It's a Marathon, not a Sprint

As one of my friends likes say: "There will be beer tomorrow". Pace yourself. You don't have to drink it all tonight.

Don't try to outdrink a Russian. Don't even try to keep up. (And you can swap in any other relevant noun for "Russian"; the point is, your drinking should be about getting what you want, not about some other idiot.)

Your pacing is what determines how much alcohol gets into your stomach, how fast, which determines how fucked up you get and how quickly you get there; and how fucked up you are determines how likely you are to fuck something up - usually starting with drinking even more when you should be slowing down.

In the old days -- your parents day -- there was a common rule of thumb of "one drink an hour", because you body can metabolize (chemically break down and remove from your body) about one drink an hour and Back In The Day that was enough to keep you under the legal blood alcohol limits.

These days the DUI limits are lower, so "one drink an hour" is NOT a safe guideline for driving, but it's still a pretty good rule to follow for keeping yourself competent.

An even safer guideline is to alternate one alcoholic drink with one glass of water, again one drink per hour, which proactively hydrates your body to ward off the biggest cause of hangovers (dehydration), and also slows down your consumption of alcohol at least a little.

Generally speaking, a single serving of beer (12oz), wine (6oz) or liquor (1.5oz) has the same amount of alcohol. This is important to remember - a drink is a drink is a drink - but that's not all there is to it.

All Beers Are Not Created Equal. For many, many decades 99.99% of the beers sold in the US were 12 ounce bottles or cans of beer that was 3% to 5% strength alcohol (aka ABV, Alcohol By Volume). That's what the above rule about serving sizes is about.

But these days there are a lot more microbrews on the market. Besides the fact that most of them taste better, some of them also have very high alcohol levels (for beer). While typical mainstream piss has 3% to 5% alcohol, a microbrew can have 9%, 10%, 11% or even higher. Use your brain.

In addition, for liquor, especially cocktails, the volume difference of the drink and the mixers - especially sugary mixers - can have a real effect on your pacing. See "A Spoonful of Sugar", below.

A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down

Be especially careful with sugary drinks, because they can be quite easy to chug, and the sugar can speed the alcohol into your digestive system. (Diet soda mixers, on the other hand, actually magnify the impact of alcohol, according to some for-real medical sites I've read).

It's quite possible to suck down six Long Island Iced Teas, one after other, and get two blocks down the street before the darkness rises up and grabs you. Then you get to spend the next day listening to your friends say things like "I can't believe what you said to her last night!" and saying "What did I say? What?"

Don't ever try to "catch up" with people drunker than you. It's too easy to mis-gauge the front-loading, and that leads to un-fun situations.

Speaking of front-loading, this can be another variation on "don't drink and drive" - don't pound back a couple more shots and then hop in the car to race home before the alcohol takes effect. It's still stupid, and taking the chance of getting the timing wrong is just as illegal as being drunk when you get behind the wheel. You can get pulled over and arrested while still relatively sober, stuck in a jail cell and tested for blood alcohol level half an hour later, when the full force of those shots is in your veins, and you're still on the hook for DUI. The judge will not be amused.

Beer Before Liquor, Never Sicker; Liquor Before Beer, Never Fear

The stronger alcohol is, the easier it is to fuck up on the amount of alcohol you're consuming.

Note: The rhyme makes it easier to remember, but "never fear" is always bullshit when it comes to drugs (yes, alcohol is a drug).

I've seen and heard all sorts of silly theories about this rule, but the simple reality is that it has nothing to do with physiology or biochemistry and everything to do with artificial stupidity.

If you start with beer and switch to hard liquor when youu're drunk, you're accelerating.

If you start with hard liquor and switch to beer when you're drunk, you're decelerating.

See my comments on pacing, above; if you start off with beer and get drunk, now is not the time to switch gears to the trickier-to-regulate strong alcohol. Start playing with stronger booze when your discretion and judgement are fucked, and your rate of consumption will out of control, and before you know it you'll be puking your guts out.

It's My Party I Can Puke If I Want To

Oh, and speaking of puking; puking is your body's way of letting you know you fucked up.

If you feel a need to puke, then do it; your body needs to get rid of the alcohol before it hurts you worse. Yes, your friends will laugh at you. If you don't like that, don't fuck up next time.

If your friend starts puking, especially at the end of a long night of drinking, don't just point and laugh (though you should make sure to make fun of him for fucking up; just do it later, like the next time he heads out to do some drinking). Make sure he's okay; make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit (you really don't want to be explaining this one at his funeral).

If you're feeling nice (or if you have to share a ride home with him or her) try to hold their hair out of the way while they're puking, and get them some water to rinse their mouth out, afterward.

Never Mix The Grape And The Grain

This means "don't mix drinking wine (grape-derived) and drinking beer or whiskey (grain derived)."

Mixing is generally considered to be a good way to make sure you'll be puking at some point later in the night. This is generally true - the more variety in what you drink in a given session, the more you're likely to run into problems. Brandy, for example, is fruit-based, so I'd lump it in with the "grape" category.

I'm not sure of the basis for this one. One possibility is that it's about the interactions of sugary fruit-based alcohols vs. non-sugary grain-based alcohols (see "A Spoonful Of Sugar", above).

Or it may be that the different congeners and other contaminants (sulfites in wine, for example) interact to make the overall effect worse.

Or maybe it's just that it makes it too hard to keep track and keep your consumption under control.

Cheap Booze Tends To Mean Worse Hangovers

Remember what I said about congeners? Congeners are the substances in liquors, beers and wines that are not what we want. They are the impurities. They are also a key component in what causes hangovers.

Congeners tend to be worse in cheaper booze, primarily because of the same reasons the booze is cheaper - cheaper ingredients, cheaper quality control in the production process, which leads to more of the contaminants that lead to worse hangovers.

Also, older booze (if not stored properly) tends to oxidate and break down to produce extra acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is one of the chief byproducts of your body's normal alcohol-metabolizing process, and also one of the main causes of hangover effects.

This article gets into the chemistry pretty well:

http://weeklywire.com/ww/01-04-99/tw_chow.html

More on hangovers at the end, in the section titled Oh My God I Drank What?.

Make A Plan *Before* You Get Fucked Up; Don't Change It *When* You'e Fucked Up

Listen to sober you. Sober you is probably right about a lot of things.

Do I really have to explain this?

Stop The World, I Want to Get Off

There's an old joke "If the world is spinning and your palms and armpits are bleeding, you're not using twist-offs".

Spins are a sign that you're definitely well-intoxicated. If you start getting the spins, it's time to slow down and let your body catch up a little in the race between you drinking more alcohol and your body metabolizing the alchol you've already drunk.

Obviously at this point you don't need more alcohol; you may want to keep your current drink handy and pretend sip at it, just to keep somebody else from bringing you another drink.

At this point you might want to take a nap or (if you're home now) go to sleep. Don't. The world will keep spinning and you'll wake up (if you're lucky) in a pool of vomit. If you do find yourself drifting off, make sure you're on your side, not face-up, so at least you won't choke on your own vomit. You may want to drag a wastebasket over next to you, in case you wake up vomiting.

My personal rule of thumb is, if the world is spinning and I can't stop it without seriously concentrating, then it's not time to go to sleep yet. Stay up, drink water, eat bread, walk around to stay awake if necessary. Wait for the spins to die down.

Eating bread isn't going to actually "fix" the alcohol, but it will help a couple ways:

First, the bread will give your stomach something to work on and help settle it down.

Second if there's alcohol still in your stomach, the bread will absorb the alcohol and slow down your digestion of the alcohol. This won't sober you up, but slowing down the digestion might slow down how quickly the alcohol in your stomach gets into your bloodstream, which will mean shallower drunkneness, at the cost of prolonging the duration of drunkeness. Trust me, you want to make that trade.

Hydration (soup, water, etc) don't help much for the spins, but they do help fight off dehydration, which is ongoing as your body tries to flush the poison (alcohol) out of your system.

If the world is spinning and you can't stop it no matter how hard I try, it's is a pretty good sign that you've been stupid. If you were that stupid, you may have been even stupider and front-loaded, so it may be a good idea to skip the bread for now and first, if your body feels like vomiting, let it, to get rid of any undigested alcohol that's still in your stomach.

Be careful with this, though, don't try to force yourself to vomit, apparently you can hurt yourself that way.

You can also hurt yourself by forcing yourself not to vomit, by the by, so don't be so fucking macho. Besides, if your body wants to get rid of something that badly, maybe you should listen.

Try To Bring A Zoo-Keeper

Obviously, because you're not a fuckwit, you have a designated driver. If you're lucky, they have their shit together and will also act as zoo-keeper, keeping you and your friends from doing stupid things.

In general, if there's a problem situation - either you or somebody else - don't fuck around, get a sober person involved. You are, by definition, impaired, therefore your judgement is fucked, therefore, in a crisis, get somebody whose judgement isn't fucked.

Besides, it'll sound better, when the police arrive, if you have a sober person taking point.

Never Never Never Mix Alcohol And Other Drugs

In general, mixing drugs is a stupid idea. Mixing prescription drugs and alcohol is stupid. Mixing illegal drugs and alcohol is stupid, hell, mixing Tylenol and alcohol is stupid (see below).

Alcohol Fucks With Your Blood Sugar

One of the common hangover symptoms is nausea, which most often is because your blood sugar is low, because alcohol fucks with your blood sugar. See "Oh My God. I Drank What?", below.

This is super, super, super important for diabetics. If you're a diabetic (or pre-diabetic) you should damn well learn more about this from your doctor, not from my incompetent ass.

Also, for the non-diabetics -- having serious blood sugar problems can look a hell of a lot like being super drunk, so watch out for that if you have a friend who's diabetic. Again, go educate yourself.

Also, if you're not diabetic but you're on one of those "ketogenic", super low carb diets, similar things can happen. So if you go on one of those diets, be careful and figure out how the diet changes how alcohol hits you.

Never Never Never Take Tylenol While Drunk

The active ingredient in Tylenol is acetaminophen. Taking acetaminophen and alcohol at the same time can kill you by destroying your liver. And that's if you're lucky. If not, it won't kill you, you'll just have to shit in a bag for the rest of your life.

Hell, do some googling on this and you'll come up with some really scary information. One site said it takes five days for alcohol to fully metabolize and leave the liver, and longer for acetaminophen. So avoid taking it even after you've sobered up the next day.

http://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-only-as-directed

If You Wake Up And Feel Great, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

The first easiest way to avoid a hangover is to pace yourself, and hydrate (before, during, and after).

The second easiest way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk. If you wake up and feel great, that's probably just what you've done.

You may also be sober but just on the cliff-edge of the hangover. Doing anything that affects the balance of hydration in your body - eating food, for example - may push you right over the edge into a killer hangover.

The best thing you can do at this point is drink a lot of water or gatorade (I recommend mixing half water and half gatorade), get somebody to deliver you some takeout chinese food, rent some movies to watch, and expect to spend the next several hours on the couch, hopefully in minimal misery, as you sober up and the hangover kicks in.

See the section on hangovers, below, "Oh My God. I Drank What?".

Always Hydrate; Before, During, After Drinking

Heading out to drink in an already-dehydrated state is a sure recipe for misery.

Dehydration is usually the vast majority of a hangover.

So drink water.

If you're out drinking and you're starting to feel dry-mouthed, drink more water.

When you decide you've had enough and it's time to stop drinking alcohol, drink some more water.

When you get home from drinking, drink even more water.

Make sure you have water next to your bed for when you wake up (I like to keep a one-liter squeeze bottle by my bed in general, because I tend to wake up thirsty even when I haven't been drinking).

A Drunken Stupor Is Not Sleep

You can fall over into your bed, drunk, sleep for twelve hours and wake up exhausted. Sleep is complex and I won't go into what meager knowledge I have of it here, but just plan ahead. If you're out partying, don't expect to be an early riser the next day.

Never Drink On An Empty Stomach

Drinking a glass of milk or whatever other stupid ideas won't keep you from getting drunk, but it is definitely a good idea to start the night with some solid food, before drinking. If you can't do that, then order some bar food while you're drinking.

If you drink on an empty stomach the alcohol will rush straight to your bloodstream and you'll get seriously drunk - and likely you won't realize it's happening until you've already sucked down several drinks, and you're front-loaded.

Nicotine Poisoning: Just One More Way To Vomit

To quote a cigar-smoker friend:

"Cigars are fucking fun, but if you start feeling your scalp crawling over your head, stop. The vomiting comes soon after, and it's embarrassing."

For many smokers, drinking and smoking go hand in hand. Leaving aside all the other concerns about smoking, be aware and take it easy with nicotine consumption, when you're drunk. Especially if it's atypical nicotine consumption, i.e. if you find yourself using nicotine products more often when you're drinking.

This seems to be more of an issue for cigar smokers, not for cigarette smokers. Maybe that's because cigarette smoking has a more ingrained pacing, or maybe cigarette smokers' bodies are just more used to higher levels of nicotine consumption, while most cigar smokers tend to smoke infrequently when they're sober.

Don't Get Stoned When You're Drunk

Naturally I don't advocate illegal drug use, yadda yadda yadda.

But, in the eventuality that you're already drunk and somebody offers you a joint, give it a pass.

Here's the thing: remember what I said about "spins" up above? Being stoned doesn't make the spins worse, it just makes you stop caring about them... and you'll be throwing up pretty soon after.

Once you get some practice, you may find you like the combination of being slightly stoned and slightly drunk. But it's the "slightly" part that's tricky, especially if you start by getting drunk.

Remember what I said above, about "make a plan before you get fucked up"? It's much harder to gauge your pot consumption if you're already drunk, and, like hard liquor, pot is a lot easier to over consume and get in trouble with.

Now, normally, getting "in trouble" with pot just means you get "couch-locked" and end up sitting on the couch, staring into space for a while, until the pot wears off. But if you're significantly drunk already and you get in over your head with pot, then you get the spins, forget to resist them, and end up puking.

Also, see "Don't Buy Illegal Substances From Strangers", below. If some random stranger offers you a joint, and you're already significantly drunk, you're probably not in the best shape to judge that offer, the risks of other drugs being in that joint, or what their motives are.

Don't Smoke Pot When You're Stoned

"Pot" means marijuana.

Smoking marijuana when you're already high doesn't make you more high, it just burns up your pot.

In some rare cases, high-test marijuana may make you higher, but believe me, you don't wanna go there unless you know what you're doing. While marijuana is relatively harmless compared to a great many drugs (including alcohol), you can get "too high" and it's very much no fun.

Don't Buy Illegal Substances From Strangers

Let me put it this way... would you take a prescription drug because some random idiot suggested it?

Whine all you want about the FDA keeping the secret cure for cancer off the market, but the simple fact of the matter is that we take the quality and reliability of our legal drugs for granted, thanks to the excellent job the FDA does.

Make damn sure you know and trust the source -- both their integrity and their competence -- before putting a substance in your body.

There Is No Such Thing As A Casual Heroin User

This goes for a lot of other drugs too, of course. It's kind of mind-boggling that people even try heroin, or crack, etc, unless they're just flat out suicidal. My only guess is that it's sheer ignorance. Hence this article.

Nothing Is Free

When somebody hands you something that has consequences - particularly if it's going to put you in a vulnerable state - think about why they're doing it.

To quote a friend, quoting what her mother told her in her early teens: "If older people want to give you drugs, think about why they aren't hanging out with people their own age."

Driving With Drunks

If you're the Designated Driver, my hat's off to you. Next time you're not driving, I'll buy you a drink. Here are a few tips to make your life easier.

Avoid the Drunk Rush Hour

Just because you're sober and in control of your vehicle doesn't mean that other asshole is. So avoid the "rush hour" of drunks on the road, heading home, at closing time.

When exactly this is depends on where you live; when I was in college local laws required bars to stop serving at 2am and clear the patrons out of the place by 2:30am. Most bars stopped serving at ten minutes till two. Some bars kicked everyone out promptly at 2:00am, others let people drag their feet till 2:25am. This meant there two "drunk rush hours", one at 2:00am and one at 2:30am.

Also, bear in mind that the cops aren't idiots, they know about drunk rush hour and that's when they'll be out in force. If you've consumed any alcohol at all, driving during drunk rush hour means you're taking a risk of, at the very least, spending an extra 30-45 minutes talking to a cop about it before getting home.

So I made a habit of either a) getting on the road early enough to get home before the drunks got to their cars, or b) finding a way to kill time until 3:30am, so the drunks had a chance to get home and off the road.

All night diners are good for this, and they're also a good way for your drunks to get some hydration and food in them.

Remember to tip your waiter well, if they're working this shift, they ain't doing it for fun.

Pay Attention!

In general, you're not just designated driver, you're also usually the zoo-keeper. Think of yourself as a combination of a sheepdog and a Secret Service agent (and kindergarten teacher). Your job is to both herd your collection of drunks and to keep an eye out for possible risks or obstacles.

Plan ahead; pick out a rally point, some corner of the bar or ngihtclub where you'll all meet when it's time to leave, and pick a time to leave. When it's getting towards that time, start looking around and make sure everybody's more or less in sight

If you can, plan ahead and pick a "drunk wrangler", whoever of the drinkers who is best equipped to manage your other drunks. That usually means whoever's the best combination of least-drunk, and most-competent. If you have to, figure that out when it's time to head out. Put them in charge of wrangling the other drunks, so you can focus on more important things like watching out for drunk drivers trying to run you off the road.

Shut the Fuck Up

Be extra attentive while driving. First, there may be drunks on the road. Second, there's a tendency to be distracted by the drunks in your car. Be laid back; you don't want to work yourself into a frenzy and you don't want to get into the antics yourself.

Don't be shy about telling people to shut the fuck up if they're distracting you, particularly if they're drunk (subtle hints don't tend to work on fucked up people). If they won't shut the fuck up or stop playing grabass, don't be shy about pulling the car over until you get things calmed down.

Hopefully your drunk wrangler will take the hint and do any yelling necessary, leaving you free to concentrate on watching out for drunk drivers.

Keep the Windows Rolled Down

If you're at all uncertain about the drunkeness level of your riders, keep the windows rolled down during the ride. First, the fresh air may help them avoid losing it. Second, if they do lose it and can't manage to wait until you've pulled over, you want them to be able to just lean out the window and vomit. Washing puke off your car door is a lot better than washing it off your floors and seats.

If one of your riders has a problem, first check for other vehicles and pedestrians, then pull over as quickly-but-smoothly as you can, park the car and get the door open so they can lean over and vomit. If they have long hair, make sure somebody holds it out of the way, unless you feel like driving the rest of the way home with even more vomit smell in your car.

People Are Different

Some people are really obvious drunks, some people are sneaky drunks. I've had intelligent conversations with people I would swear are only mildly drunk, until I found out the next day they couldn't remember how their door key got snapped in two the night before.

So don't take it for granted that unslurred words and a steady gait means they're sober.

Also, be wary of riders who may be front-loaded. They may get out the door of the bar and into the car just fine... then the stomach full of alcohol hits their blood stream on the ride home and they end up puking. Hopefully puking outside your car...

Sobering Up

I didn't put this in the first version of this article, because I thought it was too obvious. Then I remembered that they took sex education out of the schools and realized nothing is too obvious.

Contrary to any bullshit you may have heard, time is the only cure. There is no way to sober up a drunk faster than just letting his body process out all of the alcohol.

Drinking coffee doesn't help - now you just have an alert drunk. Though that might actually be a good idea if they're drunk enough that they might puke in their sleep.

Drinking water won't help sober them up, but it might be a good idea anyway.

Walking around doesn't help, although again, if there's a risk that they might puke in their sleep, keeping them walking around might help prevent them from sleeping.

Eating doesn't help sober somebody up, although it might be helpful in slowing down the alcohol getting from their stomach into their bloodstream. This is sometimes useful, for example if they front-loaded several drinks and then you realized they were already drunker than you want to deal with.

Note: This is NOT NOT NOT a treatment for a dangerously drunk victim. Alcohol poisoning is a very real, very bad thing, and not something you should try to fix with folk remedies. Get real help, or get them to an ER, right away.

Also, if one of your drunks realizes they're already too drunk and they just pounded down several drinks, it might be worth them trying to let themselves vomit, up the drinks if their body wants to, so the alcohol doesn't get digested and go into their bloodstream. But be careful - trying hard to vomit (or trying too hard not to vomit) can be harmful.

Oh My God. I Drank What?

A hangover is a number of different things, all of them generally miserable. Two of the biggest symptoms of a headache caused by dehydration and nausea caused by low blood sugar.

Nausea from low blood sugar is usually the major contributing factor, but it can also be affected by an irriated stomach lining, vitamin depletion; other contaminants, congeners, most common in dark liquors; some people say the sulfites in wine, though the scientists say that's unproven.

I'm going to boil this down here and then explain in detail below:

One, drink lots of water, before, during and after. Especially be careful not to start a night of drinking already dehydrated, that'll really hurt.

Two, DO NOT TAKE acetaminophen (Tylenol) for a hangover. See the section above on Tylenol.

Three, the morning after, get some rehydrating done before you eat.

Four, have a small snack right off the bat, because your blood sugar is probably low, but keep it small because of rule three.

Dehydration

Dehydration is pretty obvious. Most of the alcohol you consume gets broken down into acetaldehyde and your body gets rid of most of the acetaldehyde by flushing it away in your urine, which is why we have the old saying "remember, you're only renting the beer..."

The best way to deal with dehydration is to not get dehydrated.

The second best way is to rehydrate as fast as possible.

Drink water. Before you go out drinking, while you're drinking, before you go to bed when you get home, before you do anything else when you wake up.

Common advice is to alternate water and alcohol when you're drinking, and of course drink some water when you get home, before you go to sleep, and drink some water immediately when you get up.

It's a REALLY good idea to make sure you're not dehydrated BEFORE you go out drinking - some of the most memorable hangovers I've ever had were from a fairly mild night of drinking, when I had allowed myself to get dehydrated during the day (hot weather, exercise, etc).

Similarly, it's not how drunk you get, it's how much alcohol you drink. You can drink mildly, one beer an hour all afternoon and late into the night, never getting really beyond "one beer drunk", and still earn yourself a killer hangover the next day (especially if it's a summer afternoon and you're sweating a lot as well as drinking).

When you first wake up, do NOT consume a lot of food before you hydrate. Your body uses a lot of water to digest food, and it has to pull that water from the rest of your body. That can easily turn a slight hangover into a bad hangover.

Having said that, heavy drinking tends to fuck with your blood sugar, so your blood sugar is probably low, and that can lead to nausea. So it's not a bad idea to eat something (pop tarts, whatever), just don't make it a big meal before you make some progress on rehydrating.

A lot of people find that slightly sugary drinks (typically 6% is enough - watered down sports drink is a good way to do this) make it easier to rehydrate because drinking lots of water tends to make them urinate more often. However, bear in mind that the morning after, your body needs to both replace lost water and to flush away the acetaldehyde. So urinating more often is a good thing.

Other Symptoms, Hangover Food and Other Stuff

A hangover can make you feel hot while you're actually chilled. You may sweat a lot (especially in the hangover phase). Don't throw off the covers, pile them on. If you let yourself get cold, it can make the other symptoms worse.

There's not much you can do about the abused stomach lining, but the nausea also might be caused by low blood sugar, in which case eating food might actually help reduce it.

Eggs are a really good idea. They contain a lot of cysteine, which helps counteract the acetaldehyde. A big omelet full of cheese and whatever else is a pretty good hangover breakfast.

While drunken or hungover you'll tend to want to eat fatty, greasy food. Greasy hamburgers or pizza or late night breakfast at the diner are popular choices when you're actually out out drinking. Grilled cheese sandwiches are popular morning-after breakfasts. There's no evidence that fatty foods are better for a hangover, but then again it's calorie-dense without being a really large meal, so it might not be the worst idea.

Some sites I've read blame this booze-induced fat craving on on galanin. Booze makes your body produce more galanin, galanin increases appetite for fats. You might plan ahead and eat a couple handfuls of nuts - peanuts, almonds, cashews walnuts, trail mix, whatever - before you go out, to preempt this fat craving. Or do it after you get home, so you're not craving so much in the morning.

Vitamin depletion is probably not a major factor in hangovers, but it's always worth addressing. For most vitamins (check the packaging, and be wary of fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin D), taking vitamins is generally one of the safest safest things you can do, as long as you also drink enough water with them, so your body can flush away any excess vitamins. Since you plan to be flushing away acetaldehyde already, no problem!

Vitamin B-12 or B-Complex (which is a mix of the eight different types of vitamin B) is a popular hangover folk remedy. Supposedly there are studies that back this up, but the few medical sources I found said these studies weren't that strong. Brewer's yeast is a common folk remedy... mainly because brewer's yeast is high in vitamin B.

Other Sources

Here's a pretty cool site with info about drinking:

http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/2244.html

And here's one that gets pretty entertaining about hangover effects (my favorite is "...when [your brain] starts to shrink due to water loss, pain-sensitive filaments connecting the outside membranes to the inside of the skull become stretched..."):

http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=386

And of course, our old friend Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover

This one talks about a substance called cysteine:

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/hangover/hangoverfull.html

So I did some googling on cysteine:

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/medical/tp/aatp122102a.htm

http://www.whatreallyworks.co.uk/start/factsheets.asp?article_ID=181

That's about all I have to say. Good luck and remember not to be stupid. Or at least try to be smart about being stupid.

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