Top 6 Friday: Hangover Types

6. The delayed hangover is perhaps the most vicious of all, you wake, a bit bleary eyed maybe but on collating your faculties you realise there is no pain, no rumbling, no intense burning weight labouring on your head. The day proceeds however and come the 11 o’clock mark, terror strikes, you suddenly realise you are John Hurt and that you did not escape your trip out without bringing back an evil species that has bode its time but now is going to go Hiroshima on your ass. This is truly the most suffering alcohol can induce, giving you hope only to rip it away with crushing brutality.

5. The guilty hangover is my speciality, during college I felt a disgrace for the lectures I would have missed, the carpets I would have puked on and the girls I would have made an ass of myself over so that I would throw myself into getting over the pain bit and proceeding to finish essays, organise notes or generally achieve something within a shorter period of time than normal so as to compensate myself for the lost hours and brain cells. Now out in the big bad world, the guilt trips have become more intense and existential - what could you have done with the money?, why couldn’t you put such energy into your work?, what are you achieving?

4. Then there is the unfair one. No while I think all hangovers are unfair, (why must we be punished for wanting to have a bit of fun?), nevertheless it is all the worse, when for instance on a Sunday night you are particularly restrained or you have something on the next day that you are conscious of so you withhold on the debauchery. Yet the morning light or more likely alarm clock brings with it the symptoms of being fed a vat of Jack Daniels intravenously so that you may as well have gone and gotten bladdered beyond recognition. Where is the justice? Though I am firmly standing up against the mantra of what’s the point in having one or two pints, people who can’t appreciate a social pint are not people I like to keep company with.

3. So there is the classic, though importantly people usually fall under two categories here - head sick or stomach sick and each to varying degrees, whether it be unable to lift your head to unable to leave the bathroom. Water may be too difficult to hold down, light may be too difficult to tolerate or you may simply have a headache or rumbling belly. I am usually awoken by a head ache, Dublin for some reason though has brought with it an extremely susceptible stomach, so that I am cursed nowadays with the double whammy hangover. So too everyone has their own cures to these standard assaults on our body - Club Orange, a salty Irish breakfast, spicy food, toast, enter as appropriate……………..

2. Up next is an outright punishment - tiredness, a disruption to drinking, a walk home or some such event which begins the sobering effect brings on the hangover before you ever hit the hay let alone have some refrain to enjoy the alcohol buzz before the morning decides to rear it’s ugly head. Why?

1. Then there is the ‘oh god, what did I do?’ hangover. As well as any of the pressures the hangover may be putting on the respective ends of your body, you may wake and have no recollection of anything, it may take time for you to realize what day it is and what event you have slept in for but more damagingly you will have no notion of what you did, where you were, what time you got home. Reaching for your wallet, phone you look for clues as to what you may have to account for later in the day. The fear of the unknown adds immeasurably to any hangover, you wait cautiously for the post mortem to begin, anxious as to the look on peoples faces the first time you see them. This is the hangover with repercussions.