The hangover: how it happens, how to get over it

Many of us have experienced it — the dry mouth, the pounding headache, serving as a miserable reminder of why you should have stuck to your limit during a night of drinking.

The Calgary Eyeopener reached out to medical contributor Dr. Raj Bhardwaj to find out if there's any hope of healing a hangover.

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Q: Most of us know what a hangover feels like, what actually causes it?

We'd think that after thousands of years of drinking alcohol we'd know that by now. There's quite a debate about this, but it comes down to four things.

1. Dehydration
2. Being poisoned by the alcohol that you're drinking
3. Being poisoned by the impurities in the alcohol
4. Inflammation

Alcohol makes you pee more; the more you pee the more you become dehydrated. Alcohol gets absorbed in your stomach and small intestine and has to be broken down in your liver. 

Generic chemicals are also sometimes produced when we make or ferment alcohol, called congeners. Sometimes there's a tiny bit of methanol, sometimes there's a little bit of acetone (which is paint-thinner).

You're body gets angry at all the things that you are doing to it, and it reacts as if it's under attack. It puts out the same sort of hormones that it puts out when it's trying to fight the flu — so you get that achy and dizzy and tired kind of feeling.

Q: How do you make it go away — what works and what doesn't? 

Everyone talks about coffee. It can dehydrate you so you don't necessarily want to do that. Unless you happen to be sensitive to caffeine withdrawal headaches, coffee does help some people but then I'd double down on the hydration.

People say drink lots of water but the problem is if you're sick and peeing a lot, you're losing a lot more than just water. So you need to replenish not just the water but also the electrolytes — which is where the greasy fast food comes in.

Q: Ah, the big greasy breakfast, are you an advocate? 

The greasiness might help a little if you still have alcohol in your system and in your stomach. The grease will actually slow down how quickly that alcohol gets into your system.

The other part about a greasy breakfast is that it's usually very high in salt, which helps retain water. So pot noodles or ramen is the cure of choice in my household.

Q: What about the hair of the dog, maybe a Bloody Mary?

You know, not a good idea.

Q: No?

For two reasons. One, it actually makes the problems worse because you consume more alcohol that you have to break down and your liver has already run out of all these enzymes, so it's going to make your hangover last longer.

Second, it's one of the best ways to force your body to become dependent on alcohol and addicted to alcohol.

I'd write it out.

Q: Why isn't there just a pill for this?

There are scientists wanting to discover a pill. There are also scientists working on a synthetic alcohol, which would be some sort of party drug that has the same sort of effects but with none of the nasty side-effects.

So it's a tough nut to crack because there are so many ways that alcohol is hurting you and causing that hangover. 

Q: You know what else works? 

Don't drink too much, don't drink too fast. That's the only thing that works. 

Here are my top five tips:

1. Eat before you drink because eating will slow down how quickly the alcohol gets into your system.
2. Drink [water] before you drink. If you go in dehydrated, you're already behind the eight-ball.
3. Avoid coloured alcohol. They have more of those congeners in them compared to clear alcohol.
4. Avoid carbonated drinks. It makes your stomach empty faster so the alcohol gets absorbed more quickly.

The big one for me, make a plan for how you're getting home. If you're planning all your drinking, plan on how to get home safe.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener