My job is to drink. Okay, that may be oversimplifying it. My job is to host a television show, of which the subject is drinking. Over the past six years, my job has been to travel the globe, in "Three Sheets," and travel the country, in "Drinking Made Easy," to explore drinking customs. I've shot 100 episodes, where I've had to imbibe innumerable drinks, which have lead to countless hangovers.
That makes me an expert on hangovers. I haven't had more than the next college graduate, but my quest has been in the name of science -- and entertainment, although not necessarily in that order. I've had hangovers on six continents and tried all of their claimed remedies. From my exhaustive research I am ready to give you the sure fire three-step solution to curing your hangover.
The symptoms of a hangover include a headache, nausea and an uncontrollable urge to call someone to apologize for something you said the night before, when you were dreadfully intoxicated. Tylenol can't fix the fact that you peed on your friend's dog.
A hangover occurs when your body begins ridding itself of toxins created by the metabolizing of alcohol. It's also caused by dehydration. And, as alcohol is by definition a drug, you are also going through withdrawal from discontinuing its use. So you have toxins floating around in your body, not enough water and your body is craving more booze. You're in sad shape.
The first thing you want to do is drink water. The alcohol you drank last night is a diuretic, which made you pee more than usual. So now you're low on fluids and higher on nasty toxins. But the problem is that your body can only absorb fluids at a certain rate, so drinking more water doesn't mean that proportionately more water will get into your blood stream. So get yourself a subcutaneous intravenous saline drip. You'll first need the medical credentials that qualify you to purchase an IV, but once you have that you'll be on your way to hydrating your body. Step one.
The next thing you want to do is rid your body of toxins. There are a myriad of hangover pills on the market that contain charcoal, which purport to cleanse your body of these toxins. Historically, people were told to eat burnt toast, whereby the black carbon was supposed to filter out the toxins. But unlike toast, the pills on the market have "activated carbon," which also purifies water and helps to keep your fish tank nice and clean -- but doesn't necessarily do the same thing in your body.
While the charcoal could theoretically prevent a level of your symptoms' severity to a degree, it's not a cure. They can only handle a portion of the alcohol that you consumed. So if you over-consumed, which is what causes hangovers, they're not going to do much for you. What you want to do is get your hands on a dialysis machine. They're cheaper than you'd expect! You can find them on eBay for a few thousand bucks. Get yourself hooked up. If you can set up an Xbox, a dialysis machine won't give you much trouble. Once you get it going, it's going to take some of the strain off of your liver and get you back on your feet.
Curing the alcohol withdrawal is easy: A Bloody Mary will do the trick. Get yourself one of those helmets with straws coming out of it, as you should limit the movement of your arms, with the intravenous drip in one and the dialysis machine plugged into the other. (Note: nNver run these through the same arm!) All you need now is a voice activated phone so you can start offering blanket apologies to the people you went out with last night, but don't remember saying goodbye to.
Voila! You're now on the road to recovery.
As an alternative, you could just suck it up like a man -- or a woman. It's not like you don't deserve a hangover. Unlike finding a cure for cancer or the common cold, hangovers are self-induced. If you get the booze-flu, it's your fault. And to make it even more magical, the severity of your hangover is directly proportionate to your level of overindulgence. It's God's way of encouraging moderation.
The ultimate way to avoid a hangover is to abstain from drinking. But what fun is that?! Besides, if we didn't overindulge every now and then, your little brother never would have been born!
*Have fun, but seriously, don't drink and drive. That's for selfish losers who deserve to be punched in the privates.