How to prevent a hangover
 

I'm bleeding from from my left pinky finger because I just punched a can (completely unrelated to my night of drinking) and I'm sitting here wondering: how do you prevent a hangover? I've always believed that a few glasses of water will do the trick, but this German bloke I spoke to tonight said otherwise.

What do you think? What's the magic cure/prevention? Look at that pretty Sam and Max advert at the top. It looks sweet. Maybe I'll spend the money.

I'm drunk.

Abstinance,
Other than that 'If ya play ya gotta pay'

I think the German bloke is wrong. Drinking water is supposed to help, and I've never heard anyone else say that it doesn't.

I don't drink myself, but if it helps people buy Sam & Max, I can't complain.

Drink more. It sounds stupid, but here's the explanation: when you drink, because your body is busy breaking down ethanol, breaking down methanol gets backlogged. When you stop drinking, methanol processing resumes at a faster pace than normal, and it's the increased level of methanol byproducts that make you feel sick.

But I never drink, so I can't confirm from experience that it works.

Also, herbal tea seems to be able to treat anything.

How bad is a hangover anyway? Is it as bad as a migraine?

Water does in fact help. I've never had a hangover because I make an effort to drink a glass of water between drinks. The idea of a hangover (I believe) is that your body's depleted of water after all that alcohol consumption (particularly in the brain, I suppose), so keeping the body full of water will make the alcohol's effects lesser, supposedly. Also, having a full stomach before/during the drinking will help you get less drunk or something (as a rule I haven't ever drank when on an empty stomach so I can't vouch for it). My body might also simply not be prone to bad hangovers or something, as I haven't tried drinking without water or on an empty stomach...but I'm pretty sure they help as one time I definitely got trashed enough to throw up all over the place and not remember a pretty solid 20-40 minutes...and didn't get a hangover.

I too have heard herbal teas help but more during the hangover than before the hangover.

Methanol is a different type of alcohol which is metabolized to formate which ends up blinding humans who drink it (but not rats).

Ethanol is metabolized to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. The acetaldehyde is then metabolized by aldehyde dehydrogenase to acetic acid which is then excreted in the urine. It's the buildup of acetaldehyde which is one of the things that causes some hangover symptoms. You just have to wait until your liver recovers and makes more enzyme to break down acetaldehyde. Drinking water is also important.

100% ethanol used to be used as an antidote to antifreeze (ethylene glycol) toxicity in animals. Ethylene glycol is metabolized by the same enzymes as ethanol but it's metabolite (oxalic acid) causes renal failure. So you want to stop or reduce the amount of metabolite and make the enzyme work on its preferred substrate ethanol. Nowadays, they have a product that I believe actually inhibits the enzyme so you don't have to make the dog drunk to cure it.

http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/v196eh03.gif

http://www.ehponline.org/members/200...stino/fig2.gif
*ends science geek mode*

:)

Have a Bloody Mary. That'll do the trick.

Also, drinking more alcohol when you can't fully get rid of the stuff you've already taken in will only make you sicker. Ethanol is a direct irritant to the stomach lining (hence if you drink too much, you... you know... :r).

I've always thought that drinking water helps, and it has helped so far always. That's all I know.

Mel answered this question pretty thoroughly. :D

Probably too thoroughly. :7

Undeaf's basic premise with methanol is true in that with methanol poisoning, alcohol would do what he said but any alcohol consumed by humans from a bar or liquor store never contains methanol. It's only put in ethanol for lab or industrial use to avoid liquor taxes and keep people from drinking it. :)

I'll shut up now. :pan:

So how bad is a hangover? Does it make you unable to do anything but lie in a dark room and scream like a monkey at anyone that comes near?

Steer clear of brandy...

steer clear of vengeful ninja wizards too.


not just in this situation, but generally.

Aha! No hangover! See, water does work. At least it works for me. I always try to eat first and drink water after.

And how bad is a hangover? I've only been hungover twice in my 10 or so years of drinking. The first time happened to be the first time I got drunk. I was on a school trip in France and drank far more than my little frame could handle. I threw up all over this guy's patio and wasn't able to watch the drinking scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark the next day.

The second time was much more recently at a party I threw for some co-workers. I drank myself silly for about 5 or 6 hours, threw up all over my bathroom, then felt like dying the next day. I was really dizzy all day long, completely dehydrated, and couldn't handle bright lights or loud noises. It wasn't too fun.

i hope nobody reads that wrongly and ends up goes to the seaside with some sort of huge container.

I can't help but feel that, since the point of a hangover is to tell you that you've drunk more than you should, actively looking for ways to prevent it is missing the point. If you're getting a hangover then your body is telling you that you're drinking too much. The only realistic long-term solution to that problem is to drink less...

(Of course, it's easy to say that, particularly when one doesn't like alcoholic drinks much.)

That's what I do too. Have a glass of water beside the glass of red wine. If there has been lots of alcohol during the night I drink lots of water before going to bed.
And I don't mix different types of alcohol during one night. It's either beer or wine. If there's a party with drinks, beer wine and then whisky I tend to feel terrible the next morning. I only do that twice a year. Midsummer Eve and New Years Eve.

Having a full stomach while drinking your ass off to a bender isn't exactly the best of ideas. Point being your stomach won't be full for long. Yeah, alcohol dehidrates your body particularly in the brain, I've always used water as my hangover medicine and I've never had one in my whole life.

Man, that one time I was talking about when I got completely trashed and threw up....that was brandy. I had two glasses of it, which....I guess is roughly equivalent to ten shots. Ouch.

Which reminds me, don't expect the effect to hit you immediately. My problem was I drank one glass of brandy and didn't feel too bad so I decided to drink another and even then I didn't feel too terrible after that. It was about 20 minutes later that I started going down. So I guess my point is, don't drink it all at once. Let some time pass between drinks so that you won't rush it to get the buzz.