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What is a hangover, really? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles Chuckers Bryant,
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Speaker 1: and that means it's the stuff you should know, right, Yes,
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Speaker 1: the over twenty one years old Chuck Bryant. Yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: a that's a big deal for this one. Chuck. We're
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Speaker 1: just gonna go ahead and see o A right now,
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Speaker 1: say that this is about drinking, and if you're under
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Speaker 1: twenty one, you should not drink. Chuck, have you ever
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Speaker 1: consumed an alcoholic beverage? I have over still at c A.
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Speaker 1: If you're over twenty one, you should drink responsively. Yes,
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Speaker 1: don't drink and drive. Um. If you have a problem,
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Speaker 1: uh yeah, heavy machineries a big one. If you have
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Speaker 1: a problem, you can contact alcoholics anonymous. Right, I've always
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Speaker 1: wanted to test that one. Get really plowed and just
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Speaker 1: sit down behind a bulldozer. I always imagine fork lifts
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Speaker 1: with heads, heavy machinery. I go straight to the dozer. So, yes,
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Speaker 1: I have had an alcoholic beverage before. What was your
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Speaker 1: experience with it? Like, did you feel a little light headed,
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Speaker 1: a little crazy, a little get inhibited? I wanted to
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Speaker 1: kiss somebody? Did you end up kissing anybody? I did?
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Speaker 1: I kissed my dog. Didn't you make out with a
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Speaker 1: friend's sister at a YouTube concert once? I did? Were
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Speaker 1: you under the effects of alcohol during that time? I
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Speaker 1: was okay, this was gimea break, Chuck. Did you end
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Speaker 1: up with a hangover that day? Yes? I did the
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Speaker 1: same day the next day? Yeah? Sure? So how did
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Speaker 1: you feel? I felt? I had a headache, I had
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Speaker 1: a poor sense of well being. I've had sensitivity to
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Speaker 1: light and sound, diarrhea, loss of appetite, trembling, nausea, fatigue,
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Speaker 1: you had the whole list, hydration, anxiety, trouble, sleeping, weakness. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's a bad hangover right there. That's all the symptoms,
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Speaker 1: you know. The one that always gets me the worst
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Speaker 1: whenever I have a hangover is the loss of the
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Speaker 1: sense of well being. I feel like I am right
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Speaker 1: there on the edge of danger. Everybody's gunning for me.
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Speaker 1: I feel horrible then real, Yeah, it's really bad, it really.
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Speaker 1: I've always assumed it affects my serotonin level. Sure, I
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Speaker 1: didn't see anything in this article about that, right. I
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Speaker 1: thought I was gonna have to get taken to the
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Speaker 1: hospital in Portland, Oregon one time, did you? Yeah? The
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Speaker 1: next day Emily asked me as her friend's wedding. She said, Okay,
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Speaker 1: do you like need to go to the hospital? And
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Speaker 1: I went, maybe I was serious. So let's talk about this, chuck.
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Speaker 1: What are the mechanisms that lie behind the cursed and
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Speaker 1: dreaded hangover? Vice algia? Yeah? Is that the correct pronunciation.
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Speaker 1: That's how I took it. That's the medical medical name
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Speaker 1: for hangover is vice algia. Yeah, And it comes from
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Speaker 1: a Norwegian word for uneasiness following debauchery and a Greek
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Speaker 1: word for pain algaia, which is weird. I've never seen
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Speaker 1: a Norwegian and Greek put together. I haven't either, But yeah,
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Speaker 1: you come up with vice algia? Can I say that
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Speaker 1: the Bible verse two? Yeah? Yeah, there's a Bible verse
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Speaker 1: that talks about hangovers. It's Isaiah five eleven. Woe unto
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Speaker 1: them that rise up early in the morning, that they
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Speaker 1: may follow strong drink. In other words, I feel real
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Speaker 1: sorry for you that you had to get up early.
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Speaker 1: If you got hammered last night, truer words have never
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Speaker 1: been written in the Bible, at least translation at least
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Speaker 1: translation there. Um. So okay, so we've got that down.
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Speaker 1: We have the word origin and a Bible quote as
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Speaker 1: this pretty much whenever you talk about a hangover. So
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Speaker 1: what's going on there, Chuck, Well, there's a bunch of things. Um,
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Speaker 1: let's go ahead and start with vasopressing. Yeah, here's here is,
3:45
Speaker 1: by the way, everyone, a cocktail party conversation tidbit. So
3:50
Speaker 1: it's your next cocktail party. You might want to just
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Speaker 1: bring this up. Okay, it might be kind of depressing
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Speaker 1: to bring this up actually a cocktail party. Well, this
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Speaker 1: is the This is how you explain breaking the seal,
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Speaker 1: which I know that you have experienced. It's crazy once
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Speaker 1: you once you urinate, and we're gonna stick to the
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Speaker 1: clinical terms here, Chuck, all right, let's keep it above
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Speaker 1: the breaking the seal. That's clinical. Um. Once you urinate
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Speaker 1: that first time, after you've started drinking, it seems like
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Speaker 1: you just keep going and going and going and you
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Speaker 1: can't stop, and you actually can't, right right. So vasa pressing,
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Speaker 1: that's a pressing. Yes, when you drink booze, uh, it
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Speaker 1: enters your bloodstream and the pituitary gland blocks the creation
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Speaker 1: of vasso pressing, and without this, your kidney starts sending
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Speaker 1: water straight to your bladder, basically right to the tune
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Speaker 1: of four times more than you actually drink. So you
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Speaker 1: drink two fifty milli leaders of alcohol. Uh, you can
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Speaker 1: shoot out up to a thousand milli leaders or a leader?
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Speaker 1: Is that the clinical term to shoot out? Yeah, So
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Speaker 1: that's no mistake. If you've ever had a few beers
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Speaker 1: and you're thinking, Wow, that's so weird, I use the
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Speaker 1: bathroom and now I can't stop. That's v's depressing right there, right, Um,
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Speaker 1: and that's called the diuretic effect. Um. As the the
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Speaker 1: presence of alcohol increases in the bloodstream, Um, you expel
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Speaker 1: a lot more water, right, But you're not just expelling water. Also,
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Speaker 1: we should say this leads directly to dehydration. If you're
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Speaker 1: expelling four times more liquid than you're consuming, Brother, you're
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Speaker 1: getting dehydrated, which is one of the signature results of
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Speaker 1: the hangover. And you get the headache because of that
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Speaker 1: and other things too. You do and the headache. And
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Speaker 1: we've talked about this before. I don't remember where, so
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Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't, you know, try to come up with
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Speaker 1: a time stamp. But um, when you have a hangover,
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Speaker 1: your brain actually shrinks. The next day, the other organs
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Speaker 1: in your body are like you brain, you've got a
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Speaker 1: bunch of water exactly, So a lot of the water
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Speaker 1: um is shuffled from your brain to other organs, causing
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Speaker 1: your brain to actually shrink in size, which pulls on
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Speaker 1: the membranes that connected to the skull, the meningies. And
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Speaker 1: you know, when you have a really had hangover, you
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Speaker 1: wake up and you feel like the membranes of your
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Speaker 1: skull are being pulled in different So when I read this,
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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so that's what that is. Or
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Speaker 1: like there's a four hundred pound ham fisted man with
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Speaker 1: hair and his knuckles like doing little twirls in your head.
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Speaker 1: You know. Have you ever speaking of breaking the seal?
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Speaker 1: I don't think they did this in Athens at Georgia,
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Speaker 1: but I know some friends at Georgia Southern there were
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Speaker 1: bars there that had the drink till you pee for
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Speaker 1: free promotion? Have you ever heard of those? But it
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Speaker 1: sounds awesome. Basically, it like starting at six o'clock, they
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Speaker 1: monitor the bathrooms and everyone in the bar gets to
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Speaker 1: drink for free until the first person in the bar
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Speaker 1: goes to the bathroom. And I don't think they have
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Speaker 1: that in Athens, if they didn't when I was there.
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Speaker 1: And of course because it's you know, a college, there's
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Speaker 1: like dudes peeing in beer pictures in the corner, you know,
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Speaker 1: just to keep not to not have to pay the
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Speaker 1: two others whether or not there's that you know, contest
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Speaker 1: or promotion. So it's science science. Uh so, okay, that's
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Speaker 1: vast oppressing, right, yes, resulting in dehydration. But when you're
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Speaker 1: um urinating everywhere every which way, whether it's in a
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Speaker 1: beer picture or otherwise, Um, you're also expelling a lot
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Speaker 1: of other needed stuff like electrolytes, salt, potassium, salt, potassium, magnesium,
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Speaker 1: and these all affect how you're like cells function, how
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Speaker 1: your muscle's function, right, and you're getting rid of it
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Speaker 1: without putting it back in. So you're gonna feel lousy. Yes, indeed,
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Speaker 1: you are going to feel lousy. So you're dehydrated, You've
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Speaker 1: lost electrolytes, right, and the electrolyte and balance is really important. Um,
7:37
Speaker 1: if you have too much salt in your electrolyte, and
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Speaker 1: balance is too high, Uh, you die. Um, if you
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Speaker 1: have too little, you get the shakes, the tremors, which
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Speaker 1: I understand is the most uncommon symptom of hangovers. Which
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Speaker 1: makes me nervous because I get the shakes just about
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Speaker 1: every time. The next day, I've never gotten the shakes.
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Speaker 1: What I've never got in the shakes. It also points
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Speaker 1: out in this article that hangovers are subjective, so for
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Speaker 1: each person, you know, they might experience different like oh,
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Speaker 1: I've never had a hangover, or when you get the
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Speaker 1: shakes and you have a loss of a sense of
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Speaker 1: well being. Yeah, that's like Nick Cage and leaving Las
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Speaker 1: Vegas kind of wow. Yeah, I've always been like, wow,
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Speaker 1: that'd be great to have a grocery cart in a
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Speaker 1: liquor store. What a great scene. Should we talk about
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Speaker 1: glacogen real quick too? Yeah, that's another thing you lose. Yes, Um,
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Speaker 1: the glacogen is a is a key energy source and uh,
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Speaker 1: we turns it goes to the liver and turns into glucouse.
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Speaker 1: Is that correct? Right? Well, the liver turns it into
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Speaker 1: glucost and then sends it out like what the heck
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Speaker 1: is going on and just does something and all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden You've just lost all of your energies. I'll
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Speaker 1: just pee everything out just to be sure exactly. Basically,
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Speaker 1: it's what's going on, and that actually accounts for like
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Speaker 1: the weakness the next day fatigue um. And actually that's
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Speaker 1: not that's not the only thing that accounts for fatigue. Um.
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Speaker 1: You don't sleep very well after a night of heavy drinking.
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Speaker 1: Glut to mine. Yes, you have glut to mine, which
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Speaker 1: is a another it's actually a stimulant um, natural stimulant, yes,
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Speaker 1: which is the only good kind of stimulant um. And uh,
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Speaker 1: when you drink alcohol, the production of this natural stimulant
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Speaker 1: is actually blocked. So when you stop drinking e g.
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Speaker 1: Go to sleep, your body tries to make up for
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Speaker 1: lost time and overproduces glutaman. So means you're not getting
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Speaker 1: as gonna sleep exactly. And the next day you also
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Speaker 1: feel restless and anxious. Um, maybe you've got the shakes.
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Speaker 1: That's another cocktail party tip. If you know that if
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Speaker 1: you start saying all these things that your next cocktail party,
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Speaker 1: you probably won't be invited back to the next cocktail party. Though,
9:47
Speaker 1: you know, I think you can wow some people. It
9:49
Speaker 1: depends on how cool your cocktail party. I guess I
9:53
Speaker 1: could see them all saying, now, like, why are you
9:55
Speaker 1: telling us all these awful things about drinking unless my
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Speaker 1: kind of cocktail party, it's great for me. Another one.
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Speaker 1: Screw glycogen, screw bass repressing. Uh so what else, Josh? Well,
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Speaker 1: we could talk about the impurities of liquor, the different alcohols. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: The rule of thumb is the darker the alcohol, the
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Speaker 1: more impure it is, and therefore the the heavier the hangover. Yes,
10:24
Speaker 1: which is why I think everyone pretty much knows that
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Speaker 1: like your worst alcoholics, they like start drinking every morning
10:31
Speaker 1: when they wake up, they're probably drinking vodka. Yes, it's
10:34
Speaker 1: actually a good thing to drink if you are an alcoholic,
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Speaker 1: because you're going to be able to be as close
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Speaker 1: to a function alcoholic as possible. Right. How about that
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Speaker 1: study with the bourbon. Yeah, thirty they did study between
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Speaker 1: bourbon and vodka, and uh, of the people who drank
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Speaker 1: amount of bourbon relative to their body weight had a
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Speaker 1: severe hangover, and only three percent had a hangover when
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Speaker 1: they drank vodka. That's a big white wine, that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing. Um, light run yeah, Jen, Yeah, conversely, dark rum,
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Speaker 1: it's bad white tequila is good. Basically, if it's dark,
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Speaker 1: it's going to kill you. I'm in bad shape then,
11:10
Speaker 1: because I'm you know, I mean, I'm a bourbon red
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Speaker 1: wine beer guy. That's funny. I'm like the whatever's in
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Speaker 1: the glass guy. Right, that's good. You're fun to have
11:20
Speaker 1: the cocktail party because you're not picky. No, as long
11:22
Speaker 1: as you don't run an ice so you know, as
11:24
Speaker 1: long as there's not a cigarette but floating in it,
11:25
Speaker 1: I'll think it. And then sometimes even then, I don't
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Speaker 1: think that hasn't happened before, Chuck. Basically, what I took
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Speaker 1: from this article is when you drink, you are poisoning
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Speaker 1: your body through coningers. There's through impurities in the alcohol,
11:40
Speaker 1: but also through the body's natural processes of breaking down
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Speaker 1: out alcohol too. It Actually there's a there's a byproduct
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Speaker 1: produced when the liver metabolizes alcohol, um called acid aldehyde. Yeah,
11:55
Speaker 1: take this one, because this kind of I read it
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Speaker 1: like three times and I was still a little lost. Okay,
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Speaker 1: allow me please. So basically, when the liver metabolizes alcohol,
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Speaker 1: it produces a byproduct that's a toxin called acid aldehyde,
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Speaker 1: and acid aldehyde is actually more toxic to the body
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Speaker 1: than alcohol. Itself, which is crazy. But we have natural
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Speaker 1: mechanism for neutralizing acid aldehyde called appropriate appropriately enough acid
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Speaker 1: aldehyde dehydrogenase appropriately so that stuff goes and attacks the
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Speaker 1: acid aldehyde. Right. Then we have this other stuff that
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Speaker 1: is called glutoth ione, right, and it contains high levels
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Speaker 1: of a substance called cysteine, and cysteine actually is attracted
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Speaker 1: to acid aldehyde. So the two things combine, acid aldehyde
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Speaker 1: dehydrogen ase and the cysteine in the glutoth ione uh
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Speaker 1: combined to neutralize the acid aldehyde, right, and it does
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Speaker 1: it pretty quickly. Um. You you are going to feel
12:53
Speaker 1: some ill effects, but the less you drink, the easier
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Speaker 1: it is for these two substances to neutralize. Byproduct, is
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Speaker 1: the alcohol metabolized. Okay, here's the problem. You have a
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Speaker 1: limited store of glue tooth ione in your liver, so
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Speaker 1: you use it up pretty quick. And women have even
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Speaker 1: less than men exactly, which accounts for why women tend
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Speaker 1: to have more harsh hangovers and harsher hangovers than men,
13:17
Speaker 1: not just body weight, although that does matter. Um. So
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Speaker 1: you use up your glue tooth ione stores and once
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Speaker 1: you do that, you're blood is just basically circulating this
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Speaker 1: toxic acid aldehyde, while the liver generates more glue tooth ione.
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Speaker 1: Hence you've got this horrible hangover and why ultimately time
13:37
Speaker 1: is the only remedy for it. Yeah, well let's get
13:40
Speaker 1: to that in a second. Let's get to the remedies.
13:42
Speaker 1: Let's talk about liquor before beer, never fear or is
13:46
Speaker 1: it the other way around here? Before liquor, never sticker
13:48
Speaker 1: or sick. There's you're a little bit of truth to
13:50
Speaker 1: that turns out because of it when folk totally um,
13:56
Speaker 1: it turns out that the carbonation and beer speeds up
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Speaker 1: the absorption of alcohol. So if you start with beer,
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Speaker 1: your body's gonna have and then move on to liquor,
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Speaker 1: your body is in fact gonna have a harder time
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Speaker 1: processing those toxins. Even though there's a certain age. My
14:10
Speaker 1: friend Justin, I you know, Justin, we were talking about
14:13
Speaker 1: this a few years ago. Someone was remarking about we
14:16
Speaker 1: had a big night out and like, what was it
14:17
Speaker 1: liquor before beer? Be before liquor? I can't remember, And
14:20
Speaker 1: I just said, you know what doesn't matter anymore, No,
14:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna be hurting. You reach a certain age and
14:24
Speaker 1: it either doesn't affect you or it's gonna affect you
14:26
Speaker 1: no matter what those are college rules. I've noted through
14:30
Speaker 1: my own personal observations, um that at about age twenty
14:34
Speaker 1: four you get as you start getting really severe hangovers.
14:38
Speaker 1: I haven't figured out exactly why yet, but that seems
14:41
Speaker 1: to be about the age when you switch over from
14:44
Speaker 1: I can do this constantly to Oh God, why why
14:48
Speaker 1: I've got the shake cause I have a loss of
14:50
Speaker 1: sense of well being? Right? Yeah, vomiting diarrhea. I don't
14:54
Speaker 1: know why. Maybe that's when puberty ends. There's something to
14:56
Speaker 1: do with hormones still floating around in the body. If
14:59
Speaker 1: you're puberty into then uh, prebody doesn't in your twenties.
15:04
Speaker 1: I pubody ended when I was like fourteen, but it
15:08
Speaker 1: started when I was seven. So seven. Uh, where are
15:14
Speaker 1: we now? Are we talking about vomiting? Yeah, it turns
15:17
Speaker 1: out that that actually does help. And also, chuck, Um,
15:20
Speaker 1: since we have a drinking game based on this and
15:25
Speaker 1: we're talking about hangovers, allow me, okay, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck,
15:30
Speaker 1: chuck chuck. That should keep them for a little while.
15:34
Speaker 1: Go ahead, chuck. Uh alcohol, what's going on there is
15:38
Speaker 1: it is indeed better to vomit because when alcohol is
15:41
Speaker 1: absorbed directly through the stomach. And when that happens, you're
15:44
Speaker 1: the lining of your stomach is gonna become irritated and say, hey,
15:48
Speaker 1: thanks for putting all this poison in me. And um,
15:53
Speaker 1: it's gonna start secreting, secreting hydrochloric acid. Right, and the
15:56
Speaker 1: hydrochloric acid is actually what makes you vomit. Um here
16:00
Speaker 1: messages to the brain, says the stomach is really connected
16:03
Speaker 1: to the brain via hormonal signals, which don't necessarily end
16:07
Speaker 1: after puberty, right and um, yeah, your stomach says you've
16:12
Speaker 1: got to get rid of this stuff. And yeah, and
16:15
Speaker 1: it turns out that's you know, you probably shouldn't make
16:17
Speaker 1: yourself throw up because it's dangerous. It could become a problem.
16:21
Speaker 1: If you're drinking so much and you're making yourself throw up,
16:23
Speaker 1: you do have a problem. You should check into a
16:26
Speaker 1: clinic or something. Check into Promises in Malibu if you've
16:29
Speaker 1: got the cash. But it will make you feel a
16:32
Speaker 1: little better because obviously your body is not gonna have
16:34
Speaker 1: to process whatever alcohol is stolen your stomach. So there
16:37
Speaker 1: you have it. Uh, what are we on to now, buddy?
16:40
Speaker 1: I think we're we kind of nailed what it is.
16:42
Speaker 1: So should we talk about some of the cures that
16:45
Speaker 1: people spout. Yeah, there are plenty of hangover cures. Everybody's
16:49
Speaker 1: got one. Yeah, and actually I'm surprised to find that
16:52
Speaker 1: some of them actually are real. Now that you understand
16:55
Speaker 1: what causes a hangover, you can actually identify what will
16:59
Speaker 1: help here a hangover, sure, because really what's going on
17:02
Speaker 1: is you've expelled electrolytes. It's biology you've expelled exactly, You've
17:06
Speaker 1: expelled your natural energy stores. Um, you are dehydrated and
17:13
Speaker 1: your brain is strung. Yeah, so what do you do
17:16
Speaker 1: to make yourself feel better? Chuck? My personal favorite's hair
17:21
Speaker 1: of the dog. Well, that helped me or not? Uh,
17:24
Speaker 1: it will not. You know where that comes from? Uh,
17:26
Speaker 1: it's the Bible again, isn't it. No Nazareth medieval times though,
17:30
Speaker 1: the hair of the dog that bit you. Supposedly, if
17:32
Speaker 1: you got bit by a rabid dog, you would take
17:34
Speaker 1: some of that dog's hair and apply it to your
17:36
Speaker 1: wound and that will cure you. This is the same
17:39
Speaker 1: culture that buried a cat at midnight to cure war exactly.
17:42
Speaker 1: So just like that is false hair the dog, it's
17:45
Speaker 1: faults as well. Having a drink the next day to
17:48
Speaker 1: make yourself feel a little bit better will not work.
17:50
Speaker 1: Might make you feel a bit better in the in
17:52
Speaker 1: the short term, but ultimately you're just adding more toxins
17:55
Speaker 1: that your body is gonna have to process, and you're
17:57
Speaker 1: kind of just staving off the inevitable hangover. Unless you
18:00
Speaker 1: just drink all day again and then you'll have to
18:03
Speaker 1: hang over the following day. Yeah, exactly. Um, unless you
18:07
Speaker 1: just keep going until you die and then you won
18:11
Speaker 1: the game. I was taking a walk with Emily yesterday
18:15
Speaker 1: with the dogs the shows how twisted I am? And
18:18
Speaker 1: I saw it was eight o'clock in the morning, seven
18:21
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, something like that, And there was
18:23
Speaker 1: a guy down the street from us in the parking lot,
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, cracking his first King Cobra. And I said,
18:29
Speaker 1: you know what, am? I said? Ninety nine times out
18:31
Speaker 1: of a hundred, I see those people, and I think, God,
18:34
Speaker 1: how could you live your life like just getting bombed
18:36
Speaker 1: for the moment you wake up every day? I said,
18:39
Speaker 1: But every once in a while, I think what a
18:41
Speaker 1: way to live? She said? She said, what is wrong
18:45
Speaker 1: with you? Exactly? Doesn't she well, she doesn't let me
18:49
Speaker 1: get up and get drunk every day. If that's what
18:51
Speaker 1: you mean, that's keeping you in line. Okay, she does,
18:54
Speaker 1: um chuck. One of the things that kills me is
18:56
Speaker 1: drinking coffee. I learned a long time ago that if
18:59
Speaker 1: I ever have a hangover, I stay away from coffee.
19:01
Speaker 1: So I'm surprised to find in this article that actually
19:03
Speaker 1: it does have some benefits agreed, which are, Uh, it
19:08
Speaker 1: will actually um alleviate your headache a little bit because
19:11
Speaker 1: it's caffeine and that's a vasso constrictor, so it reduces
19:15
Speaker 1: the your blood vessels. It reduces the swelling, so that'll
19:18
Speaker 1: help a little bit. It'll help cure the headache some.
19:20
Speaker 1: But it'll dehydrate you because it's a diuretic because it's
19:23
Speaker 1: a diarettice, which is how you really got into this
19:25
Speaker 1: trouble in the first place. So stop being stupid. Saying
19:28
Speaker 1: coffee along with a lot of water might be a
19:29
Speaker 1: good idea. Possibly, it's just me, right, Okay. So what else? Uh?
19:34
Speaker 1: Fatty fatty food, fried food the next day. Yeah, which
19:37
Speaker 1: is odd because I know I crave fried food the
19:40
Speaker 1: next day. Cheeseburger, bacon, chili, cheeseburger. It's like two hamburgers.
19:47
Speaker 1: A year and they're on hangover days. She doesn't eat
19:50
Speaker 1: meat beef at all, but when she wakes up with
19:53
Speaker 1: a really bad hanger, she's like quarter pounder. It's very
19:55
Speaker 1: It's strange because obviously she's not the only person who
19:58
Speaker 1: experiences that craving. But that doesn't necessarily help and could
20:02
Speaker 1: actually make you vomit. It could tip the scales when
20:04
Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of hydrochloric acid in your stomach.
20:07
Speaker 1: But it could help if you ate a bacon chili
20:11
Speaker 1: cheeseburger or two bacon chili cheeseburgers before you started drinking it.
20:15
Speaker 1: Why because it contains oil and the fat and the
20:19
Speaker 1: grease will line your stomach and absolutely and in fact,
20:24
Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean they have long drank a little bit
20:28
Speaker 1: of olive oil before imbibing. It's an old thing they do.
20:31
Speaker 1: They're not I'm not either. I like ol of o,
20:35
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna drink a tablespoon of it. No
20:37
Speaker 1: me neither. Okay, Uh, how about a banana. I'm just
20:40
Speaker 1: gonna pull that one out of my head, out of
20:43
Speaker 1: your banana tree um remedy, yes, okay, loaded with potassium electrolytes.
20:50
Speaker 1: And because remember you lose potassium, which is an electrolyte,
20:54
Speaker 1: so if you can remember, restore the balance. So banana
20:56
Speaker 1: will help your hangover as well. Eggs, yeah, since we're
21:00
Speaker 1: on breakfast, because they contain cisteine, right, which is something
21:04
Speaker 1: that's attracted to acid aldehyde. Right, So eggs in a
21:07
Speaker 1: banana and water would be a great way to start
21:10
Speaker 1: your morning if you had to hang over, Not just water,
21:11
Speaker 1: but water loaded with sugar and salt. Actually, right, because
21:15
Speaker 1: the carbonation it would do the same thing as it
21:18
Speaker 1: did with the beer before liquor. So you want uncarbonated
21:23
Speaker 1: water load of a salt sugar, not a red Bull no,
21:27
Speaker 1: because it has caffeine. Not an energy drink. Uncarbonated non
21:31
Speaker 1: caffeine water with salt and sugar, which I think I
21:36
Speaker 1: just described a supports drink, right, A banana and some
21:41
Speaker 1: eggs or you know what else you can do instead
21:42
Speaker 1: of water? Put some fruit juice in there. Fruit juice.
21:47
Speaker 1: Fruit juice is the kind of the kind of sugar
21:50
Speaker 1: you want fruit toase, and studies have shown that it
21:53
Speaker 1: increases the rate that which your body gets rid of
21:56
Speaker 1: the toxins, and uh, that's a good idea. It also
21:59
Speaker 1: gives you vitamins of course, Okay, what about um say
22:02
Speaker 1: etcetera seta menafin a seeda menafin is uh, well, you
22:07
Speaker 1: you want to avoid etcetera because has caffeine, right, which
22:10
Speaker 1: can help. But ultimately, now and a set of menafin
22:15
Speaker 1: I believe you don't want to take because that can
22:17
Speaker 1: mess with your liver. Ultimately, if you have alcohol in yours,
22:20
Speaker 1: if you take a set of mena fin for a hangover,
22:23
Speaker 1: you are probably going to feel a little better. Actually
22:27
Speaker 1: you'll probably feel a lot better. But in the long run,
22:29
Speaker 1: your liver is gonna fall apart. Yeah, you're doing your body. Damn,
22:32
Speaker 1: You're gonna expel that through your urine. So what you
22:34
Speaker 1: want to do is get a non caffeinated anti inflammatory
22:39
Speaker 1: prostaglandin inhibitor, which is also known as aspirin, which is good.
22:44
Speaker 1: So aspirin will help that. It's shown that prostaglandin actually
22:47
Speaker 1: uh reeks havoc on your body during hangover. So if
22:50
Speaker 1: you take a prostaglandin inhibitor, you're gonna feel a lot better.
22:54
Speaker 1: And apparently there have been studies that show yes, aspirin helps,
22:58
Speaker 1: especially if you take one before you go to bed.
23:03
Speaker 1: And you take two when you wake up, But be
23:05
Speaker 1: aware people with tender stomachs often vomit from aspirate. Right,
23:11
Speaker 1: you know what my curious let's talk about each other's curious.
23:14
Speaker 1: If you got one, Um, surely you do. What do
23:18
Speaker 1: I do? You want to hear mine? Yeah? Mine is?
23:21
Speaker 1: My deal is I can't sleep in anymore. It doesn't
23:23
Speaker 1: matter if I was out till three in the morning.
23:25
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna wake up at seven. It's just the
23:27
Speaker 1: way it is. When you're old, you'll you'll experience this
23:30
Speaker 1: one day. I get up at seven like I normally do,
23:34
Speaker 1: and I drink I pound like three or four glasses
23:37
Speaker 1: of water, take a couple of aspirin, and then I
23:39
Speaker 1: get right back in bed and see if I can
23:41
Speaker 1: get like another hour to a sleep, and then I
23:43
Speaker 1: wake up in at That works crazy well, especially works
23:48
Speaker 1: with advil. If you take a couple of advil and
23:50
Speaker 1: you have even like a half hour, preferably an hour
23:53
Speaker 1: extra to sleep. For some reason, Anville always makes me sleepy.
23:57
Speaker 1: It makes me fall asleep very easily. Never it out why,
24:01
Speaker 1: But yeah, you wake up an hour later and you
24:03
Speaker 1: are set. It's a great one because sleep is only real,
24:06
Speaker 1: real key to carrying a hangover. They say, yeah, well, time,
24:11
Speaker 1: well that that's usually what I rely on. It's time, um,
24:14
Speaker 1: and I pound a few Coca colas in the morning,
24:17
Speaker 1: which is not good for me, but it works, right.
24:20
Speaker 1: And then as burn, is that what they say? Yeah?
24:22
Speaker 1: And then I don't make eye contact with anybody because
24:24
Speaker 1: they're all out to get me. That's how I make
24:27
Speaker 1: it through the day when I have a hangover. Sure,
24:29
Speaker 1: And again we should say, please don't find any of
24:31
Speaker 1: this funny, entertaining, or amusing if you're twenty one years
24:34
Speaker 1: or older. And if you are twenty one years or older,
24:37
Speaker 1: please find it amusing responsibly. Uh. We should talk about
24:41
Speaker 1: some of these over the counter, like anti hangover pills
24:44
Speaker 1: that you can buy. You heard of these, yeah, like Chasers. Yeah,
24:50
Speaker 1: they're they're basically multi vitamins. And here's the deal. Well,
24:54
Speaker 1: some are activated carbon, which can work. But here's the deal.
24:57
Speaker 1: If you if you read on the package, it'll say
24:59
Speaker 1: something like us, um, drink a full glass twel bounced
25:02
Speaker 1: glass of water before you start drinking, and take a pill.
25:05
Speaker 1: And then after your second or third drink, drink another
25:07
Speaker 1: glass of water and take another pill and then do
25:09
Speaker 1: that again. Then before you go to bed, drink a
25:11
Speaker 1: glass of water with a pill, and then wake up
25:13
Speaker 1: and drink a glass of water with a bill. So
25:15
Speaker 1: you're basically taking a vitamin downing tons of water, which
25:18
Speaker 1: is and that's the key is the water. You're hydrating yourself.
25:21
Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a rip off, um, but
25:24
Speaker 1: not necessarily because it is recommended that you do take
25:27
Speaker 1: a multi vitamin the next morning. But just take a
25:31
Speaker 1: multi vitamin, don't pay for some hangover cure. You know.
25:34
Speaker 1: What else helps is to actually be cognizant and not
25:37
Speaker 1: a total drunk while you're drinking. Yes, um, if you
25:40
Speaker 1: drink glass for glass water for alcohol. Number one, it
25:44
Speaker 1: keeps you hydrated. But number two, it also paces your
25:47
Speaker 1: drinking so that your body has more time to process
25:50
Speaker 1: this alcohol. It's not just like bom bomb. You know.
25:53
Speaker 1: I've gotten better at that. Oh yeah, sure, I try
25:56
Speaker 1: to be. If I have like a big night out,
25:57
Speaker 1: I try to be pretty aware of uh drinking a
26:00
Speaker 1: couple of glasses of water here and there, and I
26:01
Speaker 1: always will pound two or three glasses before I get
26:04
Speaker 1: to bed. For you, chuck, it's the way to do it,
26:06
Speaker 1: all right. So there you have it. That's the hangover, right. Yeah.
26:10
Speaker 1: A couple other things you can do beforehand is eat. Obviously,
26:14
Speaker 1: alcohol and the empty stomach is gonna get you there quicker,
26:18
Speaker 1: but it will get you sicker and make you feel worse.
26:21
Speaker 1: So water, what else you say, multi vitamins? Drinking Moderation,
26:25
Speaker 1: of course is the key with everything. Watch what you're drinking,
26:29
Speaker 1: red wine, bourbon. It's gonna make you feel bad. It
26:33
Speaker 1: tastes sugary sweet on your tongue, but it'll make you
26:36
Speaker 1: feel worse. I'm in trouble though. I wish I could
26:39
Speaker 1: learn to drink vodka. I just don't take it. Is
26:41
Speaker 1: so wonderful, isn't nice? I drink gin and tonics occasionally
26:45
Speaker 1: during the summertime months, but I can't drink those. Gin
26:47
Speaker 1: actually makes me crazy. I have a self imposed band
26:52
Speaker 1: on gin. I won't drink it. I don't allow myself
26:54
Speaker 1: to drink it because it makes me nuts. And apparently
26:58
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century, uh, the UK actually banned or
27:02
Speaker 1: I should say England banned because nuts. Yeah yeah, so
27:08
Speaker 1: jin was banned in England for a little while because
27:11
Speaker 1: people went like I did. Sure, you know, different alcohols
27:14
Speaker 1: through that tequila is notorious for making people violent and
27:18
Speaker 1: the act out of sorts. Never had a problem with tequila,
27:21
Speaker 1: I mean neither. My buddy Scottie has a red wine thing.
27:24
Speaker 1: Completely personality shift when he drinks it, really but yeah,
27:28
Speaker 1: it becomes a completely different person. You know, Alexander the
27:31
Speaker 1: Great died from a red wine drinking competition. One of
27:35
Speaker 1: his soldiers challenged into it and they apparently drank like
27:39
Speaker 1: five million gallons apiece. And Alexander is a great one
27:42
Speaker 1: off and died. Boy. I bet the alcohol back then
27:44
Speaker 1: was rough too, man, Yeah, you know they love their wine.
27:47
Speaker 1: Those are the good old days. Well, if you want
27:50
Speaker 1: to learn absolutely every last detail there is to know
27:54
Speaker 1: about a hangover, you should read this fine, fine article
27:57
Speaker 1: by freelancer Lacey Perry called how Hangovers Work. You can
28:01
Speaker 1: just type in hangover in the handy search bar at
28:04
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Also check out our Kiva
28:07
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28:15
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28:31
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28:38
Speaker 1: of our blog posts. Yes, we've got close to a
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Speaker 1: hundred members and about bucks raised and it's pretty cool.
28:44
Speaker 1: Let's do listener, mam, Let's do listening now. Okay, Josh,
28:49
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. Uh, don't kill me. I'm just
28:53
Speaker 1: the enumerator. This is a good one. Hi, guys, hope
28:57
Speaker 1: this finds you well. My name is Mark and I
28:59
Speaker 1: live in fish Kill, New York, which is an interesting town.
29:03
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Gross National Happiness podcast and
29:06
Speaker 1: you mentioned the census worker being killed. I thought i'd
29:08
Speaker 1: send an email. I was a Census Bureau worker in
29:12
Speaker 1: two thousand. It was I was a care free nineteen
29:15
Speaker 1: year old on summer break. My friends and I saw
29:17
Speaker 1: the ad in the paper and took the exam and
29:20
Speaker 1: became official enumerators, including a shiny plastic badge from the
29:23
Speaker 1: Treasury Department to boot. He says, So our task was
29:27
Speaker 1: a travel door to door and talked to the people
29:30
Speaker 1: who didn't return their survey. Some people got the short form,
29:33
Speaker 1: some got the long form and former. I remember the
29:36
Speaker 1: forms were assigned at random. Usually the long formers didn't
29:39
Speaker 1: mail him back in, and uh that's who they usually
29:43
Speaker 1: had to a confront, shakedown and shake him down. Uh.
29:47
Speaker 1: People were downright mean when I knocked on their door.
29:49
Speaker 1: One this is a good one. One man asked me
29:52
Speaker 1: to hold on for a second. He closed the door,
29:54
Speaker 1: and within a few minutes I heard the garage door
29:56
Speaker 1: open and he drove out and waved goodbye. Such a
30:00
Speaker 1: jerky move. One woman answered the door with a baby
30:03
Speaker 1: in her arms, shouting something at me. I heard dogs barking,
30:06
Speaker 1: and the next thing I knew, she had let the
30:07
Speaker 1: dogs loose on us, and I was running safely back
30:10
Speaker 1: to my h the safety of my Buick Regal. I
30:14
Speaker 1: quickly learned my lesson, and when someone would open the
30:16
Speaker 1: door and give me the skinny on their neighbors who
30:20
Speaker 1: didn't mail their forms back in, I was happy. And
30:22
Speaker 1: I was even happier when it was a grandma who
30:24
Speaker 1: would offer me a cold drink, Because you know, the
30:27
Speaker 1: old folks, they're just like, come on in, let's talk
30:29
Speaker 1: for a while. Exactly Um I did not know, however,
30:34
Speaker 1: that uh enumerators were killed. I must have missed that
30:37
Speaker 1: part of the training. Uh. Most of the rants would
30:40
Speaker 1: be anti government. They would say I was the man
30:42
Speaker 1: sold to get off their property and all the expletives
30:45
Speaker 1: that go with it. It's not be it's not easy
30:47
Speaker 1: being in enumerator. So give them a shout out. So
30:50
Speaker 1: shout out to all you enumerators out there. And that's
30:53
Speaker 1: pretty much it. He uh said, I thought i'd chime in.
30:56
Speaker 1: Actually I was chiming in this morning in the car
30:58
Speaker 1: and then realized that I was alone. Mark, so lonely. Mark,
31:02
Speaker 1: the former enumerator is a funny guy, and he says,
31:04
Speaker 1: by the way, podcast suggestion how Hippie Rob works. Oh
31:08
Speaker 1: that's a good one. That would be a great one.
31:10
Speaker 1: That audio trying to track them down. Sure, yeah, so
31:13
Speaker 1: thanks Mark, and good luck if you enumerate in the future.
31:17
Speaker 1: And all you enumerators out there, accounting heads, I'm sorry,
31:20
Speaker 1: I didn't know it's so rough on you. And uh,
31:22
Speaker 1: let's see if you're an numerator or a denominator or
31:26
Speaker 1: you know the current whereabouts of Hippie Rob put in
31:29
Speaker 1: an email to stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
31:38
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
31:41
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works,
31:45
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot
31:47
Speaker 1: Com home page brought to you by the reinvented two
31:52
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you