Not everybody likes Hogmanay but those who don’t would probably change their minds if they realised that they were in the same camp as Michael Winner. In today’s Mail, he moans fluently about the ghastliness of having to see in yet another New Year in the champagne-soaked horror of the five star Sandy Lane resort in the Caribbean. It’s worth reading if only to see just how many names he can drop in the course of three paragraphs. I gave up when he hit triple figures.
Anyway, now that’s off my chest, today’s much more important topic is hangovers and how to avoid the beasts or, if they can’t be avoided, how to get over them as quickly as possible. Obviously, the best way to dodge them is to drink in moderation but, even with the best will in the world, many of us will still be waking up with faces stuck to the pillow tomorrow morning.
Sticking to clear drinks helps minimise the pain as does having a glass of water between each alcoholic beverage although I suspect that the latter only works because you spend more time in the loo than with a glass in hand. I’m not sure that lining the stomach helps stop a hangover. In my own bitter experience, it simply slows down the rate at which the alcohol takes effect but it will still get you in the end.
If the night before hasn’t been quite as sensible as planned then what can be done? In the early years of their careers, medic friends would hook up hungover colleagues to a saline drip and hand them the oxygen mask. Apparently, the effects were like watching the dead come back to life.
Dehydration is one of the major causes of a hangover and your body finds it hard to absorb fluids when you are hungover so simply drinking gallons of water won’t help as much as you hope. An IV drip gets all that liquid goodness into the system much more effectively.
Assuming that you don’t have access to medical equipment and staff then your options become more mundane and, regrettably, less effective. Here are my top hangover tips. They don’t cure it, nothing does, but they help.
If you can manage them then a pint of water and a couple of paracetamol (not aspirin ‘cos they can irritate your stomach) before crashing out will help. If you get up in the night to get rid of that last pint of water then try and force another one down. When you first wake in the morning, drink some more water, pop another paracetamol and go back to sleep. Ideally, you repeat this pattern until you feel human but be careful not to OD on the paracetamol as liver damage isn’t much fun either.
If work, family or an emergency such as a house fire forces you from your scratcher then eat comfort food. Chicken soup, bacon butties, hot buttered toast will all make you feel better. Avoid coffee and don’t have a hair of the dog because that makes people think you have a drinking problem; even if it’s just a little breakfast Baileys. I find that watching Aliens helps but this is a purely personal preference.
Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year and a clear head tomorrow morning.