How to cure a hangover.
According to the scientists, the best cure for one is coffee and aspirin.
But allow me, if you will, to quibble.
When I was a young whippersnapper in college, I enjoyed going out nearly every day. I would take the occasional Sunday off, of course. I'm not an animal. But you could find me on pretty much every night between Monday and Saturday at a bar somewhere, drinking straight from those wonderful $5 pitchers.
Don't look at me like that. It was college.
Anyway, I almost never contracted a hangover. Every once in a while, the Kamikaze things they gave out at Dunbar's during group therapy would engender a mild headache the following morning, but I could handle those. Despite my daily drinking schedule, I always got up early and energized, went to class, worked at the paper, and still made it to the bar so I could apologize for the prior night.
My college incarnation spit in the face of hangovers and laughed at their weakness.
But then I graduated. And I went to law school.
And as I grew older and discovered that my body was changing, I began to notice a distressing set of symptoms. My head would hurt. My stomach would ache. I would fall into murderous rages, even more so than the usual. Hangovers started to assault me, and I was powerless to stop them.
Today, hangovers immobilize me. It feels like devils use my head as a sort of air hockey table. I lie in a fetal position, close my eyes, and pray for a death that won't come. They are murder, of the John Wayne Gacy variety.
My theory is that this is like what happens to athletes after they retire. During college, I was at the peak of my abilities. Because I exercised those abilities every day, I could stand up to their stress and rigors, and reaped no consequences.
But then I graduated, and that was like retiring. I no longer played every day, and it showed. Rust settled in. Muscles that had begun to atrophy screamed when they were called forth into action again. Sure, I could still hit the occasional grand slams and stand-up triples. But my glory days were over, and forcing my body to relive those days was not without its victims.
This despite the "cures." And believe me, I've tried them all.
The following things have not worked:
1. I've chugged full glasses of water before I went to sleep and after I woke up.
2. I've set out a bowl of aspirin, poured milk on them, and ate them with a spoon.
3. I've thrown every greasy thing in my fridge into a pan full of oil and used bread as utensils.
4. I've forced myself to drink the remaining beer in my fridge. (This one got me drunk again, but I still felt like a minor God was going to town on his anvil inside my brain).
5. I've prayed.
No "cure" works. They just don't. The only thing that works for me is time. Given enough of it, the poison finally leaves my system. And then and only then can I get up and go poison it again.
But that's my cure. Others swear by Bloody Marys. Others take Alka-Seltzer. Others call on Uncle Ralph.
That's because each person has a different constitution, and need a cure tailored to their own specificity. The only magic pill that I know that is a fool-proof way to prevent hangovers is to not drink at all. But where's the fun in that?
It takes trial and error to find out what your cure is, and I am happy to help each one of you discover what that is. Especially this one, ladies.
Anyway, I almost never contracted a hangover. Every once in a while, the Kamikaze things they gave out at Dunbar's during group therapy would engender a mild headache the following morning, but I could handle those. Despite my daily drinking schedule, I always got up early and energized, went to class, worked at the paper, and still made it to the bar so I could apologize for the prior night.
My college incarnation spit in the face of hangovers and laughed at their weakness.
But then I graduated. And I went to law school.
And as I grew older and discovered that my body was changing, I began to notice a distressing set of symptoms. My head would hurt. My stomach would ache. I would fall into murderous rages, even more so than the usual. Hangovers started to assault me, and I was powerless to stop them.
Today, hangovers immobilize me. It feels like devils use my head as a sort of air hockey table. I lie in a fetal position, close my eyes, and pray for a death that won't come. They are murder, of the John Wayne Gacy variety.
My theory is that this is like what happens to athletes after they retire. During college, I was at the peak of my abilities. Because I exercised those abilities every day, I could stand up to their stress and rigors, and reaped no consequences.
But then I graduated, and that was like retiring. I no longer played every day, and it showed. Rust settled in. Muscles that had begun to atrophy screamed when they were called forth into action again. Sure, I could still hit the occasional grand slams and stand-up triples. But my glory days were over, and forcing my body to relive those days was not without its victims.
This despite the "cures." And believe me, I've tried them all.
The following things have not worked:
1. I've chugged full glasses of water before I went to sleep and after I woke up.
2. I've set out a bowl of aspirin, poured milk on them, and ate them with a spoon.
3. I've thrown every greasy thing in my fridge into a pan full of oil and used bread as utensils.
4. I've forced myself to drink the remaining beer in my fridge. (This one got me drunk again, but I still felt like a minor God was going to town on his anvil inside my brain).
5. I've prayed.
No "cure" works. They just don't. The only thing that works for me is time. Given enough of it, the poison finally leaves my system. And then and only then can I get up and go poison it again.
But that's my cure. Others swear by Bloody Marys. Others take Alka-Seltzer. Others call on Uncle Ralph.
That's because each person has a different constitution, and need a cure tailored to their own specificity. The only magic pill that I know that is a fool-proof way to prevent hangovers is to not drink at all. But where's the fun in that?
It takes trial and error to find out what your cure is, and I am happy to help each one of you discover what that is. Especially this one, ladies.
So. Who's first?
1 comment:
I don't know who in their right mind feels up to that cure right after waking up to a hell of a hangover. Howwwwever...if you're still in the early morning pre-hangover, maybe still drunk phase, I highly suggest it. Then (if you didn't buy these staples the evening before, along with the case of beer), the boy should run out to the store and get lemonlime and orange Gatorade and a pack of saltines. After that breakfast in bed, re-assess the situation.
Post a Comment