Your hangovers: how bad are they?

[rousseau]

I'm going to go ahead and infuse a fun thread into a community of political threads.

The question: if you drink, how bad are your hangovers?

I'll be 33 this year and have noticed a spike in the intensity of my hangovers in the past two or three years. So much so that I've been drinking less and less over that same time frame (and yea, that'd have a synergistic effect). This past weekend I had a single ounce of Scotch, and a tallboy the next night. That was the first I had drank in a couple weeks, and the last few days were pretty bad.

All in all my tolerance is so low that I can barely handle more than one drink in a sitting. I can't see that improving so more than likely I'll end up just not drinking eventually.

 

[Rhea]

Mine are rare and mild. I have some fun nights out, but recovery is not a problem. I’m in my 50s.

 

[Brian63]

As a young child, Dad would sometimes let us siblings have a sip of his beer. None of us ever liked the taste. As I got older, also saw more and more the "side effects" that alcohol had on people, namely allowing them to lose control of themselves (and I always like to remain in as much control of myself as possible). So to the best of my memory, I have not had a sip of any alcohol since being a young child. It has always had zero appeal to me, or even dis-appeal.

I thought I was extremely rare (~40-years-old now) in having so little alcohol throughout my life. However, I work in the medical transcription field and doctors very commonly remark that the patient "does not drink alcohol." I wonder if there is some leeway in that phrase and it really means that the patient sometimes drinks alcohol, but does not drink in excess. Or does it literally mean the patient does not drink alcohol, zip? Even among patients who are not in extreme health crises where alcohol can be extremely risky, but rather patients who just have a minor or temporary medical condition that requires attention it is still extremely common to hear something like "Has never smoked, no history of alcohol, no history of drug use." Wow, I wrongly thought I was alone. Or the patients are exaggerating or lying, perhaps.

 

[Wiploc]

My first four hangovers were bad enough that I've never had a fifth.

 

[Politesse]

I have never had one. I guess my Scottish constitution had to be good for something other than catastrophic sunburns.

I did get rather drunk once, and I can't say I enjoyed the experience much. I seldom have more than one alcoholic beverage in an evening.

 

[TSwizzle]

When I was young, I used to get hungover where I would feel pretty lousy the next day. Some nights when I had really been hitting the sauce hard including spirits, it could be brutal. Really bad headaches, nauseous and could barely function. Then I started to drink a few glasses of water during the night which was mocked by my fellow drinking companions and was greeted with raised eyebrows when ordering in bars and clubs but it made a hell of a difference the next day. Problem was, remembering to get the water every so often. I really recommend trying this, it may not work for everyone but I was very pleased with the results. Now, I very rarely drink to such excess anyway.

 

[Tharmas]

When I was a drinker I had terrible hangovers. I was very much into “the hair of the dog that bit you” the next morning. Of course sometimes that wouldn’t stay down. I smoked back then too, both cigarettes and weed, which made it a lot worse. Eventually it occurred to me that I might have a drinking problem. So since I quit (both booze and smoking) I have been hangover free, and I can’t say I miss them.

 

[rousseau]

Looking back at the past eight years since I went back to college, and moved in with my now wife, I'm thinking she and her family have been my major influence.

I was twenty-five when I moved in and in the throes of improving my health, quit smoking, started cutting back on alcohol, but my wife comes from a sober, Dutch farming family, and alcohol is a very small part of their lives. My wife drinks, but in the beginning of our relationship likely no more than 10 per year, and in the past few years maybe less than 5. Her parents possibly even less than that.

So there's been nobody in my life driving the habit for some time, and this year feels like a turning point where I leave it behind altogether. Instead I seem to have adopted their joie de vivre where the act of living and working is it's own reward.

Then I contrast that with when I went with my dad to a Tigers game last fall, and he had a double bourbon before the game started, and three rye-and-cokes afterward. I realized I was in a totally different world now.

ETA: so.. right.. hangovers. I have zero tolerance now and alcohol makes me feel awful.

 

[James Brown]

I've never had a hangover, but I've never been drunk, either.

"One's my limit, thanks."

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

When I was young, I used to get hungover where I would feel pretty lousy the next day. Some nights when I had really been hitting the sauce hard including spirits, it could be brutal. Really bad headaches, nauseous and could barely function. Then I started to drink a few glasses of water during the night which was mocked by my fellow drinking companions and was greeted with raised eyebrows when ordering in bars and clubs but it made a hell of a difference the next day. Problem was, remembering to get the water every so often. I really recommend trying this, it may not work for everyone but I was very pleased with the results. Now, I very rarely drink to such excess anyway.

Hangovers were never a problem for me because my body doesn't tolerate alcohol well, unless one counts talking to the porcelain god in the wee hours of the night. So I could never drink too much without getting sick. As a result the following days were never a problem.

Drink lots of water, that's the ticket these days. I regularly cut my wine with 50% water. When I used to do beer it was always over ice. For me the wine tastes just as good and most of the wine I drink is home made anyway so it is free of preservatives and sanitizers and whatever other chemicals factory wine contains.

 

[Wiploc]

"One's my limit, thanks."

In the seventies, I went to parties where people would push a drink at me whenever they saw me without one.

I took to refilling my beer can with tap water, so that they'd think I still had a drink.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't get hangovers no matter how much I drink. Pisses the hell out of the people I'm drinking with when I'm always fine in the morning even though I outdrank them the night before.