New Year’s and the festive drinking most commonly associated with it will be here soon. That means some people are going to have hangovers.
I am not among those people. I have never had a hangover. In talking with various friends, family members, and acquaintances in the medical field, I discovered why I don’t get hangovers even though I sometimes over-indulge.
Let me share with you how to prevent a hangover first, and then what I have learned are the best hangover cures.
Even on my heavy drinking nights, I alternate alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones. I prefer orange juice, V-8 juice, and Dr. Pepper as alternate drinks, occasionally sipping hot tea or hot cocoa if it’s cold outside My favorite bar foods have always involved bacon – bacon wrapped cheese filled cherry toamtoes are one of my favorites, but I also like bacon sliders, bacon guacamole, and bacon cheese dips. I prefer white wine over red, and this, apparently, is a good thing because the compounds in red wine that give it the rich ruby color also increases the chance of a hangover.
If you have over-indulged and not alternated your alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic ones and have a hangover, here is the absolute best hangover cure ever: bacon. A bacon sandwich speeds up the metabolism, boosts blood sugars, provides fuel, and is full of the amino acids that restore brain neurotransmitters to quickly banish the symptoms of a hangover. Add a sports drink to your bacon sandwich, and you may find you suffer ever so much less. The combination of the two is the best possible hangover remedy. If you know you’re going to over indulge, pre-cook some bacon and stock some sports drinks, then, when you wake with a hangover, all you have to do is warm the bacon and slap it between some bread and pop open a sports drink.
The only real way to prevent a hangover is to avoid alcoholic beverages altogether. If you are going to drink anyway, my style of drinking appears to be a good one – alternate an alcoholic drink with a non-alcoholic one: orange juice, V-8 juice, water, coffee, soda. Eat bar food. There’s a reason bar foods are so popular, they really do reduce your chances of getting a hangover. Eat them. If it’s your party, prepare bacon-oriented snack foods; bacon does a lot to reduce hangovers. Take prickly pear cactus pills before starting your party drinking. Prickly pear cactus reduces dry mouth, nausea, and loss of appetite so you’re more likely to enjoy those bar foods, plus it halves your chances of getting a hangover.
A monkey smoothie can also help – a banana, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, and whole milk – by restoring electrolyes, providing antioxidants, increasing depleted blood sugars, soothing a queasy stomach, and replacing some of the lost fluids.
Vitamins B6 and B12 taken before you go to sleep with a full glass of water can also reduce hangover symptoms.
Water is neutral – you need it, but it doesn’t really cure hangovers, only the dehydration. It does nothing to calm the pounding headache, the aversion to light, or any of the other symptoms of a hangover. Drink water anyway, you probably need it.
Milk thistle tablets are also neutral – they don’t help regular drinkers because they aren’t strong enough. But if you rarely indulge, milk thistle does improve your liver function and helps you metabolize alcohol a little more quickly – not as fast or well as a bacon sandwich, but anything’s better than nothing when you suffer from a hangover.
The things you need to avoid for a hangover are the black coffee and Tylenol cure – that one is deadly. Black coffee makes your headache worse, and Tylenol (or any pain reliever with acetaminophen is toxic to your liver. You don’t want to be taking them together when your liver is already stressed from too much alcohol. It could be fatal. If you need a pain reliever, take real aspirin; it’s the least toxic. Exercise simply makes your dehydration worse, thus making your hangover worse. Taking the hair of the dog only masks and delays the hangover, it doesn’t cure it.
As for those other hangover “cures” – like swallowing a raw egg, eating honey, persimmons, raw cabbage, or kudzu or globe artichokes – does nothing for hangovers.
The good news is that hangovers usually only last 24 hours, so you’ll feel much better tomorrow, as long as you don’t drink again between now and then.
