Saturday, February 11, 2012

Hangovers

It has been a while.  I've been drinking, but nothing special.  Last weekend, I had some friends over to play cards and we killed six Coronas each (with no hangover the next day).  Then on Sunday was the Super Bowl.  I think I watched about 10 seconds of the game.  I also drank a lot of sangria, but it wasn't that great.  People said they liked it, and it was fine, but it was missing something.  There were also several shots of Fireball (cinnamon whisky) and some Jim Beam Black.  And some beers.  More Fireball.  But not enough food or water.  I can't know for certain, but I probably would have felt better if I had drank more water and eaten more food.

OK, I guess I'll write about hangovers.  They are an important part (consequence) of drinking.  There are other consequences, but I'll save those for another day.

Back in college, I didn't get hangovers.  Even with my worst nights of drinking, I'd wake up feeling fine.  I do miss that.  Some time after I got a full time job is when I noticed the hangovers starting.  It probably was due to a combination of my not drinking as often, thus lowering my tolerance and my just getting older.  But I did learn a couple of "tricks" to help combat them.  The biggest was eating.  My last Halloween in IV, I ordered 3 large pizzas and made everyone eat some before I would pour them a drink.  Some people only had the minimum of one slice, and were in a shitty place later for it.  I had 3 or 4 slices and was fine.  We were drinking hard, too.  One guy didn't even get past the pre-party before getting sick.  He only had one slice.  He was kind of a dick, too, so I did get a certain joy from seeing him miserable.

Honestly, that's my only tip.  I never drink enough water when I'm boozing to know if it really has an appreciable effect on my next day.  In theory, it should help.

And mixing is fine.  Aside from the Mythbusters episode where they showed mixing beer and liquor actually lead to a decreased hangover (when actual alcohol intake remains the same), my theory is that it's easy to lose count when mixing.  So really, just learn how many drinks you can have safely and stick to that number (or fewer).  I know six beers is fine for me.  I'm not sure if 12 are.  Guess I'll have to do some more research ;)