I woke up with a demon’s claws in my eyes and neck this morning.
It was the kind of neck pain that makes you go all bleary eyed as your dead relatives beckon you from the end of a bright white hallway. For me, it was just an ickier than usual one of my morning pains that awakens me like a spasmodic rooster crow whose vocal cords are my nociceptors. But when I settled into my laptop and started clicking things that seem to be trending for no reason (like hangover cures- ah, nevermind. I forgot it was Saturday. Moving on…), I realized how much better a pain-gover is than the hangovers I used to get in the old days. I mean, at least I can do some stretches and have some coffee without puking.
But I feel for these poor bastards, having been there and back myself.
Especially the ones drinking to sadness – not celebration.
The only alcohol I use now is the one with which I wash my hands of that life.
However, in the spirit of keeping my torrid past relache with spirits close at hand to remind me of one of the many reasons I don’t drink anymore, I decided to peruse the booze cures to see how retro-me measured up to the suggestions and pass ’em on to readers who do know how to handle a handle. Admittedly, when I was in the thick of my liver destruction endeavors, the only thing on my mind the morning after was a series of blood vessels all beating with their own agonizing pulse – which left little room for thoughts like “let’s go research remedies via the retinal burning glare of a computer screen whose sea-sickening lines of letters and words will only motivate a vertigo induced vomiting sesh”.
“Get off me. I’ll feed you breakfast in eight hours… when I have mine.”
So if I could get in my martini shaped time machine and revisit college and California me one migraine-y morning, what would I offer? Aside from the gift of a “WRONG WAY” sign and the best Sapphic experience of our lives? Well, according to the interwebz, the best post liquor go-to tip IS (…are you ready for it?):
Motrin and aspirin.
Wait…what? I feel like I was doing that already. But then again when I really think of it, probably not. Why reach for a horse pill that only slightly dampens the feeling of my brain being strangled by my own skull when a nice tiny pass-the-fck-out tranqulizer can address it more quickly? Made sense at the time. For those who are a bit more rational than I was in these moments, the science idea behind it is that there’s an inflammatory response happening come sunrise.
So what better, easier way to nix it than with ibuprofen and headache meds?
Yeah, like Audrey here, my after-the-after-party care package generally contained coffee and starchy carbs, too. And orange juice. And 5million milligram sodium soup. And valium. And – on special occasions – an actual shower when my own fetid stench finally became unbearable enough to motivate me to wash my bile styled tresses crusted into Something About Mary spears.
But I’m glad I read this.
It’s brilliant synchronicity from the internet Olympus deities themselves.
‘cause when I woke up with this cervical headache, I half thought about choking it out and taking me down with it via the noose and rafters I don’t have but sound good as a dramatic hypothetical. But now, after reading about people trying to cure themselves for something that was totally preventable in the first place, I feel kinda lucky. Sure, some people get the occasional remorseful mornings once every half a year because they wanted to keep up with their friends they haven’t seen since college who flew all the way in from I’ve-only-been-married-a-year-and-already-regretting-it-ville. And that’s totes normal. But for those who repeatedly do it like I used to might as well just skip the drinking part and crash a cabernet bottle over their cranium every evening like a boat christening on a bon voyage down a life vortex. I may still spend half my life in inner pain and outer pain.
But when I head to sleep tonight, I can be comforted in knowing one thing.
At least my current cure doesn’t need a cure when morning comes.
Don’t worry, my bish.
It gets better.