Hangover Intensity Scale
1 Star Hangover - No pain. No real feeling of illness.
Your sleep last night was a mere nap which is giving you a whole lot of misplaced energy. Be delighted you are able to function relatively well. However, you are still parched. You could drink 10 sodas and still feel this way. Vegetarians are craving a steak sandwich and a side of gravy fries from ANY truck stop café.
2 Star Hangover - No pain. Something is definitely amiss.
You may look okay but you have the attention span and mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you chug - to try and remain focused is only exacerbating your rumbling gut, which is craving a breakfast from McDonalds. Last night has wreaked havoc on your bowels and even though you have a nice demeanour about the office, you are costing our employer valuable money because all you really can handle is surfing internet porn and writing junk e-mails.
3 Star Hangover - Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy.
You are definitely a space cadet and not so productive. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the random gin shots you did with your alcoholic friends after the bouncer 86'ed you at 1:45am. Life would be better right now if you were in your bed with a dozen donuts and a meatball sub watching the E! fashion awards. Dehydrated? You've had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, and a litre of diet coke - yet you haven't peed once.
4 Star Hangover - Life sucks.
Your head is throbbing and you can't speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can't hide the fact that you missed an oh-so crucial spot shaving, (Girls, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars). Your teeth have sweaters, your eyes look like one big vein and your hair style makes you look like a reject from the class picture of Brixton Discos for Anglo-Saxons, '96. You would shoot your mother for one or all of the following:
The clock to strike 6pm
A time machine so you could go back and NOT have gone out the night before.
5 Star Hangover - Dante's 4th Circle of Hell.
Headache? Throbbing pain? You have a second heartbeat in your head which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cubicle. Vodka vapour is seeping out of every pore of your skin and is making you dizzy. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva so your tongue is suffocating you.
You'd cry but that would take the last of the moisture left in your body. Death seems pretty good right now. Your boss doesn't even get mad at you and your co-workers think that your dog just died because you look so pathetic. You definitely don't remember who you were with, where you were, what you drank and why there is a stranger still sleeping in your bed, unaccompanied, back at your house. You should have called in sick because, let's face it, all you can manage to do is breathe... very gently.
And The Solution?
The only thing you should do is have a MASSIVE bong and pass out. It's when you wake up a few hours later with a lesser star hangover that you eat a HUGE pizza, an order of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a ham and cheese omelette and a batch of rice krispie treats.
And then there's the different sorts of hangovers:
1. The "Should've Had Dinner" Hangover
This one usually occurs towards the end of some Friday Happy hour where your lightweight coworkers are "taking off" for home right as your unemployed, well rested, recently fed college chums are arriving and offering to buy you Jaegermeister shots. "Later," you promise yourself, "I'll duck out for a slice." You never do, since the increasing alcohol makes you think your stomach is full, not only of whimsy and mischief, but nutrients. What a deceptive magician alcohol can be!! Suddenly, morning hits you in the ear drums like a ped0ne snare drum sound check. Probably the most painful of all hangovers, it's an especially frustrating species when you realize that it could have been easily avoided.
Cure: Seltzer water, peanut butter, The Simpsons, apple juice
Avoid: Coffee, aspirin, car commercials, household chores
2. The "Shouldn't Have Mixed" Hangover
It's hard, and dull, to just drink one liquor all night. But if you mix, you're in for trouble. Usually you start with cocktails, have wine with dinner, then after-dinner drinks, then shots of Rumplemintz and God-knows-what else, you poor fools. The hangover is roughly proportionate to the number of drinks you've mixed, divided by the increase in sugar per liquor. Thus, avoid drinking liqueur unless immediately following wine. Do you follow? Try and drink a glass of water as you cross each threshold to a different kind of liquor. Avoid late-night shots of strange liqueurs that drunken out-of-towners try to coerce you into trying. The main symptoms of this particular hangover will be a pounding headache with a subsequent urge to challenge people bigger than you to fights over nothing.
Cure: Advil, coffee, water, fresh air, sex
Avoid: Beer, loud music, oversleeping, high-sugar breakfast cereal
3. The "I Shouldn't Have Gone Out" Hangover
It was only going to be a few quick drinks after work but due to some warp in the space-time continuim (or abduction by aliens) you re-enter your drunken body at about 1:00am and realise that its been on alcohol auto-pilot for the past 6 hours. Not having remembered the last 13 drinks, you feel a bit ripped off and have a few more that your brain insists will be OK, despite compelling physical evidence that you've probably had enough. You feel surprised at your mouth's inability to form a coherent sentence, and your sense of balance has been inexplicably taken off-line, which also surprises the hell out of you as you fall of your stool (again).
You arrive home at 2:30am and climb into bed. Sleep comes instantly, as you were fighting it all the way home in the taxi. You get about 2 hours sleep and then the noises inside your head wake you up. You notice that your bed has been cleared for take off and is flying relentlessly around the room. No matter what you do you know you're going to chuck. You stumble out of bed now find that your room is in a yacht under full sail. After walking along the skirting boards on alternating walls knocking off all the pictures, you find the toilet. If you are lucky you will remember to lift the lid before you spontaneously explode and wake the whole house up with your impersonation of walrus mating calls.
You sit there on the floor in your undies, cuddling the only friend in the world you have left (the toilet), randomly continuing to make the walrus noises, spitting and farting. Help usually comes at this stage, even if it is short lived. Tears stream down your face and your abdomen hurts. Help now turns into abuse and it usually goes back to bed leaving you there in the dark. With your stomach totally empty, your spontaneous eruptions have died back to 15-minute intervals, but your body won't relent. You are convinced that you are starting to turn yourself inside out and swear that you saw your bum come out your mouth on the last occasion.
You lie there cold and shivering, with eruptions now occurring at 1 hour intervals. It is now dawn and you pass your disgusted partner getting up for the day as you try to climb into bed. She/he abuses you again for trying to get into bed with lumpy bits of dried vomit in your hair. You reluctantly accept his/her advice and have a shower, get back into bed again and wait until you finally feel well enough to eat again on the following day, with the mention of alcohol making your stomach churn.
Cure: Not much - this one just takes time, and the effects will linger for about a week.
Avoid: Most things. Particularly the people you abused while on auto-pilot.
4. The "I've Been Drunk For 14 Hours" Hangover
This is the one you should be proud of, because it shows endurance and pacing. You probably had a high-protein dinner and didn't mix alcohols. You went the distance and in the late afternoon of the next day you feel something, but it's not as bad as it could be...The reason? You're still wasted! By the end of the day your real hangover will take over unless you act wisely.
Cure: Swimming, vitamins, lying in the sun, more alcohol
Avoid: Staying inside and smoking pot in front of the TV all day
5. The "I've Been Drunk For 3 Days" Hangover
Now you're wading into serious waters. You partied in grand style Friday night, got an early start Saturday but managed to still go the distance. Now it's Monday and you're no longer able to speak. Your eyes are beet red. Ghost beatniks pound your skull like a bongo. You can't eat, and sleep won't help. You have no concept of time. Day, night, all you know is that you are conscious. You pass out on the bathroom floor and wake up to somebody whispering your name, but you can't turn around to see them.
Cure: House cleaning, scratchy country blues CDs, a long shower, religion, masturbation, re-hab, French cinema & cuisine
Avoid: Cheap beer, Brady Bunch re-runs, parents, crowded places
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