In honour of St. Paddy''s Day, let me tell you about my hangovers.My hangovers are epic affairs. I have spent whole days, sunrise to sunset, roiling around in my bed, rubbing my stomach, moaning and begging a merciful spirit to end the nauseous agony consuming me. This suffering is only interrupted by an hourly excursion to the bathroom for a bout of vomiting so violent it feels like my skeleton is going to come shooting out of my mouth. The kind of puke that is just as strong the fourth go-around when there is no food or liquid left so you just end up heaving up this toxic looking bile that I'm pretty sure is actually pieces of personality and important memories.
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What I'm saying is my hangovers are next-level trudges up the slope of Mt. Doom, no spacesuit on the surface of Mars, code red-type hellish exercises in physical and mental endurance. Any of my friends who have witnessed these bleak spectacles, like the ones who watched me run out to vomit on a front lawn due to an occupied bathroom—and then continue to lay there as the cool grass soothed my blistering head and because movement seemed impossible anyway—will agree, I know hangovers. I am an expert in morning after suffering.So to all of you preparing for this St. Paddy's Day weekend and its socially encouraged drinking followed by morning afters filled with folksong levels of misery, I thought I would go through the most common remedies for hangovers I've tried when I feel like how Johnny Cash looks in the video for Hurt. I set up a simple scoring system for each cure: a 1-10 scale for effectiveness and a 1-10 scale for difficulty, followed by subtracting the difficulty from effectiveness for a scientifically precise overall score to determine what has provided me the sweetest of sweet reliefs.
Hair of the Dog
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Effectiveness: 0
Difficulty: 7
Score: -7One summer when I was a younger man attending university, I worked for a slightly pathetic, small-time carpenter. My boss, a deck specialist, would eat feta cheese out of the container for lunch, get way too real about his severe financial troubles with me, and reminisce about meeting former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell.He also would pick me up at six in the morning, and it was during this summer where I would try the classic blue-collar hangover solution of just sweating it out and working the fuck through it. This would usually result in a day of mind numbing torment for me and some incredibly shoddily built decks for some unlucky homeowners in the Kawartha region.Effectiveness: 2
Difficulty: 8
Score: -6
Difficulty: 7
Score: -7
Sweating It Out
Difficulty: 8
Score: -6
A Big Greasy Breakfast
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This leads to a very common scene from my hangovers: after two bites of $24 breakfast followed by 40 minutes of holding my head and peering into my half-drunk orange juice looking for answers, a server will come by and ask if I need anything, to which I will respond, "Please can I take this to go, I am about to expire on your premises," and then I stagger home, no less hungover or more full, but carrying 100 percent more styrofoam and soon-to-be-cold eggs.Effectiveness: 5
Difficulty: 8
Score: -3
Difficulty: 8
Score: -3
Sitting Down in a Hot Shower
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Effectiveness: 1
Difficulty: 2
Score: -1
Difficulty: 2
Score: -1
Chugging Water Before You Go to Bed
Difficulty: 6
Score: 2
Puking Before You Go to Bed
Difficulty: 8
Score: 1
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Smoking a Joint
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Effectiveness: 7
Difficulty: 5
Score: 2Uh … Maybe next year.Effectiveness: 10
Difficulty: 200
Score: -190Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter
Difficulty: 5
Score: 2
Sobriety
Difficulty: 200
Score: -190Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter