Day 32: Hangover Tips

Hangovers are awful - and whilst there's no decent cure, over the years i've developed a fairly strong collection of battle tactics for dealing with these evil beasts. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo banded about within the subject: Not long ago I endured an insatiable cunt on the telly waxing lyrical about the benefits of rubbish lime into your armpits and jogging on the spot, which was a stark reminder of the insane amount of useless advice thrust around the world on a daily basis.

So here we go - a selection of tried and tested hangover recovery/prevention techniques:

POWERADE!

Or Gatorade - if it's still about in the UK...? - isn't like ordinary energy drinks, because it contains 'electrolytes'. Amazingly, this isn't just a pseudoscience buzz word: Electrolytes cause your body to rapidly absorb whatever they're mixed with, which means that whilst a glass of water will eventually rehydrate your dry, shrivelled brain, Powerade will do it remarkably quickly - knocking the edge off an immobilizing headache in around 20 minutes, and zapping away that evil dried mouth feeling very quickly indeed.

SPLISHY SPLASHY

Great trick I learnt from an American barman - when you wake up with a cracking headache, this is often caused by your body reacting to the withdrawal of alchohol. It may sound obvious - and dangerous - but if you literally just add a tiny splash of spirits to a glass of water, this new tiny influx can often be enough to get your brain to CHILL THE FUCK OUT a bit.

GIVE ME NUROFEN

This should never become habitual, but a ibuprofen breakfast can really get you out of a tight spot - removing the crippling brain pain for long enough for your body to get itself in gear a bit and start moving around. If you suspect that tomorrow may not be pretty, popping a couple before you go to sleep will usually sort you out a right treat while you sleep.

PLENTY OF WATER

Obvious obvious advice, but it's amazing how much of a difference this makes. Most hangovers can be mostly avoided by drinking at least 2 pints of water before you go to bed. If you're battered, stay up and drink 4 of 5 pints - this will usually require you to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning while you placate yourself with television or videogames, but being sleep deprived and clear headed is usually much more preferable than going to bed early and waking up with the apocalypse inside your head. Usually people think it's more important to eat something - but this only works earlier in the night: Whacking a kebab in your stomach and passing out will not help your hangover, whereas downing a pint of water will. If your head is spinning when you close your eyes - don't fall asleep!

BUT NOT TOO MUCH WATER...

This applies more to the following day - if you're not careful then too much water will wash out your body's salt levels, which will make you feel rough. If you're not aware of this, it's easy to just keep drinking water to try and make yourself feel better, which won't work. The best way to avoid this:

HAVE A FRY UP

Go on, bacon is brilliant.

VITAMIN B, BITCH

Really takes the edge off that whole 'oh my god I want to destroy the universe with my fucking fists' vibe. Drinking totally depletes your Vitty B reserves, so the sooner you can top this up the better. Most people usually go mad for the C, as it's notoriously percieved as being the happy juice and everyone loves oranges - but in reality topping up what you've lost should be a priority.

HAVE ANOTHER?

If you've already downed enough drinks to get you into this state, then one more tin of lager is hardly going to make a difference. Waking up and having a booze breakfast feels remarkably wrong, but the benefits massively outweigh the negatives; just one drink will remove your headache, and make you feel tons better for the rest of the day.

And fuck it, you don't have to be back in work until Monday.

EDIT: Oh, and please feel free to share your own tried and tested techniques, just so I don't feel UTTERLY ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE. Comments shouldn't be locked, so it won't involve much faffing. xx

Day 11: The first of many drunken oneadaysssss

I was planning on writing this later tonight, after I'd finished drinking. Actually, to be fair - I was planning on writing this while I was sober. But sadly, there are only so many hours in the day, and on days of the fri variety it's essential that some of these are spent drinking. As such, I'm blogging to you LIVE from the kitchen, whilst I drink into the night with some seriously classy bastards.

DRINKING. It's great. I mean, it's damaging as hell too - I've been following the wise words of Mr. Nutt for months now, and he's totally on the money; as Brits we drink too much, too often, too recklessly. Valid point, but I suspect his main beef is with the laughable outlook we have on drugs as a country - i.e. it's OK to use a drug as long as it's taxable. Oh, and as long as the NHS bill doesn't outweigh the chunk of cash we're getting from all you lovely filthy users.

Cigarettes were naturally the first to go - and why not? They're daft, and we're better off without them. Problem is, what's the next target on the health agenda? Oh yeah - it's booze. Seems that in the long term it's not profitable to the government anymore. Oh dear.

Of course, you cannee kill the juice - we'll just see the final nail hammered into struggling pubs. Nothing's changed with smoking, I'm currently surrounded by people puffing away. They're actually reading this now, and asking me what I'm writing. One of them is laughing. Christ. This is getting surreal - it's like on of those films where they're writing the script while they're doing what they're doing, just slightly behind. That's something a chap called Sam* just said. I WILL STOP THIS NOW.

Anyway - big issue at hand is this: Sure, the health benefits of alcohol are pretty poor. But what about the social benefits? Let's ignore the violent minority that's blown out of proportion for a second, and bypass the selection of rocket scientists who choose to make their mark on the world by blazing past the limit and wrapping themselves round trees. Alcohol does a lot of good - it brings people together. It sparks off the conversations we've wanted to breach for months, but haven't found the right time. Shy admirers unite as lovers. Men play air guitar. Strangers converse on public transport. I dance and sing along to ABBA songs until six in the morning.

It's not the ideal solution, but it's important. Love it or hate it, we've not got a great deal of religion in the UK which - locally speaking at least - tends to make big difference when it comes to keeping communities together; retaining that sense of being an accepted part of the big picture. It's far from the ideal replacement, but I genuinely feel like alcohol is a vital part of our social structure. Take it away, and we keep our physical health - but our identity would take a hit.

It's a fucking rubbish excuse for social webbing admittedly, but I really think we need it. Maybe not as individuals - the excellent @mrmelanin does perfectly well without it - but looking at the overall picture it's a substance that binds us together in a strange, shambling unity.

And on that note, I'm going to return to an evening of drinking to britpop with some lovely peeps, who have asked me to include a selection of quotes from them in return for letting me use the kitchen computer to blog AT A FUCKING PARTY.

"Don't touch the work experience girl - touch my dick instead. I did have intelligence quotes lined up, but I've forgotten what they are" - Laurie Innes

"Where's all the lighters gone? We had three." - THE Kat Street

*Samuel Morrison

So there you have it. If the above words of wisdom aren't enough to convince you of the overarching social importance of alcohol, then I am useless at writing rational sentences when drunk.

COKE OR PEPSI?