Join me? 
Posted on 09/25/2006 8:08:38 AM PDT by Millee
Drunken behaviour is no longer to be tolerated, which is fair enough. Unless one can declare that they'll never be drunk again, "I was drunk" can only be as sincere an excuse for wild behaviour as: "I'm sorry, but I'm a werewolf." There is, however, one aspect of drunkenness that reliably transforms the victimiser into victim, literally overnight: the "hangover", that biological whoopee cushion that comes knocking like a Jehovah's Witness most mornings in the life of an earnest drinker. Most of us know how painful they can be – the squeeze in the head, the eyes of lead, the little man with that blasted trombone – but, for some reason, the industrial world refuses to acknowledge the hangover as a condition to be taken at all seriously, employers rejecting them as legitimate reasons for employees to embark upon sickies. In an age when we're constantly being asked to curtsy to such "stigmatised" ailments as depression, I think this constitutes discrimination against the most stigmatised creature of all, the drinker.
For those who've never had one, a hangover is a revolting cocktail of concussion and toxicity – a feeling much like you've been beaten up and had your blood replaced with petrol while you slept. It's awful, and there are few known cures that work (those icepacks to the forehead you see in the movies serve no more purpose than the "hot towels" always necessary for a B-movie childbirth).
I know few people who could produce an effective day at the office while labouring under a top-shelf hangover, and yet I know fewer who would dare use "hangover" as an excuse for not showing up, the rank-and-file boss's response being something about how "self-inflicted" illness is neither tolerated nor deserving of general sympathy.
This is a most hard-hearted attitude, for a hangover is no more "self-inflicted" than a boring personality or a fat arse – common conditions of the human species that may indeed be the products of overindulgence in one thing or another, but are hardly the desired results sought by the individuals. One doesn't drink alcohol in pursuit of a hangover any more than one skydives for a spinal injury.
If I were to call my boss and declare I was unfit for work on account of being diagnosed with full-blown AIDS, it would be like his hide to respond with some lecture about how I should have thought of that before I had sex without a condom. The flu and a cardigan, toothache and fluoride, diarrhoea and Metamucil, likewise.
My point is that there is scarcely a malady of the mind or body that isn't fertilised by some unwise choice or other, but that shouldn't negate the seriousness of the situation once the fowls of ill health have come home to roost. The fact that a hangover is such an anticipated risk should be no less reason for compassion, and those who believe otherwise might find cause to review their opinions regarding the recent fate of a certain recidivist quester of amphibious reptiles.
Getting drunk is as much a civil liberty as getting pregnant (rights often simultaneously exercised), but it'll be a cold day in hell before my "morning sickness" is afforded 52 weeks of unpaid leave warmly extended by my employer, even if broken up and spread out over a 25-year period.
What's more, those who soldier on to work under the dark clouds of their hangovers are ill-advised to alert their superiors or colleagues to what ails them, lest they be subjected to the sorts of smirks and pranks and testing workloads that would have those who use "depression" as their force-fields scuttling to the Anti-discrimination Tribunal.
Perhaps the very root of the problem is the word "hangover" itself, which suggests a slovenly, slouching demeanour while not at all reflecting the stark anguish of the condition. Something a little more scientific, like AHD (Alcoholic Hypoglycaemic Dehydration), or sexy like Bukowski's Syndrome, might go some way towards changing current attitudes, as might a TV campaign and a raft of charity events aimed at "raising awareness" of how awful some of us will feel the following morning.
That's all for this magnificent cloudless morning, whereupon everything is gay and I haven't a care in world.
Same here...almost as brutal as when you get woken up in the middle of the night...
By the time I was legally able to buy a drink, I had put all my serious drinking behind me. One only needs to hug that toilet a couple of times to get the message, even if one is a knucklehead like me.
Drink water while imbibing and you will be all the better for it when you wake the next morning.
To prove it, when I was 17 I split a case of beer with a friend of mine and I did a glass of water for every beer that night. He didn't. I took two Tylenol before bed and I woke up pretty good the next day. My buddy had a raging hangover and was useless all the next day. Now, besides that fact that I was heading into alcoholism at an early age and could handle my liquor, the water really helped.
I bet you're fun at parties.
I'll bet you can pick out just the right set of drapes to go with that new faux finish you put on the dining room last weekend, when the men were all watching football & nascar, one P-I-P with the other.
See, you CAN be funny when sober.
Join me?
Sorry.. I thought this would be about breastfeeding...
Then we need to work on that, don't we??? 
I never did find my underwear from the last time you tried.
Sure, but leave the digital camera at home, please. Mom mom uses the internet, too.
But I dance so much better when inocculated. :)
Improv would be hard to do seriously when inebriated.
Good idea to drink the water, but bad idea to take Tylenol with alcohol.
I always found that mixing liquor and beer to be a bad thing.
I once drank a pint of vodka in two hours and while I was feeling good I had no real troubles next day. Split a 5th with a friend in 30 minutes and no problems that time either. Drank a six pack and had a few vodka collins to go with it and I was pretty sorry the next day.
Maybe the best thing is to do after over-imbibing (besides drinking lots of water) is to wait until morning, see if you have a headache, and take your Tylenol or whatever then if you absolutely must.
By that time, your body has had a few hours to metabolize the alcohol and the Tylenol won't have as much harmful effect.
LOL! Hurts my tummy just reading that! ;op
Na, drinking water in between beers kills your buzz. Drink as much as you can of a quart of water (at least 10 big gulps) along with 2 aspirin, before you go to bed. You might have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. No hangover tho... : ) <<< me
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