Hangovers

Happy Sunday morning, everyone, and HUGE CONGRATS to Silver Birch (my favourite tree) on 100 days sober! Go crazy with the lime and soda, SB ;-)

It's very easy when you've been sober for a while to get into the habit of what's known as romancing the drink.

This is when you look back at the drinking days and only remember the good bits. You become obsessed by the memory of the first glass of cold, white wine after a long day.

You remember the sound of the cork leaving the bottle, the gentle glug glug glug of wine hitting your glass. You picture yourself, relaxing in your arm chair and taking the first sip. The tart taste on your tongue and the feeling of relaxation as it hits the bloodstream....

....damn, I'm doing it again.

What we start to forget is where that first glass leads. The race to the bottom of the bottle. The feeling of despair and shame when we realise that we've done it again. And the hangover!

So, every now and again, it's important to make yourself remember. Read back over the list you wrote before you stopped entitled Reasons to Quit Drinking, or similar. Read your blog, journal, or a book you associated with back then. Fight off the 'good' memories with the bad.

So, yesterday I re-read an early post on hangovers. Click here for Sundays: Hair of the Dog.

It's been so long since I had a hangover that I can barely remember the horrors. This post bought it back. Along with the realisation I had that there are two types of drinker: those whose hangover puts them off drinking for several days, and those who believe the only cure is to drink through it. Naturally, I was in the latter camp. That was 'a sign'.

(See my post on 5 Signs that you're a Problem Drinker)

In the paper yesterday there was an article on some Dutch research among 800 students. They monitored how much they drank, what 'hangover prevention methods' they employed and how they felt the next day.

The conclusion was that there is nothing you can do to prevent a hangover (apart, obviously, from not drinking too much *smug face*).

So, think about all that energy spent trying to drink pints of water when drunk. Waking up in the night and drinking pints more. Nurofen before bedtime. Kebabs on the way home. Glasses of milk. Etcetera etcetera.

TOTAL WASTE OF TIME! The number of times I nearly gave myself a black eye with the tap while drunkenly trying to wedge my mouth under it rather than stagger down the stairs to find a glass. Needn't have bothered!

I thought back to one particular hungover morning.

I'd woken up just before 9am. Crashing headache. Mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage. Hair stuck to face. Face stuck to pillow.

With mounting horror, I realised that I had to get up to move my car. My resident's parking permit had expired, and I had to move it before the wardens ticketed it. Then I had to get to the town hall and queue for hours for a new permit with a hangover.

I staggered to the car in my pyjamas (I hadn't thought this one through). I drove to the local supermarket, thinking I could leave my car in their car park for the day.

Still half asleep, I took the wrong turn and ended up in the supermarket loading bay. Stupid error. I reversed. What I couldn't see in the rear view mirror was a mini roundabout. I reversed over it. I stopped. The car wouldn't budge. I was suspended, all four wheels off the ground, on top of the roundabout!

I had to get out of the car IN MY PYJAMAS and stand, looking at my dilemma, while everyone else went round the roundabout I was stuck on top of.

THE HUMILIATION! It took four beefy security guards to lift my car off and place it back on the road.

No more hangovers, my friends. Never again.

SM x

P.S. A guilty admission. One of my favourite things now is to wake up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, to discover that Mr SM has a crashing hangover. This makes me not a very nice person.

Sundays - Hair of the Dog

Happy Sunday Morning Everyone!

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe where everything has ended up back to front. I remember when I was a child I used to think that if I dug a hole deep enough I'd end up in Australia where everything would be kind of similar but we'd all be standing upside down. (Did any of my Australian readers imagine ending up in London?). Well, giving up a chronic alcohol habit is a bit like that. For example, in the BS (Before Sober) days, Friday nights and Saturday nights were the best, and Sunday mornings were the pits. Now, AF (Alcohol Free), Friday and Saturday nights are the hardest BUT Sunday Mornings are our reward!

One of the best things about glorious, empty but filled with promise and expectation, Sunday Mornings AF is remembering the horror of Sunday Mornings BS. So here's a trip down memory lane:

4am Sunday morning: wake up, head pounding, dry mouth, dying for a wee. Gradually try to piece together exactly what led to feeling like this. Wish I hadn't. Lots of self hatred and self flagellation and empty promises to self to change. Endless trips to the loo and the fridge to get more water. Toss and turn until about 6.30am. Go back to sleep until woken up by kids and dog at 7ish. Try really hard not to be grumpy and horrible. Fail. Spend all morning wishing time away until midday when I can 'reasonably' open a bottle of wine 'while I'm getting lunch ready'. Watch minute hand on kitchen clock obsessively because I cannot drink in the morning. Only alcoholics do that, and I am not an alcoholic. Open bottle at 11.50am so glass is ready for midday. Drink first glass wine fast. Feel much better.

It strikes me now that one of the core differences between 'normal' drinkers and 'overly enthusiastic' drinkers is their attitude to hangovers. I was always amazed at people who would refuse a drink at Sunday lunch because they'd drunk too much the night before and 'couldn't face it'. Surely they knew that the only way to 'face it' was to drink more? I was an enthusiastic proponent of  'hair of the dog'.

The phrase 'hair of the dog' comes from a time when - bizarrely - it was believed that the cure for rabies was to put the 'hair of the dog that bit you' onto the rabid dog bite. There is also a great Swahili phrase for drinking off a hangover: kuzimua which means being assisted to wake up after a coma.

A recent scientific study Proof: the science of booze by Adam Rogers claims that 'hair of the dog' really is the only effective cure for a hangover. This is because alcoholic drinks contain methanol, which is poisonous, and doctors treat methanol poisoning with ethanol i.e. alcohol.

There is another, more worrying, reason why 'hair of the dog' works according to alcoholrehab.com and it's this: 'A common reason why heavy drinkers experience hangovers is that they have actually entered the early stages of withdrawal. By drinking alcohol the next morning they are preventing these withdrawal symptoms from taking hold.' Seems obvious, but I'd honestly never thought of it like that!

I checked out the good old National Health Service website for their advice on hangover cures, and found this classic line: 'The best way to avoid a hangover is not to drink.' Well no shit Sherlock (as they say, but not in front of the kids, obviously, or it's another pound in the swear box). But, acutally, that is what I am doing! And it's Sunday morning. Beautiful, glorious, Sunday morning, and I feel amazing!

So, here's my plan for the day. I will not be grumpy and clock watchy all morning followed by drunk and asleep most of the afternoon. Oh no. I am taking #1 and dog to park this morning for good walk and girlie chat. Come back and cook roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for lunch (oh yes, my French readers, it is not for nothing that you call us 'les rosbifs') Have judging of the great cheesecake bake off (yesterday husband and #1, inspired by the Great British Bake Off on TV, had an argument about who could make the best cheesecake. Their efforts, plus one from Waitrose, are in the fridge awaiting the family blind taste test). Collapse with Sunday papers. Take #2 and #3 to pet shop to buy birthday presents for the dog. Have birthday tea (with dog food cake and candles) for said dog. Play massive game of Monopoly or similar. Put kids in bed and watch 3 episodes back-to-back of latest box set with husband. Collapse into bed sober and happy.

So, Sundays are still about 'the dog'. But this one's six years old today, smelly, furry and totally loveable.

Enjoy your Sober Sunday my sober friends! And if you're reading this with a chronic hangover, pondering giving it all up then please join us!

Love SM x