With most of my years well and truly behind me and my 13 years in the Royal Navy, I can have some claim to knowing a thing or two about drinking and handling hangovers.
I discovered that certain types of drinks brought on a hangover, as did mixing drinks of different types. Your mental and physical well being had some bearing on the matter as did the occasion. And of course the quantity consumed and the frequency of consumption.
However what was right for me doesn’t mean that it will be right for anyone else. We each have to find out for ourselves and I have to admit that I enjoyed most of the research and suffered the headaches and nausea with a bravery shown only by a child who has scuffed his knee.
Being in the Navy I naturally learned to like rum as at that time it was still issued daily to anyone over the age of 20. In fact on the 31st July 1970, after being issued for 283 years, the very last tot of Pusser’s rum went down the hatch.
The rum in the Navy was unlike anything available ashore both in taste and in strength, although a couple of brands came close, in taste only. Each day at noon before dinner and thus on an empty stomach, we were given half a gill(one eighth of a pint) of neat rum which was in the region of 150 degrees proof. This was watered down by two parts of water to one of rum making three eights of a pint of liquid at around 50 degrees proof which is not much weaker than a tot bought in a pub but certainly a lot more. After ten years of drinking Navy rum I became quite accustomed to it and after a night’s boozing on Nelson’s Blood I got up to carry out my duties with no more than a raging thirst. Of course maybe the fact that I had to do my duty may have had something to do with not having a pounding head.
But these are the sort of things that you have to find out. In later years I found out that I could drink ordinary bitter with a few rum chasers without unduly bothering the aspirin bottle the next morning.
However drinking wine, particularly fortified wine, kept me firmly rooted in my bed or the toilet. Never drank lager so I can’t offer an opinion on that. Strangely enough good old Cornish Scrumpy only mildly thudded at my temples whereas other spirits and beers caused havoc. I developed a liking for rum and Coke, which was O.K. but rum and Pepsi or other brands of Cola got the head banging the next day. Obviously it was the Cola. A good brandy was O.K. with me whereas that same good brandy with Canada Dry ginger ale had me groping for the aspirin, but not always.
One other trick I learned the hard way was to eat a good meal a couple of hours before the booze flowed. Nothing too heavy and not too much. And finally I took a swig of milk as I walked out of the house or down the gangway. And if the evening turned out to be enjoyable I got up next morning fit as a fiddle. A lousy night out can only make you drink all sorts to try and make the evening better. And it never does. If you’re having a bad night, go home. Not only will you save some money but your hangover will be less if at all.
So that’s it, never drink on an empty stomach nor an overfull one. If you like the stuff, have a swig of milk beforehand. Don’t know what you’d do if you don’t like milk. Don’t mix your tipple and nibble away at a few snacks whilst drinking. The hot curry at the end of an evening won’t help your head the next day unless you’ve had a really swinging night out.
One final act before going to bed is to try and drink a glass or two of water first. You’re going to get up to go to the bog during the night anyway so it won’t make any difference to that.
So what do you do if you are hung over? Don’t take aspirin on an empty stomach or you’ll be heading for ulcer land. In fact don’t take any analgesic on an empty stomach. Don’t even think
about the hair of the dog’cos he’ll only come back and bite you later on and in any case that’s the first step down the alcoholic road.
Get some non-alcoholic liquid down you and eat something, even if it’s only a bit of toast and you are sick later on. You can always eat some more. Some say sweet tea or coffee works for them. I went for a bowl of cornflakes and a mug of sweet tea and then a couple of aspirins.
In the end it is up to you to discover what is best for you but take heed of other people’s cures and try them. You never know they might work for you and if they don’t there’s always the’pledge’.