*also for the same assignment
Throw in four guys with an 8am class. Ah! What would university life be without experience(s) like that?
Of course, some sensible souls out there are going to point out that a simple solution to the matter would be to abstain from the alcohol. Certainly, it will save you the feeling of your head thumping like it's about to explode, a stomach that will feels like a washing machine, and the awful feeling that you mopped the floor with your tongue. However, these people are unenlightened ones who do not realize that for some of us, excluding the alcohol is just not an option. To these sensible ones, please stop reading now, and go back to drinking your chocolate milk.
Thank you.
Welcome, true believers.
I, am here today in the spirit of the kudi brotherhood to show you the way to enlightenment. Learn well and I will teach you much. You will learn to turn the jackhammer thudding in your skulls to the sweet singing of birds of paradise, bring peace to the churning of your foaming bellies and the feeling of having mopped the toilet floor to the sweetness of a light champagne.
If you believed that, sorry dude, you got the wrong messiah, I'm no miracle worker.
Let's set a more realistic target eh. Say, surviving the experience and making it for that 8am class without collapsing on the way to class or puking in the lecture hall ( Not cool dude. Not cool. ). This is important to reduce the chances of you, the true believer, getting barred for less than 75% attendance. Of course, I would never recommend skipping classes just for alcohol. If you skip classes and graduate slower, you the true believer will start working later. This is a bad thing because without working and earning your own money, you will never be able to taste the true glories of the real liquors.
As we've been taught as good engineering students, we will first define the problem. Then we will explore the underlying factors and then propose the solution.
You may choose to understand this great work as a whole, or to do as most MMU students normally do, to memorize this formula for success and just regurgitate it. Unlike the EHM3066 mid term exam, memorizing this formula is highly likely to get you through to the class.
The wise sages of the ages have a name for these symptoms caused by ingestion of too much of a good thing. It is called "Veisalgia." Okay, obviously the dude who coined this term was himself drunk. To those of us who are sober at this point, we call it by a rather more pronounceable term, "the Hangover".
What is the Hangover?
In short it's your body screaming at you for poisoning it very very loudly. Alcohol is actually a fuel just like petrol. Burn petrol and you get by products such as CO2 and small icky black particles from the impurities in it. When you drink alcohol, your body burns it and produces a whole bunch of by products. Metabolized alcohol produces acetaldehyde, a nasty little poison that your body does not like. In addition, many alcohols have impurities called "congeners" which are also toxic. Alcohol itself also has a diuretic effect which means your body is going to be dehydrated. This is bad because there is even less fluid in your body to dilute the poison's effects. Along with all that water flowing out of your body will also be all those nice vitamins that are water soluble such as vitamin A, vitamin B and vitamin C. Alcohol in it's raw form is a depressant drug and when you have a hangover, it's actually like a drug overdose which makes the road to the CLC feel like the road to hell.
Dealing with the Hangover
We see now that there are 3 things to handle,
- Get rid of all that acetaldehyde and congener by products
- Replenish all the good stuff that your body needs, water and vitamins
- Reduce the depressant effect on your brain
The bad news is, there is no way to directly stop the effects of the alcohol on your system until it has been excreted.
The following are some ways we can deal with these effects.
- Choose your alcohol – Dark liquors contain higher amounts of congeners. This means more poison for your body to deal with. Vodka or gin have less of these.
- Modulate alcohol intake – Drink alcohol yes, but drink water or juices too.
- Bananas – Eat a few or put them in a banana milkshake with honey. Bananas are rich in electrolytes, magnesium, potassium and fructose all of which your body has lost. Additionally the bananas will sooth the stomach while the honey is also rich in sugars, especially fructose. Fructose here has the additional advantage of helping your body metabolize the alcohol faster thereby shortening your suffering.
- Activated charcoal – This will help to absorb the toxic impurities in the alcohol which worsen the effects. Don't do this too often because activated charcoal absorbs just about everything including all the good stuff in your body.
- Rehydrate – Drink lots of juice, slightly acidic juices work best. 100 Plus or other isotonic drinks work well too. Tomato juice is excellent so is orange or lemon. Again these contain fructose and other sugars along with replenishing bodily fluids.
- Raw cabbage – Eat some raw cabbage leaves. This helps to relieve the headache.
- Probiotic pills (good bacteria) – Helps your stomach to repopulate with good bacteria. Reduces the churning later on
- Berocco tablets – A vitamin supplement that dissolves in water to release vitamin B. This is abit to hard to find in Malaysia, but you can substitute it with any vitamin B and C supplement.
- A SINGE Bloody Mary – A little bit of alcohol to sooth the withdrawal symptoms along with tomato juice in it which does all the good stuff mentioned earlier. Don't go overboard with this treatment however, or you won't just not get better. You will get worse.
This then is the way to successfully make it to the 8am class. Drink up kudis! Of course don't forget to set your alarm clocks. LOL.
