Mikey, Snow, and the Wide Awake Hang Over

Drinking.  Drinking never changes.

So the entirety of the United States seems to be getting rocked by this cold weather snap.  The DC beltway shuts down if even snow is hinted at, so you can imagine the panic caused by single digit numbers on the thermometer.  So it was almost fated that my lovely wife and I would find ourselves at home at 1pm on the Tuesday, with the threat of being snowed in for a few days plastered all over our computer and television screens.

Not a totally inaccurate representation of Maryland weather.

The morning had already been kind of rough, so we were looking to unwind a bit.  I stopped by the local liquor store and picked up a 30 pack of my favorite light beverage, with the understanding I would have multiple days off and a weekend coming up.  Surely 30 beers would be enough to satiate my booze lust.

So we settled in, threw on some New Girl, and cracked open a cold one, on a cold one.   And it was good!  It felt nice to relax as the weather outside turned frightful.  But a few beers became a few more, and a few more, and before we knew it, we had drank an entire 30 rack.  I don't know how, neither of us are terriblhy big people, and by all accounts, after 15 beers apiece, we should have been pretty sleepy.  But we weren't sleepy... We were determined.

So we put on our best winter gear, and set forth into the night on foot.  Our destination: a small bar not 2 blocks from our house.  We had another round there with the bartender, before ordering 4 'Road Beers' (which she gave us!) and set out back to the house, drinking and having a good time.

You'd think, wow, 18 beers each, you guys must have been drunk for days! And you're right.  The snow stopped, and the next day, we weren't snowed in.  No, we had to go to work... and be people.

Productive members of society

Now, for all of you out there that don't know, usually when you get drunk, you fall asleep and your body uses that time to process out the toxins.  You wake up, probably a bit dehydrated and hung over, not feeling great, but that feeling goes away in a few hours.  It's a terrible feeling, but one you can deal with for the most part.  But there's a super important part there, the asleep part.

Now, if you consume as much as we did, in as short of a time as we did, and then get very little sleep as we did, you have a chance of waking up feeling great!  And that's because, you're still drunk.  We did, and we were.  Now, your body doesn't care, it has a job to do, and it's going to get rid of this poison you have willingly ingested, and it doesn't care if you're awake for this part or not.

In my adult life, I have experienced this hang over a handful of times, and each time it gets worse.  To be awake, when your body transitions from drunk to sober is one of the more harrowing activities you can do for under $20.  The be cognizant as your body shuts down to repair itself is as horrifying as it is terrifying.  On top of that, I was at work.

It starts slow, and you truly believe you're going to be OK.  But as your chest tightens and breathing begins to be labored, you realize the terrible truth, you're still drunk, and you're wobbling in your chair.  Your mouth, as dry as it is, starts to threaten vomit with bouts of excess saliva, interrupted by dry heaves.  You figure, water will help, or some soda to calm my stomach.  They don't work, your body just taunts you for even trying.

Your body sounds exactly like this

I remember thinking I was pulling it off reasonably well.  My office mate, she has no idea that I'm in constant flux between passing out and such violent sickness my entire insides would become my outsides, turning me inside-out like some sort of physician's waiting room toy.  I would have gotten more work done had my computer screen bothered to stop shifting sizes, and the room would just stay at a 90 degree angle.  The temperature was a comfortable 900 degrees around my ears, and a balmy negative 1000 around my toes, with my underpants a tropical rainforest or bog.

You read it, you can't unread it

And this entire day, all I could think was, "You fucked up, and you deserve this."

And this lasted for the entire 15+ hours of conscious life I had that day.  I woke up this morning, 2 days after drinking, still feeling like I was on the wrong end of a bus accident.  I have drank probably a metric ton of water between then and now, trying to force this evil out of me and replenish it with Gaia's love, but to little or no avail.  I'm being punished.  My shower last night?  I took it entirely sitting down.  I'm almost 30, and sat in a pool of my own self loathing with a stick of Irish Spring for comfort.  I had defeated myself, and I knew the end was neigh.  I went to bed immediately after my shower, and stared at the ceiling, trying to bargain with my ceiling fan to just fall and end my suffering.  But my ceiling fan is a selfish bastard, so I remain.

The only soap fit for a drunk

And here I sit today, still traumatized from my experience.  My wife, you may be wondering, has weathered this storm much better than I.  Her body is still able to process that I suppose, where mine has finally given up, and has decided it's easier to break down than to persevere.  So this post, I'm sure you've noticed, isn't packed with quote as many jokes and links as usual.  And that's because writing it has taken every ounce of my, and let's be honest, already questionable talent to slam out on this keyboard.

I want it to serve as a warning to myself and others - if you drink 18 beers on a Tuesday afternoon, Thursday is still going to be terrible.