Alcohol seems more evil every time I suffer from one of these hangovers now, which actually isn't all that often anymore. It's funny; the first time I got crocked in my teens (a group of us shared several pitchers of beer at the local pizzeria...we were underage, but the owner knew us and I guess he figured boys will be boys...and I went to sleep that night with the ceiling spinning around in circles as I stared up at it), I woke up the next morning with a migraine headache, which was the most agonizing thing that could have happened to me, and I said to myself, "Well, now I know I can never become an alcoholic, because every time I get drunk, I guess I'm going to suffer from one of these things, and I'm sure not gonna subject myself to that!" Actually, it wasn't long after that that I tentatively tried drinking again, felt the "glow" and overdid it, didn't get a migraine the next morning as feared, and decided this particular vice was one I could accommodate in my life (I made a similar accommodation later for opiates). In my teens and 20's, hangovers didn't deter me much. I could drink with my friends until 3am, sleep an hour or 2, and still make it to school on time. I might not have been in the best condition...I assuredly wasn't...but I was at least coherent, and after a few hours I'd feel almost normal again. As time went by, the hangovers got longer and messier. A few years ago, I was going out with a girl who enjoyed her drink almost as much as I did mine, and we spent nearly every weekend at the bar. Not only was it really expensive (those bar tabs mount up quick), but the hangovers totally ruined my weekends, and I decided I was getting too old for this increasingly tiresome routine. Where in the past I could recover from a drinking bout in a few hours, now it took a few days to really feel normal again. At most now, I'll have a few glasses of wine, and even that can make me feel somewhat crummy for a day or even 2. I've come to the conclusion that my body just can't process alcohol (and other things) like it used to, which might be a left-handed benefit of aging.
