The Christmas Guide to Hangovers
On rare and very special occasions, the chaps rouse themselves from the opium haze and dismiss the houseboy just long enough to question their purpose in life. Surely, they opine in these few lucid moments, two well educated fellows of unlimited means must be able to leave something greater for posterity than broken hearts, despoiled innocents and a faint whiff of warm unguents. But in which field do their exceptional talents lie?
The Chaps have decided that their extensive experience in the area of self pollution may be of use to others at this challenging time of the year and have produced this simple guide to circulate amongst their friends.
The Two Chaps present, for your delight…
A Christmas Guide To Hangovers
First, let us examine the causes of the hangover. Professor Susan Greenfield, in her admirable writings on the human brain, identifies ethanol as a potent neurological toxin. Its effect is to temporarily disable brain functions including inhibition, embarrassment, judgement, balance and most forms of intelligent reasoning. She points out that similar effects may be achieved with narcotics or traumatic impact to the head.
Fearing that Prof. Greenfield lacked the scientific rigour to experiment with all three of these options, we have undertaken to do so and can now prove categorically that alcohol is the only method acceptable in polite company.
There was a day back in 1975 when we didn't wake with hangovers but we both found the experience unnerving and are in no hurry to repeat it.
The pulsing headache, shivering, roiling intestines, dry mouth, prickly eyes, foul breath, diahorrea, bad temper, acid reflux, clogged sinuses, dry skin and lethargy of a really well earned hangover can all be traced to two basic results of alcohol poisoning; dehydration and withdrawal. All hangover cures are based either on treating one of these symptoms or on some element of abstinence.
Ch1. Concerning Cures of
Abstinence
These are obviously cheating. Anything that involves pacing oneself, watering it down or sticking to spritzers is likely to get a chap blackballed. On the other hand, a little insider knowledge on the chemistry of various alcohols can enable one to avoid some of the worst symptoms while still getting as fucked up as a stabbed rat. Drinks that cause the worst hangovers seem to be those with the most ‘congeners’. What these actually are is far too complex to be bothered with but suffice it to say there are less of them in lighter coloured drinks. By avoiding whiskies, malts, dark rums etc one can go a long way to alleviating the worst of the morning after. This still leaves gin, tequila and the princely vodka with which to pollute oneself happily.
We're not suggesting that you’re going to ‘spring like a flea’ as Dr Johnson put it, after a liver crippling night of tequila abuse. On the other hand you will feel appreciably better than you would if you’d drunk the same quantity of Navy rum.
It would also serve a chap well to eschew sugary or creamy alcohols. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the sugar or cream, it’s just that they usually mask appallingly low-grade alcohol. If you’re going to spend an evening necking Tia Maria, you may as well cut out the middle-man, phone for the ambulance and drink a bottle of surgical spirit with a chaser of Ambrosia tinned custard.
Consider, for once in your life, following your Father’s advice and don’t mix your drinks.
Avoid fizzy drinks after the first glass of champagne and remember that a gentleman starts the evening with a cocktail — he never ends with one. You can start with Martinis and carry on ‘til they wheel you out on a gurney but never follow an evening of mixed, general purpose drinking with a ‘quick Cosmo’ unless you want to wake up three day s later in a gutter in Bangkok with a full beard and ‘Property of USMC’ tattooed around your anus.
It is also worth noting that the most toxic drink of all is the 'Corporate' wine served at office functions. Just looking at the label dyes your tongue purple and starts a headache that will be impossible to shift for up to a month. Our Vintner informs us that such wines are usually bought in bulk and may well be petrochemical by-products. If in doubt take a flask of absinthe or a thermos of well-built martini.
Ch.2: Concerning Cures of
Dehydration
The body will use all of its available fluid in the effort to rid itself of alcohol. For most people, after an initial journey to the pub lavatory, liquid excretion can be nigh on constant throughout the night. No matter how hard the kidneys work, this still results in an increasing amount of alcohol and a decreasing amount of water for the body to use. By the time you retire to bed, the mucous membranes, stomach lining and the surface of the brain are all crying out for a bit of moisture. All the body has stored is the toxic remains of the last four slammers. Awfulness can result.
Drinking a large quantity of water before bed is one of the very few ways one can actually do anything to emeliorate a 'bastard behind the eyes'. An Australian of our acquaintance, a chap who knew a thing or two about drinking, swore by a recipe he called the 'Double Whammy'. This involved placing double doses of soluble ibuprofen, vitamin C and anti-acid in the bottom of a pint glass, topping up with cold mineral water and drinking before the foam subsided. Arguably, anyone who could mix something that complicated before bed was not drunk enough to require it but, it has worked for the Chaps on occasions.
Another water cure is attributed, quite surreally, to the fragrant Princess Diana. During her days as a champagne swilling Sloane Ranger, she would prepare, prior to retiring, a bag of orange segments and several mini bottles of mineral water which she placed in the refrigerator. She would then drink a litre of water and retire. When she arose in the night to do whatever passes for micturation amongst the Royals, she would go to the kitchen and consume one slice of orange and one bottle of water. Naturally this meant that she would be up again, an hour or so later and, so on, through the night. She would awake, detoxified, hydrated, brimming with vitamins and glowing with health - at which point, evidently, she'd chuck herself downstairs.
We recently encountered a chap who used a military spec. hydration system during the party season - a 3 litre bag of water slung in a slim neoprene backpack with a drinking tube. An innovative idea but perhaps not quite in the spirit of the thing. It also meant that, as he wore the appliance under his dinner jacket, he began the evening with a mis-shapen and fluid filled hump which, understandably turned women off a little. Though the hump deflated over the course of the evening most women put the effect down to their own 'Cocktail goggles'. As far as we know, his mantlepiece remains empty of invitations this year.
Ch.4: Concerning Cures of Withdrawal
We are told that alcohol is a drug and it is thought that some of the symptoms of a hangover are those of withdrawal. With this thought in mind, there is a whole family of cures based on drinking further alcohol. The Chaps obviously favour these, opining that no-one ever suffered from Delerium Tremens who remained steadfastly and resolutely drunk.
They are in good company. The ancient Spartans believed that wine in which an owl had been drowned was just the ticket. (On the other hand they also thought that cabbage leaves in their sandals and drinking from an amethyst goblet could prevent a fellow from becoming drunk. That theory didn't survive the first symposium.)
Pretty much every serious drinker in history has a favourite suggestion in this area. Jeeves gets the job after slipping Bertram Wooster a 'Bracer'. Kingsley Amis offers a couple of recipes for the 'Corpse Reviver', Hunter S.Thompson and Hemingway inter alia, favoured the Bloody Mary. The Chaps find such behaviour frankly effete and can only be sent skipping gaily through the park with the following recipe…
The Bullshot
Have your man make up a Bloody Mary to your own secret recipe then add at least as much beef bouillon as vodka. As Cook will be happy to inform you, it takes at least 4lbs of beef and a gallon of water to make a cupful of decent bouillon and all that goodness can be ingested in but a few challenging gulps. If trapped in the colonies with only a Fortnum's hamper between oneself and starvation, canned consomme may be substituted.
It is reputed to taste like an entire cow dissolved in battery acid but it hits the spot.
The only way to improve on this would be to use an industrial kitchen blender to liquidize an entire fried breakfast with a bottle of absinthe. We tried it but, to our eternal shame, lacked the moral fibre to actually drink any.
Ch. 5: Concerning the Psychological
Hangover
Each of these approaches deals with the physical symptoms of indulgence but, as Sir Kingsley Amis, patron saint of irascible drunks pointed out, this is but half the story. The well documented depressive effects of alcohol allied to a feeling of guilt in all but the most psychologically well balanced of drunks, mean that the morning after is enough to make even the most relentlessly upbeat ready to open their veins.
Anyone can throw down a Bullshot and retire to bed but it takes iron in the soul to get up and go about one's daily business. Though many would recommend detoxing with milk-weed thistle an hour of meditation it is now medically and psychologically proven that only the following regime, in precise order, can help.
1. Wake without alarm (sudden shock increases heartrate, moving toxins to brain)
2. Lie about a bit allowing adequate time for collection of thoughts without recrimination or post mortem on previous night's behaviour (delicate emotional equilibrium can be shattered by inappropriate comment at this crucial stage)
3. Administer analgesics (swelling of brain membranes must be brought under control before head can be moved)
4. Long and relaxed shower with light baroque chamber music (stabilises body temperature, removes coating, enables unination without need to aim)
5. Unhurried sexual intercourse (choose position involving minimal movement on part of patient. For best results, actually snooze through parts of it)
6. Large fried breakfast with best available coffee (Lines stomach, provides slow release fuel for recovery plus invigorating burst of caffeine)
7. Newspapers (like chanting, occupy brain without any real effort)
8. Snooze or pub (self explanatory)
If in doubt, try to arrange waking up alongside an incredibly attractive, Cordon Bleu trained, paramedic who's taken a temporary vow of silence.