Your Hangover
The Wrath of Grapes
"The man who has not been drunk does not know the value of
sobriety"
Chinese proverb
Your Hangover
You've trashed your brain, wrecked your body and your tongue feels like it's wearing it's own woolly jumper...Yes, you've got a hangover!...What causes them, and, more importantly, can they be cured?
It's the impurities called congeners, present in all alcoholic drinks, that give you that horrible "morning after the night before" feeling.
A congener is a chemical by-product produced in the manufacture of all alcoholic drinks and which gives the drink it's distintive character. They occur naturally in the course of fermentation, giving the drinks their individual taste, colour and clarity.
The congeners consist of chemicals such as fusel oils, organic acids, aldehydes and other toxins. It's these disruptive little villains, if present in enough numbers, that go to work on your brain and stomach...but that's not the whole story...
"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martini.
Humphrey Bogarts last words
...When the percentage of alcohol in the blood stream rises to 0.1% inhibitions are freed; 0.2% then muscle control is affected, and at 0.4% incoherance has just about been achieved. ~ Any more can seriously endanger your life.
As soon as the alcohol hits the blood stream it begins to work:
- Firstly, alcohol has the narcotic effect of relaxing the walls of the blood vessels, causing the heart to beat faster an skin temperature to rise ~ hence the "warm glow" produced by the first drink.
- Secondly ~ when the alcohol floods the capilleries of the brain it has a unique anaesthetic quality. It gives the brain cells a shot of ether in the form of ethanol. It shuts down the inhibitory centre and forces the nerve cells to adapt to the new situation.
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~ Having put the brain into neutral it then proceeds to weave it's merry way around the rest of the body, aneasthetising various other motor centres ~ hand to mouth co-ordination slips, speech begins to slur and knees begin to wobble.
"I was left in no doubt about the severity of the hangover when a cat stamped into the room."
P.G.Wodehouse
Alcohol also has a diuretic effect, so you go to the loo more often. It also stimulates the production of insulin in the body. This in turn reduces blood sugar levels, causing feelings of hunger and drowsiness.
The alcohol causes a rise in the body's acid level ~ giving rise to feelings of sickness and depression. Due to the seditive effects of alcohol, the body compensates by making the nervous system more sensitive. When the alcohol level has dropped the the nervous system is still left in overdrive ~ hence the reason lights seem brighter and noises louder during a hangover.
"Amid the horrors penitence, regret, remorse, headavhe, nausea and all the rest of the hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness ~ Can you speak the truth to a troubled soul? My wife scolds me! My business torments me! And my sins come staring me in the face, everyone telling the more bitter tale than his fellow.
Robert Burns, 1791.
The Hair of the Dog
Try these for some relief but remember; the last thing your poor abused body needs now is another shock.
Black Velvet
Half a bottle of Guinness, some extra dry Champagne.
Half fill a glass with the Guinness and top off with the Champagne ~ drink slowly.
The Hair of the Dog
Having a drink helps to ease the symptoms, and a Bloody Mary contains lots of vitamins your body desperately needs. Unfortunately, you are merely putting off the side effects temporarily.
Bloody Mary
Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz Vodka
3 drops of tabasco sauce
3 oz Tomato juice
1 x Pepper; to taste
1 ea Lemon; juiced
1 x Salt; to taste
1/2 ts Worcestershire sauce
Preparation: Shake with ice and strain into a glass containing
ice cubes.
The Hair of the Dog No. 2
A single whisky, one tablespoon of double cream, one tablespoon of honey.
This archetypal remedy is best mixed in a cocktail shaker with lots of ice.
An Ounce of Prevention?
The Romans discovered the humble cabbage had great preventative powers and either ate the seeds or a large plateful of boiled cabbage prior to a good orgy.
The Welsh swore by the roasted lungs of a pig for breakfast.
The Irish favour a "battle burger" ~ a mixture of lamb stew and potatoes between slices of bread.
Charcoal tablets also help to soak up those dreaded congeners ~ helped along by a teaspoon of olive oil.
If possible, keep nibbling through a drinking session. This helps line the stomach and absorb the alcohol; it won't stop you getting drunk but it will slow down the rate of absorbsion in to the blood stream.
Try to drink a pint of water before going to sleep; this helps to counter the diuretic effects of the booze. It also helps the liver and kidneys flush out the congeners you were happily consuming the night before.
This was a hangover. The real thing. Thank God he was dressed, he wouldn't have the dressing to go through, the fumbling with buttons, the insoluble puzzle that would be the shoelaces.
Charles Jackson, The Lost Weekend, 1944
Stage 1 - CLEVER
This is when you suddenly become an expert on every subject in the known universe. You know you know everything and you want to pass on your knowledge to anyone who will listen. At this stage you are always right. And, of course, the person you are talking to is very wrong. This makes for an interesting argument when both parties are CLEVER.
Stage 2 - ATTRACTIVE
This is when you realize that you are the most ATTRACTIVE person in the entire bar and that everyone fancies you. You can go up to a perfect stranger knowing that they fancy you and really want to talk to you. Bear in mind that you are still CLEVER, so you can talk to this person about any subject under the sun.
Stage 3 - RICH
This is when you suddenly become the RICHEST person in the room. You can buy drinks for the entire bar because you have a bottomless wallet. You can also make bets at this stage because of course you are still CLEVER so, naturally, you will always win. Anyway, it doesn't matter how much you bet because you are RICH. You will also buy drinks for everyone that you fancy, in the knowledge that you are clearly the most ATTRACTIVE person present.
Stage 4 - INVINCIBLE
You are now ready to pick fights with anyone and everyone, especially those with whom you have been betting or arguing. This is because you are now INVINCIBLE. At this point you can also go up to the partners of the people who you fancy and challenge them to a battle of wits or strength. You have no fear of losing this battle, because as well as being INVINCIBLE you are CLEVER, you're RICH and you're more ATTRACTIVE than them anyway.
Stage 5 - INVISIBLE
This is the final stage of drunkenness. At this point you can do anything, because you are now INVISIBLE. You can dance on a table to impress the people who you fancy because the rest of the people in the room cannot see you. You can also snob the face off them for the same reason. You are also INVISIBLE to the people who want to fight you. You can walk through the street singing at the top of your lungs because no one can see or hear you and because you're still CLEVER you know all the words.
- ~ Your doctor finds traces of blood in your alcohol stream.
- ~ The back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat.
- ~ The parking lot seems to have moved while you were in the bar
- ~ When you go to donate blood and they ask "what proof?"
- ~ You think the Four Basic Food Groups are Caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol, and Women.
- ~ You have a "happy hour" at home
- ~ When you are sober, people ask you "what's wrong?"
- ~You spend all night making a board game called Alcohol Land
- ~ You drove home the but you can't remember how you got home or where you parked your car
- ~ Hi ocifer. I'm not under the affluence of incohol.
- ~ Your favourite drink is ethanol.
- ~ Why does everybody think I have a prinking droblem?! - I don't have a prinking droblem!
- ~ I don't have a drinking prob..pleb..prub.. *hic* Pash me another, tarbender.
- ~ You can spend a whole night holding up walls to prevent their (your) collapse.
- ~ You instinctively know where the alcohol is in a store you've never been in before
- ~ Clubs raise their drink prices because you haven't attended in a while
- ~ You think beer and paracetamol make a good breakfast