Hangover cures for the average Indian

So you've just woken up late in the morning, expecting it to be another normal day where you work some, play some? Well, sorry. No such luck. That sandpaper in your mouth is an indication to something else entirely, isn't it? It's going to be a horrible morning. And depending on how much you enjoyed last night, it might very well last into early evening or late night.

So are we defenseless against this scurge of the fires of hell? Well, there are some things that don't cost too much, and will help you.

So, without much ado, here goes:

1. Eat before you start drinking. This will not only help the hangover, but also how drunk you get. A high carbohydrate, high protien diet (chicken sandwiches, daal bhat) will help you retain sanity on the day after.
2. Have drinks with juices rather than cola. The goodness of all those vitamins helps. Also, when you have effervescent drinks, they get absorbed faster (neat shots are the slowest, but that helps only if you're having them at the rate of one every hour). If alcohol gets in your bloodstream faster, the faster you'll lose control of how much you drink, and consequently end up drinking more alcohol.
3. Avoid the bar feed. The free goodies that come with your drink are high in salt and contribute significantly towards your thirst. So you end up drinking more, faster. Order a green salad instead. You'll have it slower, and the nutrients help in reducing the intensity of the headache you'll have the next morning.
4. If you couldn't eat before you started drinking (which will often be the case if you headed for the bar from office), remember to do it after your drinks. Before you hit the sack, have something with a lot of carbohydrates and protiens (chicken sandwich, daal bhat? :)). Basically the weakness and the listlessness that you feel has a lot to do with low energy levels
5. Have a Crocin (tm) before you sleep. Even if you don't like taking pills just for the sake of it. This is not for the sake of it. Drunken sleep is hardly ever restful. And this contributes a lot to the listlessness you feel in the morning after. Believe me, if the headache isn't there, you'll feel a lot more normal that you'd otherwise do.
6. Drink water. Alcohol is a diuretic. It makes your body believe that it has too much water and therefore the body counteracts by making you pee a lot. So you'll have lost copious amounts of water by the end of your session, and more by the time you sleep off. So you wake up severly dehydrated and very badly off. Drinking around a litre of water before you sleep and a glass between every 2 drinks will do wonders to ward off this devil.
7. So you didn't do all those things before sleeping off, and already have a hangover. So what do you do? Best thing is to still drink that litre of water and take a crocin and sleep for a couple of hours more. It helps.
8. Eat some sugary stuff. Your body will be very low on glucose, and that is the cause of the weakness that you feel. Drink a couple of glasses of fruit juice or a couple of tablespoons of glucose dissolved in water.
9. If you are a smoker, don't smoke until after lunch time. You'll notice that that cotton mouth feeling will cause a aftertaste that you can't shake off, and will cause a lot of misery.
10. And for those adventurous readers, please remember: the hair of the dog concept doesn't work here. You cannot consume more alcohol to cure a hangover. It will only delay some of the symptoms, and you can't go to work anyways (you'll be smelling more like a vat of whisky than anything else).

So enjoy responsibly, and beat that hangover. Its a trick that needs practice. You'll have to find out what works best for you and then stick with it. Ciao.