Hangover Central

I was very hungover today. I am often hungover. This is not necessarily because I go out drinking every night (I don't), but because of a physical ailment. Allow me to tell you my sad story.

When I was a young, hardy lass, I could drink like a Greek sailor. Actually, I could drink with Greek sailors, as was the case one night in Tijuana. (Two Greek sailors, one Swedish-American masseuse, her nondescript friend, and a fellow freshman who played football, to be specific). All the drinks a freshman gourmand picks: cheap tequila, Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, Everclear, Kahlua and cream. I was tiny, and I could drink my weight in liquor, and don't think I didn't tell everyone (including my parents) about it.

The tolerance waned over the course of college, and stalled as I got my M.A. But then there was law school. Ah, the drinking we did. There wasn't one Irish bar that didn't know my name. Or, at least, vaguely recognized me. To this day, I think that law and liquor and inextricably linked (and the number of alcoholic lawyers may prove my point).

But then it happened. One day I couldn't get out of bed. I was really sleepy. Really, really sleepy. I couldn't wake up. I felt swollen. My lovely doctor friend Sanjay took me to the emergency room (Sanjay is an opthomologist, but for me he's a general practitioner, part-time shrink, and has been known to do a little backalley stitches removal). After the standard two-hour emergency room wait, the lovely doctors there told me the unfortunate truth--at the age of 23, I had contracted Mononucleosis (aka Glandular Fever). You know, the kissing disease that you're supposed to get when you're, um, twelve. Symptoms: sleep all day and all night, feel like crap.

Since it was, indeed, the kissing disease, I turned to "B," the man I was kissing during this period. "B.," I said in a friendly way, "have you given me mono?" B. looked shocked. "Me, no! Have YOU given ME mono?" He paused. "After all, you can get mono drinking out of a water bottle. Maybe you drank out of someone else's water bottle at Legal Aid." Well, that made me think. I was working at Legal Aid. It might actually be a germy place. I looked at him, and he looked at me winningly.

What can I say, I'm a sucker. I figured I drank out of a germy Legal Aid water bottle. Never mind that he was barely able to stay awake and his friends told me that he was running a fever. What did I know?*

Well, when you get mono at 23, your body takes a long time to recover. I tried to go back to drinking a couple weeks later, when I felt awake. I nearly passed out from the headaches, stomaches and general bodily rebellion. The doctor said I should take about six months off of drinking, which I did. (More or less. Don't judge me!) After that, I was at zero alcohol tolerance.

Now, friends and family, you know how hard I have worked to build that tolerance back up. And I like to think I have done a bang-up job. However, it has all come with a price, and that price is the Morning After Hangover Curse.

The Morning After Hangover Curse is this: regardless of how much or how little I drink, I get a hangover. The symptoms can be mild: dry mouth, dehydration, mild headache, fatigue, general malaise. On bad days, like today, it's serious headache, ugly queasiness, exhaustion, extreme grumpiness and a desire to do penance.

Allow me to say that mono does affect the liver, often permanently. People complain of getting too cold or too hot in situations where, before the mono, they were fine. My point is this: I am not a big baby. This is a physiological condition.

I have learned much about preventing a hangover. Here are my Thirteen Rules of Preventing a Hangover.

1. Drink clear liquor (vodka for me--Stoly, Grey Goose or Cirac)

2. Alternate with water towards the end of the night.

3. No matter how tired you are, stay up an extra half-hour before going to bed.

4. One or two slices raisin bread, buttered.

5. Lots more water before bed, along with...

6. Pedialyte (unflavored is the least obnoxious. Drink half a bottle) Gatorade will do in a pinch, but it's not the same.

7. One Advil. Two if you're a big person.

8. Get eight or so hours sleep. Use a girly sleepmask if necessary.

9. Morning: coffee is key. Have one cup upon waking. Maybe two. Chase it with some Cheerios for the fiber. Drink some water. Then go back to sleep.

10. Upon waking the second time, put on one of those cooling blue gel-masks over your eyes. Pray for forgiveness.

11. Soon after, have one or more of the following: cheesy omelet w/ onions, jalepeno, salsa; slice of pizza with garlic; quality mac & cheese with black pepper; nachos, anything from Taco Bell.

12. Keep active as to not give into the urge to curl up in ball and moan. But not too active.

13. No hair-of-the-dog bullshit. Stay sober for the rest of the day and night. Drink water consistently.

Now you know. You too will be able to drink excessively and manage your inevitable hangovers, as I do.

(*B. disappeared soon after, and I discovered that he had had mono-like symptoms before mine had manifested. We saw each other on the street five years later, and pretended not to recognize each other. Ah, New York dating).