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LADIES??? AND/OR GENTS??? OR WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE REFERRED TO AS??? Hangover, AM I RIGHT? They suck the life right out of you. Sure, you may have had fun the night before. But you have to remember, you did this to yourself; you’re no longer 20 years old, you have adult responsibilities, and you still have vomit on your shoes.

How Did I Get Here?

Now, I don’t know how you personally got yourself into this position of drinking so much that the room is still spinning a full 12 hours after your last drink. How did you go from gleefully taking shot after shot to crying on the bathroom floor and contemplating dying your hair brown? Don’t care how you got there! I’m here to give you ways to make the Ghost of Drinking Past leaves you as quickly as possible.

Put Yourself on a Day of Bed Rest

Wake up. Yes, wake yourself up. Come to the realization that you’ve made a terrible decision in life. Craft you requisite our “I’m sorry” texts to all applicable parties. Look at your camera roll to see what has happened and to make sense of that bruise that you got on your leg. Try to locate the pile of clothing that once composed your “Outfit of the Night” amongst the other piles of clothes (if you’re in your own bedroom).

*IMPORTANT NOTE*

If you’re NOT in your own bedroom, I recommend getting home as fast as you can, unless you are in the bedroom of someone that is you feel EXTREMELY comfortable with. If you are comfortable, great! Stay and ride out the hangover with that person. If you’re a regular human, grab your pile of clothes, pray you put them on correctly, grab a plastic bag for potential puke-ccidents, and Uber/drive/bicycle your ass home.

Once your place of rest has been established and you have been fully awake for at least 15 minutes, you can complete the rest of your RnRnR (the third ‘R’ is for “re-establishing humanity”).

Just Bathroom Things

Haul your ratchet ass to the bathroom. If you need to army crawl, do it. Complete all the necessary bathroom things, or at least the things you’re capable of doing at this point. Piss. Take a dump. Throw the hell up if you need to throw the hell up. Do it. Do ALL of it. Believe me, BE-LIEVE ME, you will feel so much better after it (after ALLLLLL of itttttttt).

Bonus points for you if you can take off makeup/mud/crud/caked-on mystery substance still on your face or any other body part. Showers are optional at this point, as is brushing/flossing your teeth – if you’re able to stand up and do these things, la-dee-dah! You’re not impressing me, but DO THEM! But they’re not expected of you. Poor sweet post-drunken angel.

Resting Drunk Face

Go back to sleep for as long as you can. You’ll wake up feeling at least 33% better than you did before. Sleepiness is next to Godliness, as that quote probably goes. Draw them curtains and close that door, girl! Take of those shoes and plant your face into that pillow, boy! Sleep, and you shall wake to feel like you’re in a completely different body. Whose hand is this with four bar stamps on it???

Water, Water, Everywhere

Hydration is key. HYRATION IS KEY. I had to repeat it, but I had to make sure that you understood this.

Say you had the foresight to space out your alcoholism by alternating between liquor and water; excellent! We probably wouldn’t be in this mess right now if you had, but I digress. Walk (or shuffle, or army crawl) to the kitchen and get yourself the biggest glass of water that you can. Stand in aforementioned kitchen and drink as much as you can before you go back to bed. Then go back to your bed with that glass of water.

There are a few alternatives you can add in to complement your water consumption. I wouldn’t recommend guzzling down these things in lieu of water, but you do you, boo boo. Drinks to rehydrate include coconut water, Gatorade (warning: the grape will make you ralph again), and Pedialyte.

Another option to get yourself back to a humanistic level is to add Hydralytes to your water. Drop one or two of these small powder tabs to water to help re-hydrate your frail insides and live to see another day.

Personally, the Hydrolytes are great for me. They work 40% of the time, every time. I love ‘em. Get ‘em.

Eat Me

This is probably the best category there is. Yes, we need to eat something to help us cure (*not guaranteed*) our hangovers!

An ideal choice would be a greasy burger and greasy fries, ideally from a diner. If you’re still catatonic and can’t leave your bedroom, order from Skip the Dishes or Uber Eats to get said greasy fare. Or, if your brain is working well enough to function, blackmail your friend into getting something for you. Send them an incriminating picture you took of them the night before; this is the ideal course of action.

Enjoy the food; take your time and really chew it, savouring every last – ahh, screw that. Just eat it however you want. Make sure you get that grease in your boday! It soaks up the alcohol and fills you up. I’m pretty sure greasy French fries were invented by god or buddah or Steve Jobs, someone great and smart mind.

What to Watch

What you watch in your post-inebriated stupor is VERY important. Do not discount how much what you watch can affect how you feel. Since you are already feeling depressed (and like your head/intestines have been attacked by the lawnmower from “Dead Alive”, you’ll need something with a high humour value to lift up your spirits.

Don’t be fooled by adult cartoons like “Bojack Horseman”. As much as I enjoy this show, it is deceivingly depressive. Crying over being reminded of your personal existential crisis is something you don’t need right now. Watch it in three days, when both your hangover and subsequent next bender will be over and done with.

Here are a few comedic things that require the least amount of brain cells to process while keeping you entertained:

• Stepbrothers
• How I Met Your Mother
• Party Down
• Any George Carlin specials
• Friends (if you’re a bit more basic)
• Super Troopers (if you’re a little dirtier)
• The Simpsons (but only the first nine seasons)

I would advise against watching any horror movies whatsoever until the next day. Your defenses are down, you’re re-living the horror of the night before, so why would stress out your sloth-esque system with something that’s normally benign to you? Best to keep away from them on your day of RnRnR.

The Regretables

This is the time that you have to apologize for what you did the night before. As mentioned, go through your camera roll to get clues as to what you did to cause someone to be pissed off at you.

Make sure you go through your text messages, your public and private social media platforms, and ask your closest friends if they have any dirt on you (photos, drunken rambling tidbits, a piece of your tooth, etc). This will help you piece together what you said and did, and if determine you need to smash that security camera outside of the Shoppers Drug Mart.

What you say (naturally) is, “I’m so sorry, I was drunk” but try to tailor it to the individual offensive and heinous act that you’ve committed upon each person.

Try to add  a genuine compliment in there (if you have the perspicacity). For example, you can say, “I’m sorry for calling you a buffoon, I actually love how chill you are”, “I didn’t mean to insult your Hammer pants, they’re quite roomy and probably hold a lot of snacks”, “Did I barf on your floor? Thank you for having me at your lovely party and I sincerely hope I cleaned it all up”.

Your charming personality (?) will make up for anything particularly bad you’ve done. If that doesn’t work, how much damage could you have possibly caused in one night anyways? (Stares blankly into the distance)

After you’ve completed (or attempted) all of the above, this should have helped remedy you in disintegrating the hangover. Additionally, one last thing to help you get sober is having another warm being to cuddle up to, to help cry, sway, laugh, barf, and regret the previous night away. It can be a fellow human, a cat, a dog, a hot water bottle that you hot-glued hair onto and now call Marcus… whatever you prefer.

So just get better, my precious thing, because you’ll need to do it all over again next weekend.