Surviving a Hangover
Authors and morning-after aficionados, Chris Lombardo and Noel Boivin, help keep you from tossing your cookies after a night of drinking
A hangover, as you know, isn’t the glamorous experience sometimes portrayed on film (such as Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in her oversized sunglasses, drinking coffee, and eating a croissant as she stumbles home at 6 am).
Chris Lombardo and Noel Boivin, authors of The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death (and other true tales of drunken debauchery) know the true horrors a night of cheap red wine can produce. In the chapter of their book called “The Mourning After: Hangovers—Physical, Emotional, and Financial,” they recount retchingly wretched tales like “the Cincinnati man who passed out in a dumpster after a night's partying, only to have his slumber interrupted by a garbage truck looking to compact and haul him away,” or the man who fell 18 feet into a sewer and spent his detox “poking around in the fetid darkness with a stick, subsisting on whatever clean water he could find before his screams alerted passers-by and prompted his rescue.”
Here they share tips for surviving and preventing the sweaty, achy nausea that follows a (hopefully) great night out.
Prevention Is Key
While Lombardo and Boivin point out that abstaining is the only guaranteed method of preventing a hangover, they’re still crossing their fingers for a cure. “Though we're not doctors, we imagine (and strongly hope) that our good friends at Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and company are putting their best minds to work in finding a hangover cure that is not some sort of patent medicine scam.”
Of course, until that fateful day, we’ll have to stick to these methods of prevention suggested by Lombardo and Boivin:
- Attending a Mormon social or a meeting of the Modern Day Temperance Society are both safe bets.
- Stay up as late as possible after a night of heavy drinking and resist the urge to pass out. Ingest numerous pints of water and, to adjust your out-of-sync fluid/electrolyte balance, a nice glass of V8 should do the trick.
- If your hand-eye coordination is such that you can turn on the stove, a hefty high-carb plate of Kraft Dinner will mop up much of the alcohol swimming around in your gut (eating Kraft Dinner at any other time, outside of a campground, is unadvisable).
Guaranteed Gut Rot
There are certain cocktails that pretty much equal a day in bed. While staying away from them may not ensure a hangover-free existence, indulging guarantees that you’ll be sick.
- A matter of principle as well as concern for your health would dictate that you not consume cheap red wine (note: this warning takes it for granted that you are not the type to attempt drinking Listerine or other “not to be taken internally” refreshments). The histamine content or perhaps the preservative sulphites can produce pre-bed hangovers, which are never fun, no matter how sweet it may have seemed going down.
- Do not think yourself brilliant for remembering that old song and ordering "one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer," as such a combination could wreak havoc on your innards.
- Generally, it’s best to stick with clear alcohols such as gin and vodka as the hangovers tend to be less severe than those of the darker variety that contain “cogeners”, noxious by-products of fermentation.
When a Hangover Is Worthwhile
While Lombardo and Boivin scoff at the idea that a hangover is justified, “Is there any way to justify a day spent sweating, with dry retches and a headache that feels like it came from the business end of a sledgehammer?” They do concede that “if you manage to say, land the phone number of someone who is attractive and it actually works the next day, then it might have all been worth it.”
What to Do When It’s Too Late
Finally, if you were too drunk to take any of the above-mentioned preventative actions and find yourself on the verge of kneeling before the porcelain throne, Lombardo and Boivin have only one suggestion: “Clutching your pillow and praying to the nearest and most sympathetic god (or, if you're an atheist, a general cry for pity sent out to the cosmos—or your spouse—will do) is really the only course of action. Lie horizontally for as long as the human bladder will allow.”
Written by: Vanessa Grant