Hangover Tales

When the last one is always the “last one”

Oh, the paradox that is a human being. An intricate and often disturbing living, breathing tapestry of promises, declarations, and lies.

So many lies. What is worse? To tell a falsehood to oneself or to others? Perhaps they’re equally hurtful.

For those of you who struggle with a robust “taste’ for alcohol, I’m betting you’ve suffered from more than a few ass-kicking hangovers. The kind that makes you feel as if you’re down for the count. The kind where the room spins and your stomach lurches and you wish you were dead because you feel that bad.

The kind that makes you proclaim, once more, “never again.”

How do I know this? Because I’ve been there, one too many times.

In fact, I’m there, today. Not “down for the count,” obviously, as I’m writing this, but forcing myself to tell this story right now is a form of punishment myself because that’s what I do when I mess up.

There are no easy excuses, nor good ones. For a myriad of reasons, I’m experiencing more stress than usual, but pounding down several glasses of wine isn’t going to make that go away. On the contrary, every little thing is now magnified because my body is weak, and tired, and sick.

At two a.m., I awoke to racing thoughts backed up by an “earworm” that wouldn’t allow me a moment’s peace. Finally, I got out of bed and watched a bit of TV in the hope it would calm me down. It didn’t. Fighting off a full-blown panic attack, I crawled back into bed and curled up with one of our three cats nestled against me under the covers, his warm body a precious comfort as I lay awake for three more hours.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Now, most of what I wanted to accomplish today will be lost and pushed off until tomorrow when “I’m more myself.” When I’ve reclaimed my usual storehouse of manic energy.

When I’m not so sick.

I’m constantly amazed at how different I feel when I don’t drink alcohol. As in good. And then I get to that place where I’m feeling almost too good…where I tell myself, yet again, “You got this. You can handle it.”

Can anyone here relate? If so, I ask you, are we masochists? Are we punishing ourselves for past misdeeds? Note, I don’t use the word “addicted,” even though I’m writing in a publication that puts the high-beam on that very topic.

Maybe that’s the lie I tell myself as I like to believe I’m stronger than that. Because I’ve quit before and I know I can do it again. I must. There’s just too much to do, too much to achieve, and too little time to get it all done. That’s the pressure I put on myself. Rarely do I take a day off to just do…nothing. Another summer is gone and I’ve not taken one whole day to just sit and feel the sun on my face.

My own worst enemy. Are you in that leaky boat, alongside me? Wondering why you fuck up time and again when you know what the ultimate result will be?

Never again. Today will be the “last one.”

For those of you who’ve been there, and if you’re reading this, I imagine you have, you already know what a hangover does to the body, but let’s just revisit the debilitating effects. For the hell of it.

Depending upon what we drink and how much, this is how a hangover beats the shit out of us. From the Mayo Clinic.

• Fatigue and weakness
• Excessive thirst and dry mouth
• Headaches and muscle aches
• Nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain
• Poor or decreased sleep
• Increased sensitivity to light and sound
• Dizziness or a sense of the room spinning
• Shakiness
• Decreased ability to concentrate
• Mood disturbances, such as depression, anxiety, and irritability
• Rapid heartbeat

As I write this, in varying degrees, I’m experiencing every single one of these nasty bastards. And I did it to myself.

Coffee, by the way, doesn’t help. It will, however, make you even sicker to your stomach. In spite of filmdom’s penchant for depicting “the morning after” as a black-coffee-guzzling rite of passage. It doesn’t work folks. Never will. If you can keep anything down, make it tea. Or water. Gallons of it.

And, if a garden-variety hangover isn’t bad enough, there are factors that can make it even worse. Check these out:

• Drinking on an empty stomach. The absolute fastest way to Hangover City. And a continual fuck-up on my part.
• Using other drugs, such as nicotine, along with alcohol. Smoking sucks on its own, but combined with drinking appears to increase the likelihood of your wanting to die, the next day.
• Not sleeping well or long enough after drinking. Booze may make you pass out quicker, but you can forget about a good night’s sleep as alcohol disrupts REM or deep-sleep cycles.
• Having a family history of alcoholism. Having close relatives with a history of alcoholism may suggest an inherited problem with the way your body processes alcohol. In other words, it’s in the genes, as it is in mine.
• Drinking darker-colored alcoholic beverages. These often contain a high volume of congeners, such as methanol, and may be more likely to produce a hangover.

Methanol! Why not just drink poison and call it a day? Being hungover makes you feel as if you’ve been poisoned, no?

So, why the hell drink at all? When I have the answer, you can believe I’ll share. Meanwhile, I’m fading fast here and am contemplating a lie-down. No sleep, mind you because my brain won’t allow that. Later tonight, perhaps. Because there will be no drinking tonight. And no hangover tomorrow, which is, as Margaret Mitchell famously wrote, “another day.”

Never again.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s soon-to-be-ex-manager is currently NOT pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

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