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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

Hangovers are a wretched, miserable thing, it's true, but beyond the flowery language of metaphysics, they are at least in part due to our drug of choice.

Ethyl Alcohol is not kind to the body, its metabolic pathyway involves formaldehyde, for a start. There are other substances, other alcohols even, that can have similar effects but without the specific awfulness of the hangover.

Certainly, what the author describes as putting the walls back up, that's likely going to happen regardless of the drug, but the pain, nausea and dehydration are signatures of booze, and these will affect your mind too - makingyou more wretched and self pitying.

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The breakdown of ethyl alcohol is as follows:

alcohol dehydrogenase ethyl alcohol -> acetaldehyde

aldehyde dehydrogenase acetaldehyde -> acetate

Much like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde is a toxic mutagen. Depending on your diet, genetics and the health of your liver, alcohol consumption can lead to an accumulation of acetaldehyde. This is why many asians get "red-faced" from drinking, they actually accumulate acetaldehyde due to their genetics. The other major toxin in many alcohols is methyl alcohol, which can break down into formaldehyde, but is actually pretty toxic on its own.

These are fun facts to share at drinking parties ;)

IIRC we don't really know what causes hangovers. Can you give more info on that thing you said about different alcohols not giving hangovers?

My cousin who drinks/drank a lot says it's really dehydration. Apparently if you drink a lot of water at the same time you tend to not get them.

Honestly I think you just feel less hungover with tons of practice. I used to drink every night, and swore by my method of drinking tons and tons of water during and after so I would be 'OK' in the morning. It worked for years. Then I got injured and basically had to stop drinking to let it heal, and after 2 months off, I've never been able to drink like that again. The same methods give me a hangover that I can't work through anymore and I only drink on weekends now. As bad as it was for me drinking every night, I had a lot of fun and almost wish I could still do it. My liver is probably pretty happy about the current situation though.

I think you are right.

I used to drink a lot. Way too much I think. Then I quit cold turkey for 5 months earlier this year.

Ever since I started drinking again, I just cannot even drink 10 percent of what I used to just last year. I too have relegated drinking to only on the weekends because the next day is just horrible.

I wonder if this is age-related. I never drank much before, but since I turned 27, I've noticed that I can get drunk on one half to one-third the amount it used to take me.

It's age related. When you are 18 your liver is like a glittering biotech factory, like the ones on Kendall Square. When you are 40 it's a test tube, one of the scratched plastic ones at high fucking school.

http://wp.streetwise.co/wp-content/uploads//2015/06/Renderin...

https://proscitech.com/img/l/lcb12.jpg

Scientists say the causes of hangover are still poorly understood, so I don't really know how what your cousin has to say that is relevant x)

I drink a fair bit, and I've noticed that drinking water while you drink, and having food in your stomach, are the two main things that help.

Drinking on an empty stomach absolutely wrecks me, every single time, even if I drink a pretty modest amount. It can take over a day to recover.

Not drinking enough water results in more headaches and general aches/pains the next day. Drinking water the next day doesn't seem to help all that much, though if you get up in the middle of the night having some water then can help.

AFAICT (and if there is someone properly versed in the biological sciences here I will gladly defer to them) at least part of the experience of hangover nastiness is down to the formation of aldehydes (particularly acetaldehyde * ) by the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on ethanol. Tertiary alcohols such as tert-Amyl Alcohol don't get acted on by this enzyme.

I'm not for a second denying dehydration, lack of sleep, side effects of ethanol itself etc etc and many other factors are likely to play a part.

( * I said formaldehyde, looks like I was wrong about that on a quick search, it's acetaldehyde)

-- edit -- The wikipedia page on it is quite interesting, particularly the relation of acetaldehyde to the enzyme differences in people with a specific genetic change (usually of east asian descent) and their ability to consume alcohol... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover#Acetaldehyde

Curious - what other alcohols?

Things like "2M2B", tertiary-Amyl alcohol.

The downsides tend to be foul taste and massive potency - much over 15ml can kill someone. It doesn't undergo metabolism to aldehyde so the traditional hangover doesn't happen, and the duration can be much longer.

There are others. I'm not vouching for the safety of any of them (even ethanol!), for the record, and have not tried 2M2B.

Given that you'd be using an eyedropper to add this alcohol to your Coke, would it impart any perceptible taste to the beverage?

True!

I did read something about a guy who had used it to make 'vodka', by adding a few ml to enough water that a shot would have a similar effect to ethanol-based spirits. At the concentration the report said there was a sort of minty-chemical. I would imagine further dilutions with a mixer would hide that.

I think you're onto something. Go make the next billion-dollar company :-)

You know it's niche when there are only two reports on erowid: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_2Methyl2Butanol....

Hehe, lol. True. You'd probably find a bit more info on some of the forums dedicated to "legal highs" from a few years back, and maybe on bluelight. I don't think it ever became popular. This is probably a really good thing because of the apparent low dose you might need to accidentally kill yourself.

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