Drink smart – Forget the hangover
No doubt everyone has heard of various ways to prevent or cure a hangover, but who knows better than a college student. All the ins and outs of smart drinking come at a price; someone has to buy the alcohol in the first place, and let’s just say, it would save everyone some time if my employer made my paycheck payable at the local liquor store. I enjoy my time partying and have spent a fair amount of time researching both how to prevent and cure the dreaded hangover.
Let’s start with the saying “Liquor before beer, you’re clean. Beer before liquor, never sicker.” I admit I never gave much importance to that saying, but some of it comes from age. We all know that young children bounce off walls like rubber balls seemingly unharmed. As we get older, falling off the bike hurts more, getting out of bed hurts more, and who can deny that, unlike whiskey, hangovers get worse with age. I wouldn’t classify myself as old, I’m 22, but when I was a few years younger I could drink vodka like water and wake up the next morning ready to run a couple of miles, but things just don’t seem to work the same. plus. Maybe those years of reckless behavior are catching up with me, but maybe the saying is starting to hold some water. I recently discovered, quite by chance, that it does in fact contain a bit of truth. At least for me it does.
Dec 31, 2016 The festivities start early and I feel a bit more sophisticated than the regular Miller Lite. So I drink a myriad of mixed drinks and with my pocket BAC meter blew a .09 before the year is out. I thought for sure that I was going to feel this in the morning, so I decided to live it and embrace the new year as it comes. The party goes well past midnight and I switch to beer around 2am. For the next 7 hours I am drinking beer while the fire burns in the patio, the dark hours drawing to a close. The sun rises and at 9 am I decide it’s time for bed and head inside. I didn’t know I had fallen asleep in the hallway, but let’s just say that’s how it went. My sister wakes me up and throws a blanket on the floor in her room for me and I sleep there for 2 hours until my girlfriend picks me up on her way to work. I get into my own bed after she drops me off and wake up at 2:45 pm feeling refreshed. Interestingly, starting the night with liquor helped prevent what could have been one of the worst hangovers in human history.
This next one I had never heard of and came up with on my own. Activated charcoal pills, available in most stores and almost guaranteed at local pharmacies, when taken before you start drinking and after you finish drinking will prevent a hangover but will do nothing to affect the level of euphoria you experience. you get from your night out, in my experience you could even make it a little better!
Lastly, one that I had forgotten about for a while and with the discovery of charcoal pills, I haven’t noticed forgetting, it’s just drinking a full glass of water before you go to sleep, this will replace much of the water you lost . the night before and help your body maintain adequate water levels.
