Hangovers

God invented hangovers to protect us from excessive drinking; kind of like seat belts for booze. My hangover carburetor, however, has been busted since I was in 2nd grade. In spite of the numbers,  truth be told none of them have been the same; they’re all awful in their own way.  Good news it’s been a long time since I’ve had a really bad hangover.  Those are the ones where you make false promises to God about never drinking again.  Bargaining with God is silly as it is, but especially when lying about your own stupidity.  Although most hangovers I’ve forgotten, a couple are in the Hall of Fame since they would have killed a normal man.  The saving grace for hangovers is they’re not a real disease;  they only last 24 hours not a lifetime.  Some people I know, however, react so poorly to the headache and nausea it seems like they have a brain tumor.  My brother Mark fell into this category.  He didn’t like beer, so instead would chug a pint of rye and wash it down with Southern Comfort.    He’d then lay in bed the next day rolling around in agony.  My recovery technique has always been the polar opposite – crawl out of bed, take a hot shower, get oxygen in your lungs and force yourself to get better.  Mark would rather get bed sores than take that tact.    Hangovers and disease, for that matter, are a tip off we’re all different in this world whether we like it or not. 

My worst hangover was in 1983 in St. Joseph, MO at my roommate Pat Doolan’s bachelor party.  Today destination bachelor parties are the rage, but not back then.  His bachelor party was on Friday and the wedding was the next night.  I know he’s an accountant, but the scheduling efficiency was a little tight. We started off at this bar called the D&G on a bottom of a hill below the parking lot.  Walking down the alley hill we ran into a dumpster so I thought it’d be a good idea to push it down the hill towards the bar.  Great ideas work on paper, except when gravity shows up.  Once it started moving, the dumpster slowly began rolling down the hill, gaining full speed before crashing into the back wall of the D&G.  When we went inside all the pictures were knocked off the walls and we had to fight through a cloud of dust to get to our table.  Regardless, a joyous celebration rang out and the night quickly went south.  Feeling frisky Pat invited us over to his apartment later on which we completely destroyed, moving all the furniture into different rooms and shooting out the lights with a BB gun.  The next morning I was so sick I thought about going to the ER and skipping the wedding altogether.  Maybe there are good reasons to have destination bachelor parties long before the wedding(?).

Hangovers are like surgery, it’s not the cutting that hurts, it’s the recovery.  No matter the surgery or medical illness, however, our bodies are unique and respond to treatment differently.  I personally know people who had Hodgkin’s Disease in 1987 when I did, but died in 1988 after having the exact same therapy.  Is that fair? Was that equitable? I don’t think it has anything to do with fairness since in my mind I shouldn’t have got cancer in the first place.  I read a lot of medical research trying to make everyone’s outcome from all diseases equally the same.  That’s a tall order given we’re still wrestling with a hangover cure.  Rather than let statistics determine your outcome, however, the best route for long term survival lies within each individual.  How strong is your will power; can you force yourself out of bed everyday to tackle what ails you?   None of that comes in pill form or legislation.  As for helping out with your hangover, forget about asking God for a miracle.  He’ll watch you patiently for a few days, but He’s not going to waste a miracle just because you thought it was a great idea to drink a pint of rye.  Slainte.