By ELIZABETH WAGNON, elizabeth@bootlegontheweb.com
Drink without feeling like road kill the next morning.
We’ve all been there: the one beer that turns into six, which turns into five rounds of Beam, which turns into that drinking game that lasted four more beers, which turned into the hangover from hell.
What if there was a way to drink until Hillary was hot and not feel nauseated the next day (besides reliving the fact that you thought Hillary was hot)? What if the rest of this article had your fool-proof answer to never having another hangover in your Mitchapalooza life? It does.
Don’t drink. But since blacking out and waking up next to somebody you didn’t know eight hours before is a college rite-of-passage, there are some other not-so-fool-proof solutions.
Eat your answer. McDonald’s. Arby’s. Wendy’s. Whole Milk. Fatty stuff. Fat digests slowly in the body, providing a protective layer for your stomach when all of that poison comes chugging down. By eating a high-fat meal before you go out, you’re actually doing yourself a favor- no matter what America’s obesity percentages might tell you. But “protective” doesn’t mean impenetrable, so don’t down the Daniels and expect not to wake up swearing off drinking for the rest of your life.
Lighten up. Dark drinks such as red wine, brandy and port contain large amounts of congeners. If you know what a congener is, you probably won’t be needing this article anyway. For the other 98 percent of the population, all you really need to know is more congeners equals worse hangover.
Drink some salvation. Anything without alcohol and fizz. I know, I know, you don’t want to be THAT guy who goes shot for shot with your Dasani when everybody else is throwing back Jack, but a little can go a long way. Alcohol is very dehydrating, hence the splitting headache. The more liquid you drink, the less dehydrated you’ll be in the morning. That Coke chaser doesn’t count. Soft drinks actually speed up the amount of alcohol going into the bloodstream.
Once you’ve stumbled home, wash, rinse, repeat. Eat something to help that wobbly, trembling feeling, drink more water to keep hydrating yourself and have a glass of OJ. The vitamin C abundant in orange juice helps speed up your metabolism, making your hangover go by quicker. Or, take three-in-one by sipping a sports drink which usually contains all of the above.
Sleep it off. If the room doesn’t vortex out of control and you’re not spooning the toilet bowl all night, sleep…as much as possible. Your body needs all the time it can get to clean up the mess you made of it last night.
When you wake up feeling as though someone fired an air-horn in your ear all night and realize, for some crazy reason, Waffle House did not make it into the night’s activities, go now. That “All-Star Breakfast” has enough calories to give your body the energy it needs. And the bacon, sausage and eggs are rich in cysteine, an amino acid thought to be good at cleaning out toxins.
The standard reaction to a throbbing head from last night’s Superman stunts is to down a bottle of painkillers and call it a day. Bad idea, Batman. The active ingredient, Paracetamol, makes your liver do even more work — as if you didn’t already overhaul it. It’s going to hate you.
Reconsider the beer breakfast. Although the hair of the dog trick works, it only puts off the inevitable. And you’re making it worse by further dehydrating yourself. It’s the same for a cup of joe. It’s a quick-fix, but won’t last very long.
Stick to water. Repetitive, but it works. Dehydrated means no water; water means water. Drink up. Feel better.
Fruit juice also remedies a night out on the town. Freshly squeezed is best, replacing lost vitamins and boosting energy levels and getting rid of toxins (aka alcohol) with the fruit sugar. If the juice is too acidic, add a banana and yogurt and wash the daiquiri out of the blender to make a smoothie. Or down some V-8…if you really want to throw up.
