet, to little effect. Thus, looking for a lunchtime option. Should I go for: a) a hearty German lunch, of either sausage on a bun loaded with sauerkraut, or burger Cordon Suisse, being their regular burger stuffed with ham and swiss; or, b) Chinese. Which is likely to be Msglicious. I need to stop feeling my hair grow.
• Fried, salty food. Gatorade. If one's handy, a vitamin.
• I always go the carbs and salt route. The carbs will fill your belly in a nice way and the salt will help you hydrate. Gatorade is your friend, too, as mct says. Try to avoid too much caffiene since it'll just hinder your efforts to rehydrate.
• As a vegetarian, I am disgusted and, frankly quite offended by your crass heinous ways, to recommend choice a), the hearty German lunch. Prost!
• Went for the Frikadellen on a bun, mit der sauerkraut. Bitte, bitte! Washed it down with Orangina, which was the closest they had to Gatorade. I'm showing signs of improvement, but I've got a long way to go still... Thanks, monkeys past and present!