It’s happened to the best of us. After a night of drinking we wake up with an aching head, nausea, bloodshot eyes, and a mouth that tastes like a litter box — the dreaded hangover. As you sit on the side of the bed, psyching yourself up for the long walk to the bathroom, you may wonder how did a little libational celebration result in this type of monstrous agony. Considering that alcohol is a poisonous depressant, the answer isn’t pretty.
A hangover is the result of the body doing battle with toxic compounds called congeners, by-products of the alcohol fermentation and distillation process. Although the body puts up a valiant effort, it’s often unable to flush out these toxins effectively. Why? In a bit of savage irony, alcohol dehydrates the body, depleting the liver of the fluids it needs to do the job. The result is akin to a minor overdose. Eventually, the body will start digging into the reserve water supplies of other organs to cleanse itself, including the brain, which causes the throbbing headaches and many of the other morning-after symptoms like fatigue, increased sensitivity to light and sound, and moans of “I swear I’ll never do it again.”
The good news, though, is that while there’s still no proven cure, relief is possible. The most effective hangover preventive techniques begin, naturally, the night before, not the morning after. Try ingesting food and water along with your cocktails. This helps prevent dehydration and slows the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. Also, taking aspirin with a lot of water before going to sleep can help; of course, you have to be lucid enough to remember to do this, so it may not be that much help in many cases. But take heed: research has found that darker colored liquors (such as bourbon, red wine and port) will give you a worse hangover than lighter liquors (white wine, gin and vodka). Unfortunately, there’s really no getting around the fact that true relief often only comes with time. Alcohol is a toxic substance, and a big drinking session can have deeply disturbing effects on the body, which can often take up to 24 hours or more to overcome. Of course, all this mess could be easily avoided by simply abstaining from alcohol. . .yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen. *
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2002.
