The Hangover Thread

Soldato
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Something I thought quite fitting given the day of the year it is. Something I have been thinking about writing for a little while.

This is posted in general discussion, it is not meant to be taken too seriously, yes I am aware of the very detrimental affects alcoholism can cause on people and their families not to mention health. Lets keep it lighthearted.

So to start with, the scale:

1. You can just about tell you've had something to drink the night before but otherwise fine. Borderline hangover paranoia rather than any real physical effect.

2. As above, you might feel slightly fatigued.

3. A bit fatigued, nothing that is going to really effect your day, you can go to work fine although you might be a bit less monitovated, you can still completely enjoy do things outside of work, you might be a bit more tired at the end of the day and want to go to bed earlier.

4. More fatigued, you might have a mild headache now. You can still go to work fine, but it'll seem more like hardwork, concentrating tougher. Outside of work, you can still go out and enjoy the normal things but definitely now more at the forefront on your mind will be how you feel.

5. Headache territory. You feel a bit grogy, tired, you can still go to work but it'll feel like a real chore, make your day quite a struggle. You wont really want to do a lot. You'll feel quite tired throughout and want an early night. If you want to go out and do something, you probably still will, but it'll take the enjoyment out.

6. Worse headache, it is now borderline on whether you are going to get much done at all now. Everything will seem like a real struggle, trying to do work, or anything outside for fun is very difficult. Struggle for concentration. You might have slightly loose guts now. If you had made plans you will consider changing them to stay at home and rest. You'll feel knackered and may have a red flushed face.

7. More serious hangover territory now, bad headache, bad guts. You might start having blurry vision, affects of mild dehydration kicking in. You might not feel like eating. Achieving anything at work now will be almost impossible and it'll be difficult now to fool anyone otherwise. You want want to do anything other than feeling sorry for yourself, and promising yourself you'll never drink again.

8. You feel dreadful. Stomach sick and churning, head pounding, blury vision and lack of memory the night before. You might be physically sick, suffer from diarrhoea. You are not good for much at all.

9. Quite severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, brown lumps in your urine. The inability to keep food or sometimes even fluid down. Cold sweats, shakes, the want to not stay still, but at the same time keep moving, just to make sure you are still alive. Very flushed face, mild panic attacks. Your entire day is going to be a nightmare of not wanting to be alive yet the feeling you are stuggling to stay alive.

10. As above, but more severe, you will struggle to stay concious, sever panic attacks and the sense of feeling like you are going to die. Shaking, cold sweats. Inability to do much at all, bedridden, you might be able to get up to get some fluid, which you may or may not keep down. The worst you have ever felt in your life.


So, there is the scale. Lets look at casuses, prevention, and treatment.

Causes:

Drinking, obviously! But I wanted to look at some of what I consider "hear say" and what I do think genuinely affects how bad you'll feel the next day.

- mixing dinks. Personally, I have never found this to be a thing. I think there is some truth in the fact that if you drink beer or a lower strength drink first, it might encourage you to drink a higher strength drink, like spirits, faster than you would if you had started on them. That will lead to a higher amount of alcohol consumed in total, which will obviously cause a worse hangover, however I do not believe at all that if a like for like amount of units of alchohol are consumed over the same period of time that it matters what type of drink you had.

- Full stomach/empty stomach. By far the biggest factor in my opinion. Eating is cheating as they say. The only thing is trying to drink on a very full stomach, might no be comfortable, especially if you are trying to down pint after pint of beer.

- How fast you drink - another big factor, I find particularly how fast you drink the first one or two seems to determin how the rest of your drinking session will go.

- General hydration. If you start drinking when you are already dehydrated, you'll feel a ton worse the next day, be careful if you have just been doing some exercise or sport.

Prevention:

And not the, "dont drink it in the first place"............

- Water and paracetamol. Definitely works, the only thing is you need to remember to do it before you go to sleep. Water alone also does work quite well, but the paracetamol takes it down a fair chunk more.

- Late night food, kebab etc. I actually think this can help in some ways, the food/fat will absorb some of the booze, but, it might also make you feel more sick in your stomach the next day, plus salty food can add to dehydration. I specifically remember hitting a McDonalds last thing at night, eating way too much and having brown lumps in my wee the next morning, that cant be good......

- Banana. Ive heard several times that this can help, never worked for me.

- Hangover prevention pills. There are a few out there, I tried something called RU-21 which, other than making your urine bright green, did nothing. Some Amazon reviewers swear they work though, I can only say from personal opinion for me they did nothing.

- Dioralyte (or other brand diarrhoea treatment) this stuff really works. Basically a lot of the cause of a hangover is dehydration, when you are drinking your body is trying to rid your body of the "poison" so your kidneys and liver go into overdrive trying to **** everything out, it'll also **** out all your electrolytes and things you need. Taking some of this stuff (again before you go to sleep) not only hydrates you, but replaces a lot of the good stuff your body has expelled.

Cures:

This is where I struggle. I have googled and there is very little advice here. Obviously, any doctor, or professional will simply tell you not to drink in the first place. The obvious ones are keep hydrated, take pain killers, eat some food, these things can help, a bit, but I have yet to find anything that makes a real difference other than waiting it out.

Anyway, feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, if you have a mircale cure, please let us know!
 
Oh yeah I totally forgot hair of the dog. But it's the start to the dark side right there, I have done it a few times, I find a bottle of Blue WKD (dont judge me) in the morning is a good one.

I am sitting on about about a 4 today.

The worst hangover I had that I had to deal with (eg couldn't just sit in bed) was when my brother and I went to a Wetherspoons for a "quiet few", one of my brothers mates who I also get on with turned up and well, we ended up drinking till kick out which I think was midnight then, might have been 11, anyway.....

Just so happened, that the next day I was due to catch a plane to Ireland, that took off at 7am, plus, it was the night the clocks went forward in March so lost an hour there.

So, literally after what, a few hours tops of sleep? I had to get up at about 5am to catch the first Tube train out of Arnos Grove station to Heathrow. I remember the tube being pretty empty apart from a few people, I must have looked like a right crackhead because I remember sitting on the tube, just rocking back and forwards because as I couldnt stay still.

When I go to the airport I went to the toilet and had really bad guts but I didnt throw up.

Made the flight and my god when that plane took off and it pushes you back in your seat, I thought I was going to pass out right there. Landed and then had a 3 hour bus trip from Dublin Airport to Waterford for which I was mostly unconcious.

I made it. But thats something I would not like to relive.
 
The other thing about hangovers is age.

Not so much affect, I think that remains more or less the same as, but recovery time.

I remember being young, having bad hangovers that say by 11am would go, and almost like a like switch, you'd go from feeling terrible to really a lot better in the space of about 10 minutes. I miss that.

Late 30's now an almost without fail a hangover will last the day, the severity might go down, for example a 7 might go to a 5, but that's it. I am also starting to get to the stage of the 2 day hangovers, which when I was younger I didn't really believe was a thing.
 
BTW, apparently ibuprofen is better than paracetamol for drinkers because the latter also places a strain on the liver, which is the last thing you want to be doing when you're hammering the ale!

See I always thought the opposite (I am certainly not claiming I know anything really) but only basing it on I used to sit next to a guy at work who used to be a proper alchy, and he quit drinking completely and he said he couldnt take ibuprofen because it was an..... something 4 letters...... which stood for something...... but basically it was dangerous because of the danger to his already damaged liver, where as I have always heard paracetamol is the "safer" pain killer.

Listen I could be completely talking out of my backside, again, you will struggle to get any decent information about what are the best pain killers to take to cure a hangover because any medical person will simply tell you not to drink in the first place.
 
OK, I'll bite....number 9 'brown lumps in urine'. I've been battered many of times in my past but passing lumps isn't anything I've ever heard of before :eek:

It was only once, I was out with my brother in London, we had been drinking all day like since about 1pm as his long term partner her sisters husbad (yea whatever lol) has this barbeque every year because his brother died when he was quite young of some rare heart condition.

Anyway, long story short, drinking all day, got to like 1am or whatever, and we hit a McDonalds in Penge in south london, went absolutely mental and ate a ridiculous amount, passed out drunk. I think it dried me already dehydrated body out as when I woke up other then feeling pretty terrible my urine was like proper dark brown and I had these brown lumps come out.
 
Yesterday, started drinking about 4pm, went right through till 1am.

I had:
2 Large Bottles of Cobra lager
3 Small bottles of Blue WKD
about 3 or 4 normal size 330ml bottles of Budweiser
1 can (330ml) of Sierra Nevada pale ale
About 200ml of Makers Mark 46 (47% abv)
About 100ml of Woodford Reserve (43% abv)

This morning I am on a max 3.

Wednesday night, I had 1 bottle of Budweiser and at the most 100ml of the makers mark, and the next day I felt rubbish, like a 5.

Yet other nights last week, drinking very similar amounts to Wednesday night, and felt fine the next day like a 1 or 0. I don't understand why this happens.
 
Slight thread revival.

So in Tesco I discovered something called Recovery Power, basically hangover cure lol.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/259833320?preservedReferrer=https://www.google.com/

I doubt it's anything new just not come across it, basically your full shot of paracetamol and also those salts/electrolytes.

Anyway yesterday night went to see a Pink Floyd Floyd tribute band and had a good few, was on form lol.

Bit before I went to sleep took one of these and a pint of water and feeling much better today than I probably should.
 
See what happens tomorrow, been up at our village hall with next door, 3 pints of lager shandy, 2 bottles of bud, 5 or 6 double Jack Daniel's.

Pint of water plus that recovery stuff.

Either way I've only gotta last until about 4pm and I'm off to Weatherspoons for the first time in 18 months.
 
Thursday night I drank not even quite 3 cans of Holsten Pills. I've had that plenty of times with no unusual adverse effects.

Yesterday my head was absolutely banging, co-codamol and asprin not even touching it, last all day, felt rubbish.

Yesterday I had....

3 pints of beer from a brewery (4%) , 2 small bottles of blue wkd, 3 double Jack Daniel's and coke in a pub, then about maybe 2 doubles worth of legacy Jack Daniels straight which is 45%.

This morning I feel almost fine, I'd say a 2 or 3 tops.

I don't get it.
 
I think what is missing from your scale is the impact of tiredness! It is one thing having a few drinks on a weekend or holiday, but the real killer is having a few to many on a school night. I find that I stay up later when drinking, and you don't get such good quality sleep, so the feeling in the morning is a combo of hangover +exhaustion. Often the best cure is a couple of hours extra sleep, but that is not possible when you have to work.

Oh yea, I really don't drink much on school nights these days because of that. I used to be able to do it when I was younger but not now.

I got into the habit of drinking John Smith's and diet lemonade 50/50.

Even if you have 3 pints of that which feels like you are drinking a fair bit, it's actually only a can and a half, and John Smith's is relatively low alcohol anyway. Less calories also.
 
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