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The Spud guide to tackling the worst hangovers

My reverently kneel before my toilet staring at the technicolor yawn I’ve just produced. The acidic fumes of yesterday’s Jim Beam burn my nostrils, forcing me to relive the spins I had mere hours before. My body aches, kept from truly sleeping by a liver working overtime. My knees are knocking. My head is pounding. I’m not done barfing. I have to be at work in an hour.

Welcome, my friends, to the hangover.

It’s difficult to find hard data on why the hangover is the way it is. The hangover is still “not well understood” in medical science. That’s because scientists are nerds who don’t drink. Here’s what a hangover is, and it has been “well understood” for millennia: sudden, acute depression from alcohol withdrawal, taking physical form. Drinking is borrowing happiness from tomorrow.

The hangover is poetic justice; a gastro-psychological reminder that the best things in life come at a price. Most good things require a payment up front, but a rager is like a mafia loan shark. “Sua,” he says, waving his hands for emphasis. “I gives you great times wit’ da boys tonight, I comes back tomorrow mornings to collect. Capice?” And like a loan shark, the more you try to avoid your comeuppance, the worse it gets for you in the long run. That sick bastard will come for your liver, your emotional stability, even your life if you waste his time long enough.

We here at Spud Underground are dedicated to partying, and have prepared this guide to handle any hangover that comes your way.

BREAKFAST

Booze is a crafty devil, and loves tricking your brain into thinking it’s food. Especially beer, being so calorie heavy and electrolyte dense. So, there’s a good chance that you feel like a horse’s ass in the morning simply because you haven’t eaten anything. Unfortunately, the last thing on your mind is putting stuff into your stomach when it feels like something is trying to get out. You’ll have to force-feed yourself.

The secret to a good hangover breakfast is CARBS. Carbohydrates provide the energy you need NOW to get your metabolism back on track processing the leftover poison in your system. The ultimate hangover food is cereal, or as I like to call it, the Irish Carb Bomb. It puts zero effort on your achin’ brain, loads you up with precious carbs, and the sugar even gives you a temporary surge of dopamine. Other great options are muffins, peanut butter toast, granola bars- anything sweet, easy, and carby.

Coffee is also a must-have. In addition to kicking your liver in the pants, caffeine counteracts the lingering sedative effects of the alcohol.

Obviously, don’t bother with food if you’re throwing up. Reach for some water, then some Gatorade. When the barfing stops, take another whack at eating.

AVOID PILLS

You can pay your loan shark with counterfeit bills, and you might even get away with it. But if you get into the habit of doing so, one day he’ll notice and you’ll be dead meat, bub. You can take ibuprofen to handle the pain, but if Mr. Hangover ever finds out that you’re cheating his payment process, he’ll rip your liver out and beat you over the head with it.

The liver works by secreting enzymes to break down toxins in your blood. Alcohol is loaded with toxins, which is why it’s hell on your liver. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen or Aspirin are also hell on your liver, and they are broken down by the same enzymes as alcohol. So taking pills for your hangover is like sending two trains to the same station. It can create a bottleneck effect which leads to rapid liver failure. Also stomach bleeding, high blood pressure, and a bunch of other issues.

It’s better to just pay Mr. Hangover what you own him, and without the funny business. Myeh, see?

RIDE IT OUT

The five-day work week is the smartest thing to ever come out of the Industrial Revolution. It gives you five days to be a slave to the man, on Saturday you get to go out and get plastered, and then you have Sunday to recover. If it was a good bender, you’ll need the whole day to get over it. The only guaranteed cure for a hangover is patience, and with a clear schedule you can take all the time you need. Sleep in, get some coffee, eat some snacks, and watch TV until you feel better. Just like when you have the flu.

SWEAT IT OUT

In the movie Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac has an alcohol problem. You’ll see him wailing on the heavy bag, and early on he explains that daily exercise is how he handles his hangover. That becomes a major plot point that I don’t dare spoil, because that movie rules.

Sweating out a hangover is NOT science fiction, though. The hangover is depression so acute that it takes physical form, as we established. Thus, one handy hangover cure is nature’s antidepressant: a gnarly workout. This option is only for those of you with sigma-male levels of mental discipline. Working out hungover is far from fun.

Science likes to tell us that this doesn’t help, because alcohol has already been metabolized by the time you wake up, so there’s nothing to sweat out. Why then, Einstein, do I smell like a ballsack tea-bagged in whiskey afterwards? How do you explain the plethora of articles, from journals like Men’s Health, offering optimized guides for the hangover workout? It’s a well documented phenomenon, and the nerds are, once again, wrong.

You can check out those hangover workout guides if you like. I think they’re over-thinking it. Just pump some iron and hit a heavy bag for a while, that’ll do the trick. Then take a shower.

LAST RESORT: HAIR OF THE DOG

Let us refer back to our opening scenario, where Mr. Hangover has got me driving his porcelain bus, but I have to get to work. I don’t have the strength to sweat it out, and I don’t have time to ride it out. “Please,” I beg. “I just need a little more to get through the day, I’ll pay you extra tomorrow!”

“Alrights,” says Mr. Hangover. “But I’ll be back tomorrah!”

And so, with a couple emergency shots of bourbon, I’m back on my feet and ready for a sub-par performance at the daily grind. Mr. Hangover is a smart guy, he knows that he can always lend me a little extra and come back another time for an even more violent return on investment.

The danger here is obvious: it’s so easy! What, by drinking more I don’t have to face the consequences? Sign me up! But now Mr. Hangover owns you. Every time you borrow more from your loan shark, the consequences get more dire. Eventually he’ll start telling you that he doesn’t even mind giving you more money. He’ll even offer it to you. Because every time you borrow more, the interest payments go up. Then one day you can’t make the payment, and BANG- right between the eyes. Dead.

In case that was too subtle for you: alcohol, opiates, and benzodiazipines are the ONLY drugs with fatal withdrawal symptoms. Mr. Hangover is one sick fuck.

ENDURE FORT

Why don’t I just call in sick? I get time to recover, and surely work is better off without me at 45% operability, right? WRONG. The hangover battle is a spiritual battle. The day you call in sick with a hangover is the day you quit partying. You’ve proven that you can’t hang anymore. You’ll take the thrills, but shy away from the consequences. It’s cowardly and gross. It’s the ultimate party foul.

My family motto, passed down from my ancient Scottish ancestors and tattooed on my arm as a clan crest, is Endure fort. In English, it means “suffer bravely.” I’ll bet my kilt that they coined the phrase while kneeling before their own toilets, say, on the morning after the equinox in merry ol’ Crawford. Do you think they called in sick when they had to go to war with the English? Hell no!

The hangover is as old as beer. Beer is about a thousand years older than human civilization. That’s 13,000 years worth of people who drank too much and still went to work the next day. And you want to stay home because your tummy hurts? Wuss.