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Hangovers

How bad are they?

  • I don't get hangovers. Booyah.

    Votes: 5 29.4%
  • Less than 4 hours

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • 4 - 8 hours

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • 8 - 16 hours

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 16 - 24 hours

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Over 24 hours - go to hospital NOW.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The "I don't drink option" for whoever's left.

    Votes: 6 35.3%

  • Total voters
    17

Tomatron

Giga Poster
Recently, I've noticed my hangovers from a night out taking longer to get rid of themselves, a clear sign that I'm getting older and I'm not fit enough. Last hangover lasted nearly a full 24 hours before I was back on level ground.
 

nadroJ

CF Legend
Usually they kick in about an hour after I wake up (which is usually really early if I've been drinking for some reason). I'll wake up at like, 7/8am, and go 'yay, I feel fine' jump around a bit and do a little dance before crashing. I then feel like **** until about 4/5pm if I'm lounging about, slightly earlier if I'm up and doing something.

So, usually about 8-9 hours of hangover.
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
They definately get worse as you get older in terms of taking longer to shift.

I find that they clear up quicker if you get out and do something though, rather than sitting around wallowing in it.
 

madhjsp

Giga Poster
Never got them during my first couple years of college, no matter how much I drank. I still usually just feel a bit groggy after a hard night out, but I do get them every now & then these days. Some aren't too bad: pop an Aleve, drink a Gatorade, eat some relatively healthy food like eggs or a sandwich, and they clear up in a couple hours. These garden-variety hangovers are usually the ones that happen to me after a night of mostly drinking beer. Others are the absolute devil: Light & even mildly loud noises feel like a white-hot poker stabbing through your skull, just about any movement of the head feels a bunch of steel balls rolling around inside it & smashing against each other, you desperately want to go back to sleep but simply can't, and you even go so far as to start making false promises to yourself that you will never touch a drop of booze again. Drink all the Gatorade & pop all the aspirin you want, those suckers don't go away till they've ruined most if not all of your day. These are when hard liquor and/or cheap wine get involved.

Which is why, unless for some reason I want to get really gassed really quickly, I generally stick to beer.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
I rarely get them, if I do they almost always don't last more than a couple of hours. It's the sleeping (or lack of it) that wears me out. I will always stir (and by that I mean wake up fully) around 7-8am, regardless of when I go to bed. I can fall asleep again, but it's usually quite restless sleep after that. I will generally just get up whenever I wake up (like Gavin said, getting up, showering, eating makes everything feel better - I genuinely believe almost half of the hangover is psychological) and I'll usually feel human after an hour or so.

I've gone for the "Less than four hours" option, as I do feel groggy and tired when I get up and that is kinda what a hangover is, but more often than not its no worse for me than waking up with a cold.
 

Snoo

The Legend
For me, it depends on 3 factors:

1. How much I drank.
2. How much tolerance I have.
3. How hydrated I am before I drank.

Once I graduate college and got these silly 'responsibilities,' I started to drink less and dropped my tolerance. Usually, I do try to limit myself but I do go over every once in a while. On average, it usually lasts an hour or so as long as I'm not an idiot.
 
Since I stopped working downtown I only drink like bi-weekly and so I can't handle my alcohol quite as good anymore. Although, I still don't really get hangovers that bad. In my whole life there has been maybe two times where I've woken up and puked. If I drink a lot I usually feel groggy for a little bit, but it's nothing that stops me from going about my day.
 

ciallkennett

Strata Poster
When I drink myself almost to unconsciousness (an exaggeration and a rarity), I never get hangovers. When I have just about enough to border on being drunk, I get pretty bad hangovers the next day, usually with a lot of awful grey bile vomitting. That usually lasts about 4 hours or less, but can last all day.

The other week I had by far the worst hangover of my life, thrown up so much awful grey bile and forced myself out of bed as I had a house viewing and BBC work to do.

The more I force myself out of bed, the better I feel.

But to answer: almost always under 4 hours, occasionally more.
 

Rachel

Coaster MILF
I tend to only get them when i've been mixing drinks, which is a stupid thing to do anyway so I probably deserve them.

Other than that i'm quite lucky and don't tend to get hangovers, if i'm drinking heavily I usually feel like **** later that night but then i'm fine when I wake up the next morning.
 

Lottie.

Mega Poster
It really depends on what I have been drinking although I have found that if I drink a couple of glasses of water after a night out till I gradually go to sleep - I will still be buzzing for a good 2/3 hours after not drinking alcohol, it really helps me feel 'slightly' better in the morning. I have a high tolerance so it takes longer for me to get drunk, hence I don't experience many hangovers.

I totally agree with gavin with doing something to help ease the hangover, even if it's a short walk somewhere.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
It depends. I used to drink real heavy, but over the last few years that stopped. Until then, the only time I had a hangover was after my first night of drinking. That is still the only time beer has given me a hangover. Most of my heavy drinking now is during tailgates, and I get the hangover feeling that evening, which lasts for just a few hours. But if I drink hard stuff at night, I will have a hangover. My tolerance is gone, I used to be able to drink about 18 beers before I was drunk, now 10 will get me obliterated. My worst hangover lasted two days, but I also blacked out and don't remember the night at all as my friends carried me home from the bars.

I haven't had a drop of alcohol in almost six months now, and I'm sure it would take nothing for me to be falling over now.
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
Haven't had one in years (since the Fårup My Frikadella Biliabong Bar night <3). I just don't drink that much anymore.
 

Colossus

Giga Poster
I don't drink anymore so hangovers are of no concern to me these days.

But in the days that I did, hangovers weren't much of an issue really, I mostly always did the same things, firstly I would only ever drink if I knew I had nothing to do the next day, I would always eat a ton before and after.
Then the next day I would literally sleep all day, not because I couldn't get up, but because I'm lazy, quite frankly. So I would wake up having slept it off most of the time.

If I got wasted tomorrow though I should imagine it would be a completely different story after not drinking for 3 years and my body no longer able to cope as well, I should imagine 2 beers would leave me hanging for 3 days.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
A hangover remedy that worked 9 times out of 10 for me, drink a glass or milk and slice of bread before going to sleep. Somehow it reduces the effects.
 

FaceYourNemesis

Hyper Poster
I managed to get through my entire twenties without one single hangover. I had a big session on the night before my birthday, and really paid the price the next day. I don't think I've felt as ill as that in a long time.


I'm really not a keen drinker these days, so maybe I have a lower tolerance limit?
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
It's all about shifting the alcohol through your system as quickly as possibly.

As such, with your metabolism slowing as you age or get unfit, you feel hangovers much worse the older and worse shape you're in.

Essentially, your body does it's best to try and stop alcohol from poisoning it. If you drink neat spirits, it closes down your digestive system at the stomach as a natural reaction. So the alcohol tends to absorb slowly through the stomach lining, or it trickles through into the digestive tract. That's why if you drink strong alcohol, you tend not to get drunk on it for some time later (unless you have an empty stomach and the absorption through the stomach lining is quite high). It also tends to mean that if you drink pints, get drunk, then hit spirits - you actually get drunk on those spirits while you sleep.

If you eat lots, then yes, the alcohol gets caught up with the food, but that can be negative because it can take a lot longer for the body to move the alcohol. You end up essentially trickling the alcohol into your body over a much longer period of time.

I think the liver can expel about 2 units of alcohol an hour? The rest then hangs around in the blood until the liver deals with it. So if you eat lots of food and drink 20 units of alcohol, usually that would be clear of your system in 5 hours. However, the food means that the alcohol isn't digested very rapidly, so you may find only 3 units of alcohol are digested per hour. So over 6 hours later, you still have alcohol being released into your blood stream. So that's a very slow poison and you never really feel very drunk (I had that on Saturday night) :lol:

To stop hangovers, you need to increase the liver process and ensure you're well hydrated.

You need about a glass of water per "drink" to ensure proper hydration. You need to do this as you drink though, as the next day it tends to be a little late and you can't stomach enough water to rehydrate properly. Though having a pint of liquid (water or milk) before you go to bed after drinking does help considerably.

The other thing that helps is exercise to increase metabolism (dancing, or walking home is a really good help for stopping the hangover the following day) and Ibuprofen also increases liver function, so you may get rid of 3 units per hour instead of the usual 2. So take a couple of Ibuprofen with a glass of drink before bed.

The other issue people have commented on is restlessness, and I definitely find I suffer more from tiredness due to lack of/bad sleep than from ill effects. Alcohol stops you from entering a proper, deep sleep. So even if you go to bed and fall asleep, it's not the correct kind of sleep you need to get a proper rest. So you tend to suffer a lot from fatigue, which coupled with the body still trying to get rid of excess alcohol and dehydration leads to nasty hangovers.

As Gavin says, getting out and about helps, mostly because you increase the metabolising of the alcohol and if you're lucky, sweat it out. You also tend to feed the body a little more with cold drinks which helps rehydration. You're also not wallowing in it ;)

I find that a very sweet and cold drink helps the most. A thick milkshake (McDonald's shakes especially), or ice cream (Mini Milks are fab) are the best things. They boost flagging energy levels to perk you up, add a degree of rehydration, settle the stomach and also bring down your temperature.

It is all very odd though and no matter how much you know about it, trying to wokr out how good/bad the hangover will be is impossible.

I'm not going to say I was fit and well after Marc and Mark's wedding, but I didn't really suffer too badly. I certainly suffered more yesterday. I went out on Saturday night for an Indian meal with friends and had two beers and four pints of cider (Thatchers cloudy stuff). That was between 6:00 p.m. and I got home at 1:00 a.m. My last drink was probably about 12:30, so six and half hours. It's nothing really in that time frame.

I think I suffered from drink on top of a big meal and the alcohol kept on trickling through, making me feel a bit worse. I've also not been drinking much (bit of a splurge at Christmas, but I didn't drink four weeks before that, and hadn't had any alcohol since NYE), so my body won't be quite so used to it.

It's just annoying that I didn't really feel that drunk and then suffered for it. A quick trip out to look after MMF sledging and a snowball fight soon sorted me out though ;)

I'd say that generally now, a hangover lasts at least 4-8 hours after I wake, but probably longer most times. I don't let them bother me though, take my pain killers, hydrate and I'm fine :)
 

SaiyanHajime

CF Legend
Not a drinker, but science advocates that salt will help a hangover. Marmite on toast?

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Salt and Vinegar crisps too Joey, but you'll probably open them and find they're Cheese and Onion, or Chive flavour ;)
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
BANANA MILKSHAKES!
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.
 
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