Photo of
December 22, 2015
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!

The aftermath of the 5pm Christmas night out seems a suitable time for a reflective blog post on hangovers and how to deal with them.

At present, your blogger is road testing a feisty combination of paracetamol, ibuprofen, iced coffee and chicken soup. It’s not working.

We have been told that milk thistle extract works as a preventative measure but have never managed to be organised enough to buy and drink the stuff before a night out.

Apparently, the Romans used to swear that scoffing sheep lungs and two owl eggs was a great hangover cure but, frankly, if you’re brave enough to face that little lot the morning after the night before then you are almost certainly man enough to shrug off your hangover.

Drink sensibly

The NHS isn’t much help. Their website advises that ‘The best way to avoid a hangover is not to drink. If you decide to drink, do it sensibly and within the recommended limits.’

Very wise and undoubtedly right. Just somewhat smug. Drinking ‘sensibly’ is of course the right course of action but not one that has the most appeal when you are already three Harvey Wallbangers down.

Hair of the dog

Painful experience has taught that the hair of the dog is not a wise option. Yes, a cheeky Bloody Mary or a Corpse Reviver may provide a brief window of respite but you are just delaying the inevitable.

Getting blootered again will make you feel mildly better but the next day will be twice as bad. And anyway, most workplaces take a dim view of employees with a Boston shaker on their desk.

Those sachets of oral rehydration salts do help. However, drinking something which is meant to help after severe vomiting and diarrhoea seems like an admission of a drinking problem rather than a cure.

Lots of water, painkillers (not aspirin which can irritate your stomach lining) and more sleep works for this blogger.

Lie down

Or at least, they go some way towards taming the physical symptoms. As to the existential angst, the fear and the self loathing produced by a bad hangover, the only cure is the passing of time and the dulling of the memory.

If any readers have a sure fire hangover cure then we would love to hear about it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and lie down.