You're all dressed up and ready for a party. But if you overindulge, the next morning you'll be spending time with your porcelain pal and wishing your cat had a softer step. Welcome to your hangover.
Of course, you can avoid a hangover altogether by not drinking excessively, but if it's too late, you can lessen the morning-after pain. Recovery from the effects of alcoholic drinks doesn't have to be so bad -- really.
Eat before heading out
Have a big meal. Foods high in protein and fat will slow the absorption rate of alcohol into your bloodstream. Accompany it with water to counter the diuretic effects of alcohol. A hangover begins with dehydration, so the more water in your system, the better.
Your liver breaks down liquor and escorts toxins out of your body to keep your blood-alcohol concentration down, so treat it right. "Try popping a B complex vitamin," says Jennifer Glazer, a Toronto-based naturopathic physician at the Naturopathic Clinic in Toronto. "It will help your liver deal with the excess work it has to do."
Screen drinks throughout the night
The type of alcohol consumed will affect your hangover's intensity. Congeners are naturally occurring impurities that darken and add fragrance to liquor, so it could be better to choose clear, colourless drinks. "Dehydration, electrolyte depletion, vitamin and mineral depletion, it's the congeners that are doing all this," says Rollin Riggs, publisher of The Hangover Handbook: 101 Cures for Humanity's Oldest Malady (Ingram, 1997), by Nic Van Oudshoorn. "You're still going to get a hangover, but it will be less bad with gin or vodka than with bourbon."
Be kind to your liver by having no more than one alcoholic drink per hour and the same type throughout the night. Pace yourself by alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, preferably water, or by hitting the dance floor or playing pool -- keep active to steer away from more drinking.
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