Thursday, December 24, 2009

6 Steps to a Sober Day

During this time of year many of us find ourselves at festival type functions to celebrate the holidays.  Most of these celebration have us enjoying a few alcoholic beverages.  After a few drinks and 20 minutes at this function, you realize that you would like to leave but your Aunt has not stopped talking about her new hobby of using her cricut to make crap for your family.  So you have another drink, and another, just to keep your sanity during magical time of year.   Now, how you get home is part of different diatribe, but hopefully you were responsible and had someone (that is sober) drive you home, like a taxi, or a sober parent, or your 16 year old daughter on her learners permit, or perhaps maybe, just maybe, you lived close enough you could walk.
Here is the crux of our holiday situation, you are having guests over the next day for brunch, or you have to drive 3 hours to see grandma, or maybe you have to be at a religious service at 8am.  How are you going to be sober and not hungover to participate in the following days activities??  The answer to that my friends is, my 6 Steps to a Sober Day.
These steps are not to be followed to the letter, nor do they need to be followed in the order presented.  But they all need to be completed to have a sober day and give yourself a fighting chance at finishing this holiday season with consuming as much booze as possible to continue blocking out how crazy your family really is.   You will have plenty of time during the year to think back and remember that your family was not that bad, until you come home for Thanksgiving and relive it all over again.

The 6 Steps are below
Water -- Stay hydrated.  Water is the key to any hangover cure.  Since your drink of choice is a natural dehydrator, you have to replenish the blood stream to keep you from getting a headache.  My professional advice is to drink a full glass of water before you go to bed and then continue to sip water all morning.  I also recommend you put a glass of water next to your bed to assist with step 2.

Advil -- this one is really not negotiable, you really need to take some advil.  The best way is when you wake up in the middle of the night to pee (we all do it after we drink to much, around 3 or 4 am you get up and have to pee) take the advil, then go pass out again.  When your alarm goes off and you reach for the snooze button you will realize that the advil had a chance to work.  Most people take the advil in the morning when they are already awake and they already have a headache, my early morning advil is a preemptive strike against the inevitable.  

Shower --showering is a beautiful thing, and we all now it.  The hot steam in your pores and heat make us all feel more alive.  Plus, showering might wash off the throw up that is stuck in your hair. 
Take a Shit -- Most of the time drinking too much beer will give you what scientist refer to as the beer shits.  Grab a newspaper or a magazine and have a seat on the porcelain throne.  You can't rush this process, let it happen, relax.  You will feel much better when you have completed it all.
Food --All that alcohol has been swashing around in your belly all night working to get into you blood stream by the morning it needs some help, have some breakfast.  Normally, a greasy breakfast sandwich from BK or McD is the best, they are loaded with grease, you get your major food groups in (egg group, bread group, breakfast meat group, cheese group, and potato group), and they are pretty convenient, the last thing you want to be doing at 8am after finishing off a 5th of Crown is cracking eggs and wielding a knife to cut your bagel. 
6    Coffee -- This is the cherry on top of your morning that will push you to the next level.  To quote Superbowl Champion and Hall of Fame coach, Mike Ditka; "Coffee is the lifeblood that fuels the dreams of champions."  You will never get your day rolling or finished for that matter without getting some caffeine in your system.  Now, I will let you make the decision as to what type of drink you choose to inject yourself with this drug.  I am flexible, feel free to use a latte, or frozen type drink, perhaps you like Redbull or Monster, but for the old fashion traditional types will be having black coffee.

I provide you this insight as a service to all those that have failed year after year.  I find myself to be a self proclaimed professional and my mistakes of trial and error are you gain.  I hope you do not have to go through all the painful mornings and subsequent afternoons of headaches and people sounding really loud.  I urge you to share these steps with your friends, share your new knowledge, let them see the light (in a good way).

Cheers to you all, have  happy holiday and remember
"Beer before liquor, never been sicker"   
(These little rhymes are mostly wrong; I have proven and dis proven this a number of times).