English Version | Happy nights, sad mornings

10 Feb 2022
By Pureza Fleming

Life is nothing but two days, but a hangover will last three. Add in the weight of our conscience of yet another night of no control and we have a verdict: the price of a celebration filled with alcohol is, usually, quite high. To sum up, and not in disregard of the magnitude of what is being celebrated, the torture of the morning after is not worth it.

Life is nothing but two days, but a hangover will last three. Add in the weight of our conscience of yet another night of no control and we have a verdict: the price of a celebration filled with alcohol is, usually, quite high. To sum up, and not in disregard of the magnitude of what is being celebrated, the torture of the morning after is not worth it.

Photography by Medhi Sef, Vogue Portugal June 2018
Photography by Medhi Sef, Vogue Portugal June 2018

“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens, you drink to forget; if something good happens, you drink to celebrate; if nothing happens, you drink to make something happen.” Charles Bukowski, the American writer and poet, known for overly enjoying the pleasures of a “nice drink”, sheds light on what is a common knowledge subject: the consumption of alcohol and its many restraints. Or better yet, of alcoholic beverages, since we haven’t reached the point (have we?) where we drink the one stored in the bathroom cabinet. The alcohol we’re referring to is the one you drink, usually, under the supposedly harmless pretext of celebration – or, as Bukowski used to put it, under the pretext of absolutely nothing.  It’s the alcohol you drink when going for “happy hour” – which is much more civilized then going anywhere to “consume alcoholic beverages” (“the lie is always more interesting than the truth”, Fellini reminds us). And there is nothing wrong with “going for a drink”. To celebrate is a good thing, advisable even; to not celebrate, but to toast to life just because, is fine too. The problem of alcohol is precisely the alcohol itself. It’s reverse side, the consequences: physical, psychological, emotional. The big “if” of alcohol is the alcohol, together with its buzz. Wasted, Smashed, bashed, inebriated. Apart from all its inherent problems, the biggest inconvenience of alcohol is the huge grogginess it can lead to. And, shortly after, the inevitable hangover. 

Everyone, at some point in their life, has experienced it. Reciting the famous hangover mantra: “I will never drink again.” Almost everyone. I’m sure my grandmother has never uttered the words, also because she never drank that hard – or even gotten drunk. The consumption starts early on: according to the data retrieved from the European Region of the World Health Organization regarding the intake of alcohol in young generations, a quarter of the boys and a fifth of the girls who were questioned revealed they had been drunk at least twice up to the age of 15; 7% of girls and 9% of boys stated that their first buzz occurred up to the age of 13, or even earlier. It makes sense. I remember my first time I was around 13 or 14-years-old. It was in Jerez de la Frontera, in the South of Spain, when I was on vacation in a cousin’s house and we went to a botellón, which is when a group of kids gathers in the street with the basic intention of consuming alcohol. Of drinking lots and varied alcoholic potions, of spilling alcohol as if there was no tomorrow, drink until you’re passed out, which was my case. Given that I don’t like Coca Cola, I thought it was a marvelous idea to have straight up scotch as my first drink. It was quite the baptism: me, still young; the whiskey, older, around 40-years-old, and up to 75% in concentration. The rest of the story is easy to guess. It was a beautiful show that ended up with me being carried home in someone’s arms. From the next day, I remember a huge sense of unease, indescribable, and my aunt’s chicken noodle soup, which tasted like Guronsan. Two decades after, I have drunk again, evidently. I might have also expressed my will to never touch alcohol again, though with far less regularity. 

Here’s an experimental question: if hangovers didn’t exist, how much of your life would you dedicate to “grabbing drinks”? It’s hard to predict. After all, part of the thrill of getting drunk is knowing you’re sacrificing your future self so your present self can have fun. One of the conclusions of a study performed in 1993 by the University of Michigan was that 75% of people who have gotten drunk have also gotten hungover. Then, what happens to the 25% who manage to escape it? That’s the question we asked Rita Soares, nutritionist at Gastroclinic: “Hangovers are characterized by the combination of physical and psychological symptoms of unease after the consumption of alcohol. It is associated to negative cognitive effects and humor swings. There are also immunological alterations due to the increase in the inflammatory response caused by alcohol.” She explains that the severity of symptoms is also associated to the speed of alcohol elimination: people whose metabolism can get rid of alcohol faster will show less symptoms of hangover. This will vary from person to person due to several factors: sex, age, BMI (body mass index), ethnicity, variations in the enzymes that metabolize alcohol, if they had eaten before drinking or not, or if their immune system is weaker. The physical signs of a hangover can be mild, with some headaches and thirst, or violent, where migraines are strong and paired with soreness throughout the body, nausea, heightened sensibility to sound and light, and lack of appetite. In extreme cases, hangovers can include amnesia, where one can’t recall parts of the night before (the movie The Hangover exemplifies it thoroughly). A hangover can also provoke what the Biritsh neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt called “hangxiety”: some drinks might produce a relaxing effect but, he guarantees, “that feeling the morning after is the alcohol playing with the brain.” Alcohol is a stimulator of the GABA, the major inhibitory neurotransmitter of the Central Nervous System, which is why we relax and feel happy when we drink. The two first glasses are soothing. When we hit the third or fourth, there is another relaxing effect kicking in on the brain and the glutamate, the most important transmitter of “uninhibition” in the brain, starts to be blocked. When one hits the maximum drunkenness, with high levels of excitement in the mix, we feel wonderful. The problem is our bodies go on a mission to restore the levels of GABA and up the glutamate. The result? Besides the hangover, the most likely scenario is we’ll be dealing with a big case of hangxiety the day after: anxiety mixed with hangover. 

In the end, the crime isn’t worth it. A hangover will always be the result of a state that comes from excess. And excesses are invariably prejudicial. So much so that they can even be felt without the consumption of alcohol at all. The psychologist Cristina Ferreira explains: “A burnout, for example, can be seen as the hangover of working excessively. There is also the tiredness that comes from one of those arguments that feel like a beating, the hangover of mourning, of a breakup, of letting go of something. These are all states that require some sort of physical and psychological adjustment; that beg us to lay low, recharge our batteries with all things good so we can overcome the pain and unease.” The final question would then be something like the following: why do we need excess? Is it not possible to celebrate without feeling the need to cross that line? Of getting so smashed we convince ourselves that we are, indeed, celebrating something? It better be. Even though almost everything in this life is balanced, when it comes to drinking, that’s a whole different story. Miguel Afonso, clinical director of Gastroclinic, underlines that even that one glass of red wine considered as “healthy” when accompanied of a meal might bring complications after a few years. By complications we mean hepatic conditions, digestive tract cancer, cardiac conditions, for instance cardiopathy (heart disease). But wasn’t a glass of wine a day supposedly good for the heart? “Red wine has some compounds that might be benefic for the heart, but not when taken [very] frequently.” There are so many studies that, besides the Mediterranean diet, stand up for that glass of wine with meals: 40 grammes of wine for men, 20 for women. However, according to Miguel Afonso, that is enough quantity to allow for chronical liver disease after many years. Is the “one glass of wine a day” a myth then? The doctor calls it lobby (and we hereby close that subject). But ensures: “People should avoid alcohol.” And just like that, from the question of drinking or not drinking, we quickly go back to the one of “celebrating or not celebrating life with alcohol”: everything points to no, not even in moderation. At the same time, we’re creatures of extremes: it’s not by chance that January is known as “Drynuary” or “Dry January”, since it’s the month we’re supposed to restrain from indulging in alcohol after the holidays. To celebrate shouldn’t be a synonym of getting wasted: there are countless beverages available in the market today that taste just as good, except they have no alcohol. Between mocktails, for example, a trend in the drinking scene, can be prepared at home and are perfect for those searching for soft drinks, friends of our health and diets. Despite it all, the big winning reason one should avoid drinking alcohol is still the looming hangover – or the opportunity to not go through it. No matter how many ways of celebrating we can invent, for the love of your precious health – physical, mental and emotional -, especially when self-control is not your moto: if you’re celebrating, don’t drink. 

Translated from the original on Vogue Portugal's Celebrate Yourself issue, published February 2022.Full story and credits on the print issue.

Pureza Fleming By Pureza Fleming

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