:Reader Submitted By Meghan:

Editor’s note: Meghan is an avid reader of The Drunk Pirate and she submitted this great post. So great work Meghan, and if there are any of you who would like to try your hand at writing for us then by all means let us know. You can send your submissions to nathan@thedrunkpirate.com. Be sure to keep an eye out for more of Meghan’s posts in the future.

If you don’t want to stomach Waffle House grits after a night of pounding Steel Reserve or chug 5 packets of sugar and coffee for fear of heart attack, here are some “healthier” hangover helpers. I like to be healthy although I love to go out and get completely wasted. Call me paradoxical, it’s the life style I enjoy and is almost a sort of a challenge. I think if you are going to poison yourself with a shitload of Firefly Vodka, you might as well get out of the hangover rut the way nature intended.

I consider myself an expert at this. As an honor student in college working two jobs, one of which started at 5:45 and involved children, who went out every night, and wanted to keep a great ass, it was merely a survival method.

1. Emgergen-C

This is the panacea of hangovers. When you’re hung over you’ve lost a lot of vitamins. You can buy this stuff at Trader Joe’s in bulk, or at your local health food store or vitamin shop. Dump it in a bottle of water or a cup and just drink it. Have more than one if you want. It looks weird but it doesn’t taste like crystal light I promise. It will replace all the vitamin C, B6 and Potassium you lost from drinking.

They even make Immune Defense ones that boost your immune system. People who work in a restaurant and bar know they get sick a lot, same goes for the customers. There are a lot of people putting their mouths on things and other people putting their mouths on other people who are putting their mouths on things. Watch your Immune system’s back, it gets completely kicked down a few notches when you drink and is also exposed to a germ battlefield.

2. Green Tea

This stuff is the shit. If you want you can add sugar, better yet honey. Soda and most of the juice bartenders use is packed with sugar. You get high, and then as you know from Pixi Sticks or their evil twin, crack cocaine, you crash and burn. Having a small pick me up in the morning might work the same way as the hair of the dog trick, but with sugar.

I take mine “green”. Green tea has a lot of anti-oxidants which clears you out. It doesn’t work immediately and completely clear your system, but is a good replacement for coffee, if you can handle it. It settles your stomach and wakes you up. Caffeine makes things worse, dehydrates you, and green tea has just enough to wake you up a bit, though I wouldn’t recommend it for the heavy coffee drinker. If you want to get really technical and go to your local Tealuxe, get the Japanese Sencha with a pinch of Yerba Mate.

3. Water

This should be at the top, this is the golden rule. The other guys said it was too obvious to mention, but there are a lot of stupid people out there, so let me explain why you should drink water. (Not why people are stupid) Alcohol is super sugar. It just sucks all the water out of you. Ever hear someone tell you to drink a glass of water when you have a headache? Works the same here. Drink it all day. As you will see in the prevention section it is key to being a healthy, cool and hydrated boozehound.

Water is also important to preventing a hangover. Drink a glass of water in-between drinks (no ice so it is easier to chug and faster to receive from the bartender, it also makes it look like you know what you are doing, guaranteed not to be given the I don’t think I should serve you anymore eye from the bartender) – Not that you can really remember to do that after your 3rd Jager bomb, but try to make it a habit. Guaranteed to loosen up the hangover. This is a also a useful tip for people who are trying to lose weight or not get the late night ‘let’s order two Meat Lover’s pizzas at 3am what do you mean you’re not open what do we have in the fridge FunYuns and Spaghettio’s and left over Chinese lets just mix them all together” munchies.

4. Ibuprofen

DON’T TAKE ASPIRIN, DON’T TAKE TYLENOL – Most of it contains acetaminophen which is a liver damaging compound. Sure, one isn’t going to kill you, but it is really bad for you. Those of you who have been injured know that you are prescribed Motrin or Advil in those big 800mg horse pills called Ibuprofen. You get them when you strain a muscle, right? Ibuprofen helps to un-inflame muscles and kind of works the same way with hangovers. Your muscles hold in a lot of the toxins that you poison yourself with. I am supposing this helps by relaxing them. Stick to those. Take it at night if you aren’t puking-in-the-sink-drunk with a big glass of water, or when you wake up at the crack of dawn and have to whiz, take it then and go back to bed.

5. Have sex

Why not? Hopefully your night was a success and you are waking up next to someone else. When you drink you stuff yourself with toxins. Sex is a wonderful for of cardio exercise and makes you feel good. Alcohol is also a depressant. Sex, more specifically, orgasm, releases all those little endorphins that make you feel good about yourself. If you completely struck out last night, masturbate.

6. Hair of the Dog

This is such an old trick it has a weird, almost disgusting name to it. What it means though is a shot of booze. It also means taking a hair from a rabid dog that bit you to cure the rabies that is festering in the wound. Anyhow, this is for the star-athlete boozers, the people who’ve got withdrawal symptoms from drinking too heavily. Your body is hurting from lack of more booze consumption. Take shot of something strong like that White Lightning you’ve been hiding in the freezer. You might throw up but that’s ok. It will stop the shakes.

7. Eat a salad

Vitamins, can’t stress it enough. Or have a banana. Banana’s are high in potassium and that is a major vitamin you lose when you get trashed. There is no fucking way in hell I could even think of looking at something that resembled General Tso’s chicken when I’m hung over. If I am going to get a bacon omelet I know I am going to puke immediately after it. I like a nice sandwich with a bunch of veggies. Here’s some to include in your hangover salad that contain lots of vitamins you lose when drunk and anti-oxidants.

- Spinach
- Cranberries (dried, normal ones are gross on a salad, I don’t know why you would do that)
- Carrots
- Beets
- Oranges, tangerines, citrus fruits.
- Broccoli
- Blueberries
- Black Beans

Eat some bread on the side to soak up the poison. It is also good to use your imagination when hung over and imagining a piece of bread really does soak up the poison.

8. Ginger

Aw, does your tummy hurt? I recommend ginger, straight up, like those slices that come with the sushi at the supermarket? That’s ginger, usually pickled. They also make ginger tea, it smells awesome. Mint also helps. It soothes and helps prevent nausea instead of Zantac or whatever, that just reduces acid. What is better to do with a hangover than get really stoned, drink some ginger tea and play some Nintendo? Ginger and Mint will also clear up your throat if you smoked way too many of that drunk girl’s Newport’s and your throat is on fire.

9. Bloody Mary

Make sure they give them with the celery. You get your fructose, your vitamins from the tomato juice and a little bit of spice to help clear the sinuses.

10. Sleep

Nothing is more holistic than doing nothing at all. Your body will eventually filter out all the bad stuff on its own. Either that or you’ll basically die a slow and painful death. So why be awake for it? Get up, drink a glass of water and get your ass back in bed. Come 3 or 4pm your body will have fixed itself and you’ll wake up feeling right as rain and ready start drinking again.

Cheers! – Meghan

Ben Franklin said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” This is true. However, as I’ve said before, hangovers are proof that God also has a sense of humor. Nobody likes to have a hangover. That’s probably why one of our most read posts here on The Drunk Pirate is “The 8 Best Hangover Cures Ever.” We had tons of comments and we received several emails about the post. Probably the best thing to come from that post was all the hangover cures submitted by our readers in the comments section.

I’m calling these the “best” user submitted hangover cures. I use the word “best” loosely. Being the best doesn’t necessarily denote that it works. It can mean that it either works or made me laugh at the absurdity of the proposed method. Don’t worry. You’ll know which is which.

Normally I wouldn’t suggest anything to you guys before I tried it myself, but these cures range from plausible to just plain retarded. If you decide you want to be a human Guinea Pig and try some of these please be sure to report your results in the comments section. I’d also like to mention smoking weed as a cure was submitted more than 20 times.

So here are the 20 best user submitted hangover cures.

1. Tanning bed and a Bojangles 2 piece meal with mashed potatoes

2. Pedialyte and water. chug about a half a bottle of pedeolyte and as much water as you can. hangovers come from dehydration mostly. it is stripper approved and road tested so trust me, as a guy who works at 7am for seven days a week most of the year, it is a life saver.

3. My other cure for the nausea is opening a coke the night before and drinking it the next morning. Dr.’s prescribe coke syrup for kids who have upset stomachs (you can get the plain coke syrup over the counter now too) and drinking a flat coke the next morning will fix it in no time.

4. Hangovers are not only caused by dehydration, but also vitamin deficiencies. So, another good way to strike a hangover preemptively is to take an all-a-day vitamin or eat a banana, due to it’s potassium concentration, before a night of drinking.

5. There is NO BETTER HANGOVER CURE on the planet. Simply strap on an oxygen bottle for a few minutes. Take a few really deep breaths and your hangover will be gone within a few minutes. Quick & simple.

6. Before I go out, planning to get drunk, I take a vitamin b complex and a milk thistle supplement and eat a banana. I keep a couple around for the morning. I drink a shit load of water (and piss a bunch) while out. This seams to work pretty well. I also like drinking that lemon flavored Propel shit on my way to work in the morning.

7. When you wake up and have your shower, when you’re ready to get out, make it as hot as you can stand until you can’t take it anymore, then shift to cold in about three or four gradual steps. Cold should be so cold you feel like you can’t take it anymore. At that point, turn it off and get out. Won’t cure you on its own but definitely helps.

8. Find a Mexican restaurant and order yourself a big bowl of Menudo. What is Menudo? If you haven’t puked yet before eating you’ll probably puke just by reading what goes into a bowl of Menudo. Needless to say its loaded with fat and it will cure your hangover. You can also find it in canned in the Mexican section of your local grocery store.

9. A green bell pepper is the best thing ever. Just eat it like an apple, its surprisingly refreshing and tastes somewhat like the white part of a watermelon (Rhine). But when hungover it is a must!

10. As gross as it sounds, the cure is…..pickle juice, hair of the dog and lots of water. If you do not hydrate well before going to bed the previous night, this combo will hook you up. There is something about the pickle juice that helps level your electrolytes better than anything else (including Gatorade) a good 4-6 oz does the trick, hair of the dog makes you feel better while you rehydrate with lots of water. Tried and True. Be a new man within an hour.

11. Peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich. The peanut butter and banana have the vitamins and nutrients you need. The honey, sugar and the bread will help soak shit up.

12. Sushi is a very good hangover cure. It’s not oily and its a good source of carbs, protein and omega 3 etc.

13. “Thiamin is also required for metabolism of alcohol by microsomal detoxification when intakes are high.” says a study from Northwestern University. So, drinking fluids to keep hydrated (something like gatorade with electrolytes in it) and eating something with thiamin and/or taking a multivitamin/B-vitamin complex before and after drinking are the way to go. The website I referenced lists foods and drinks that are good sources of thiamin. I’ve actually put it into practice after one of my college professors told us about it in my nutrition & metabolism class I took three years ago, and it works wonders for me. I’m a light-weight that gets sick easily from drinking too much, but as long as I follow this system of thiamin-rich foods and rehydrating fluids, I can avoid the physiologically negative side effects of drinking.

14. Eat something with carbs before you fall asleep, even if it’s 2 handfuls of pretzels.
In the morning, take 2 Tums, 1 large glass water, 2 advil.
Pain will be a minimum and the rest can be taken care of with a waffle, bacon and coffee, though my favorite is iced cappuccino.

15. If you live in Scotland; a glass bottle of Irn-Bru and some Rowies.

16. Fill a short glass with soda water. Add 5-10 dashes of Angostura bitters, squeeze the juice of 1 lemon, and 5-10 dashes of table salt. You’ll be feeling better in no time.

17 Jamba Juice wheat grass is a miracle hangover cure as well. It’s easy and only about $2.

18. When you get home after a night of drinking cook a massive breakfast and leave it out. Chug a glass of cream and a glass of lime juice. The cream to make you smarter and the lime so you’ll make a weird face. In the morning, get up and throw the breakfast away because it will be bad, and clean up the entire house.

19. Another genius method is oral hydration salts, specifically designed for extreme dehydration. Much more potent than Gatorade. Next time you walk by a GNC, pick up a box of these things. They come in individual sachets in a bunch of flavors. I recommend Lemon-Lime, because it doesn’t taste like ass like the rest of them. They’re dirt cheap too. Drink one sachet in a ten ounce glass of water before bed. Or, do it in the morning, and after about twenty minutes, you’ll feel a hell of a lot better.

20. Carolina Hangover cure is b12, 2 Excedrin washed down with Yoo Hoo and followed with a bowl of cheese grits doused with Texas Pete.

Hangovers are proof that God has a sense of humor. A very sick and twisted sense of humor. Hopefully on my judgment day when St. Peter or whoever is showing me all the bad things I’ve done, he’ll give me credit for all the epic hangovers I’ve endured.

When I was younger I used to view hangovers as punishment, hence the reason that I used to make bargains with the Almighty that if he would just make me feel better I would never drink again. If I had a dollar for every time I tried that route I could probably put a stripper through at least one semester of college.

As I got older and wiser I knew that after a hard night of drinking that began with a bottle Jack Daniels and ended with Jose Cuervo, I would be met not with punishment, but rather a challenge. I knew I was going to feel like a big bag of shit. The only question was for how long and how big of a bag. How do I get rid of the infamous hangover?

Over the years I’ve tried just about every technique, snake oil and just plain retarded idea you can imagine to not only get rid of, but prevent a hangover. So today I’ve decided to share some of the best and worst hangover remedies I’ve come across through the years. Read that last sentence again very carefully. I’m only going to talk about hangover remedies that I have personally tried. I know some ass hat is going to come up with some crazy shit in the comments section like “You didn’t talk about drinking the pee of a lactating Alpaca while sticking a carrot up your ass.” I know I didn’t. Because I’ve never tried that. I don’t have any carrots. Or “The only thing that gets rid of a hangover is time.” Yes, this is true. But letting something run its course isn’t curing it. How about next time you get cancer you just give it some time. Tell me how that works out.

So lets get on with the show.

What is a hangover? Put simply it is you being really dehydrated. It takes tons of water to filter alcohol out of your body after a night of drinking Boone’s Farm from the bottle. So the best hangover cures are the ones that hydrate your body as quickly as possible. I’m not going to include water in this list because any dumbass knows you should drink as much water as possible when your sick in any way.

64 oz of lemon lime prevention

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That being said this is probably the best hangover cure I know of and is my current go-to move. If you know you’re going to make like a nail tonight and get hammered, be sure to swing by the store and pick up a 64 oz. lemon-lime Gatorade before hand. The trick is to drink the entire bottle before you go to bed. Don’t put it into the fridge either. It’s impossible to drink 64 ounces of 40 degree Gatorade in one sitting. Instead just leave it on the counter, or better yet on your pillow so you don’t stumble into your room and forget to drink it. The high-fructose corn syrup used to sweeten the Gatorade also counteracts the chemical in your brain that tells you your full and will allow you to drink the entire bottle. And why lemon-lime Gatorade? Because if you’re a puker it won’t stain anything.

The Waffle House

This is another prevention one. If you didn’t have enough sense to eat before you went out drinking you should definitely eat before you pass out. No food in the belly means low blood sugar when you wake up that in turn means you go from bad hangover to really bad hangover. And lets face it, it’s much better to have something to throw up rather than dry heave until your asshole hurts. And why the Waffle House? The waffle house is kind of like Las Vegas. They welcome a drunk who has no concept of money or sticking to a budget. I’ve personally dropped more than $50 for food I didn’t eat on more than one occasion.

General Tso’s Chicken

This one is in case you didn’t follow the Waffle House advice. As mentioned before, low blood sugar will magnify a hangover. Genereal Tso’s is like jet fuel to your body. The pork fried rice has enough carbs to kill a horse on Adkins. The chicken itself has tons of protein and sugar which will make you feel like a million bucks. (I have no scientific reason for this. It just does.) And talk about energy! At 1700 calories, the average General Tso’s combo has enough calories to last your anorexic girlfriend a week

Ride that donkey

If you played your cards right last night, there’s a good chance there’s something sleeping next to you that resembles a girl, and she most likely feels like she was run over by the same truck that you were. What you both need is a good ol’ shot of endorphins. The temporary high produced by the endorphins released during sex will be the pick me up you need to get your ass out of bed. Just make sure you wake her up first.

Weed

I can handle the headache. It’s the nausea that kills me with a hangover. In case you don’t know it, Cannabis is prescribed to cancer patients in some states as a cure for nausea. Now I know that if you’re the type of drinker you say you are, chances are you have a friend who’s a pot head. Snag a doobie from him and stick it in a safe place (freezer) for the next time you have one of those nausea hangovers. You can wake up, take a few hits, and then eat your General Tso’s. Be warned: Don’t get too high. Being high and hungover is not fun.

Hair of the dog

This is probably the most well known cure. It’s also the dumbest unless you don’t have anything productive to do the rest of the day. I mean seriously, if you wake up and start drinking again you’re just adding fuel to the fire. Sure you’ll feel better because you’re drunk again. As soon as you stop drinking you’re back to square one again. So avoid this tactic unless you plan on drinking and watching football all day anyway.

The pick me up concoction

I learned this one working the Sunday brunch shift at Applebee’s, so listen up food servers and bartenders. take a coffee cup and fill half full with coffee. Add about 5 packets of sugar and stir. As soon as you’re done stirring go to the soda fountain and fill the cup the rest of the way with coke. You have to drink the entire thing immediately or it will foam all over the place. One of these every hour or so will help you get through the shift without slapping the shit out of the lady who keeps asking for condiments one by one

Go to the gym

Ok. You’re hungover. Why? Because your body is full of toxins. It’s time to evict those dirty little bastards. Make your way to the gym and find an open treadmill. Pick a moderate pace and you’ll start sweating almost instantly. 20 minutes should have you feeling like a champ. Oh, DO NOT FORGET TO BRING A WATER BOTTLE AND DRINK IT WHILE YOU RUN. As funny as it would look, you don’t want to pass out from dehydration on a treadmill.

So there you have it. The 8 best hangover cures I know of. If you know of any good ones I should try then by all means outline them in the comments section. I’ll do my best to try each one and review it in a “user submitted hangover cures” post.