The lost art of surviving a hangover

A LONG TIME AGO, after a friend’s grooms’ dinner, during which we drank kegs of beer, copious amounts of gin, and bottles of cheap wine, I woke up with a hangover so bad the world vibrated. Not in a fun way. I’d drunk too much, had too good a time, and I was paying the price. That next day, the day of my friend’s wedding, was about surviving – not puking, suppressing the headache, staying on my feet. I succeeded and slept nearly the entire day after until the hangover was gone.

This happened in my twenties. Today, at forty-four, a night like that would likely kill me.

You’ve most likely endured a hangover, a “virtually pandemic ailment,” according to the writer Kingsley Amis. Maybe it happened to you decades ago or this morning. You meet a friend for a beer, assuming it’ll be two drinks – max – and hoping you’ll be home by 10 pm. The music is good, the conversation is even better, and the first two drinks go down easy. So why not a third? A fourth? Sure, it’s Wednesday; tomorrow isn’t too busy. A shot? Fuck it. A cigarette? I haven’t smoked in years – I’d love one! You know this will end badly, and you do it anyway.

You’ve felt the physical discomfort – headache, nausea, lethargy – as well as the anxiety and existential dread it can produce. A few years ago, Esquire published a story about a particularly bad strain of it called Hangxiety: “Apparently it all has to do with the balance of the chemicals in your brain . . . As your brain re-adjusts after a night of abusing gin to grease the vocal cords for the high notes in ‘Bring Him Home’ at karaoke (you thought Les Mis would be easy?), you may become a real drag to be around.”

It can lead to a shame spiral: did you really say that last night? You had to be a big shot, didn’t you? In what I consider the greatest piece of literature ever written about a hangover, Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, the main character wakes up to find he’s become a cockroach. That’s no coincidence.

Esquire has published multiple stories about curing a hangover: the science behind it, the best food and drink to overcome one, the chef’s guide to beating the ill effects of a boozy night, and Anthony Bourdain’s advice for treating the problem. “Aspirin, cold Coca Cola, smoke a joint, eat some spicy Szechuan food,” he said. Try whichever method you like, but I’ve found there’s no shortcut. The only remedy for me is time and sleep. That means you’ll need a healthy dose of grit to get through the next day.

“Hangovers were an honourable, even heroic, ordeal,” John Berendt wrote in Esquire. “All the best people had them.”

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t cater to hangovers like it once did. (As John Berendt noted in the July 1991 issue of Esquire, F. Scott Fitzgerald, a former Esquire contributor, said that in the 1920s “the hangover became a part of the day as well-allowed-for as the Spanish siesta.”) In fact, it couldn’t be a worse time to have one. We live in the wellness era. We’re confronted with lifestyle gurus and fitness influencers telling us to eat more protein, spend hours taking long walks, sleep eight hours, avoid alcohol. Something appeared in my Instagram feed the other day showing the wrinkled and weary face of a man in his forties who drinks occasionally and that of the same man when he skips alcohol. I assume AI created the images, which were meant to sell me something, so you can imagine the stark difference between the two pictures. But my prevailing thought was: I bet the youthful looking AI guy is a bore.

It isn’t just vibes. According to a new Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who drink has fallen to 54 percent – the lowest point in the 90 years Gallup has tracked boozing trends. Like all things in America today, there’s a political divide. Only 46 per cent of Republicans drink compared with 60 per cent of Democrats. The popularity of so-called mocktails is surging; liquor sales are declining as non-alcoholic beer flourish; cannabis products are taking the place of a stiff drink or a cold beer. As a result, fewer people are experiencing the physical and existential pain of a hangover.

This should be good news. Hangovers suck, and the fewer of them you have the better (and probably longer) your life will be. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid them at all costs. The occasional hangover is neither shameful, nor wrong. (The word occasional is important.) It is the painful remembrance of a good time. For one night, you ignored the annoying emails and crushing responsibilities, enjoyed time with friends, maybe made new ones, possibly got laid. The hangover was worth it.

And remember, you’re not alone in feeling this way. “Hangovers were an honourable, even heroic, ordeal,” Berendt wrote in that July ’91 issue. “All the best people had them.” I imagine the Allies planned and fought World War II with hangovers. David Wells pitched a perfect game for the Yankees while “massively hungover.” Conspiracy theorists have suggested Michael Jordan’s famous flu game was less the result of a bug – or nefarious food poisoning – and more the effects of a long night drinking at the card table. Meanwhile, three of the four U.S. presidents during the 21^stcentury – George W. Bush, Trump, and Biden – have been teetotalers. Only one, Obama, may have governed with a hangover. Maybe that explains why we live in such chaotic times.

A hangover will teach you valuable lessons, maybe earn you a little wisdom. The hangover, according to Kingsley Amis, is “a (fortunately) unique route to self-knowledge and self-realisation.” Quite simply, you’ll learn how to sidestep one in the future. (Got it – four martinis is a bad idea.) More importantly, you’ll teach yourself self-preservation. If you made the unwise decision to throw back a few too many the night before a big meeting, you cannot call in sick. You must endure the pain, fortify yourself with medicine and caffeine, and perform at your very best. Then you can make this hard-earned knowledge work for you in circumstances well beyond a nasty hangover.

Last Sunday, after a long weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland with friends, I woke up with a throbbing head, a gurgling belly, and a crushing exhaustion. I had twelve hours of travel ahead of me. A busy airport is no place to nurse a hangover, but I had no choice. So I swallowed two Aleve, chocked down a coffee, and soldiered on. The security line felt like a forced march, the buzz of hurried people worsened my headache, the turbulence turned my stomach. But as a I nodded off in my seat, I remembered why I felt this way – a buoyant and life-affirming getaway with old friends. And when I got home that night, having survived the trip, I felt heroic.

Next time, however, I’ll probably skip the fifth Scotch whiskey.

This story originally appeared on Esquire US.

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