Why Your Hangovers Are Getting Worse

Doctor Franzia9 years ago

If you’re a senior on your way out this month, I want to congratulate you. Good job! Your days of limping to class once a week half-drunk because you need the attendance points will soon be over. You made it through, and the real world is waiting.

Luckily, we live in a country where adult responsibilities are no more than a passing annoyance, and nobody expects you to ever be sober if you don’t want to. But despite the fact that you are about to enter a period of your life where you can actually afford to get piss drunk every night (and on the good stuff), you might be having a deep feeling of dread.

Things aren’t the way the used to be, are they?

When you were a freshman, you could kill half a handle of Black-Out Velvet and then wake up and inhale about 10 pounds of breakfast buffet before running a marathon. Life was good. There was nothing that could keep you down and out from waking up and doing it all again. You were a God amongst men and women flocked to you like you were Hercules himself.

However, something changed in your evolution to being a senior. Last night, some pussy JI challenged you to a shot-off and you ended up under the table, giving death a cold, clammy blowjob. Now you’re curled up in the fetal position on your couch with about five red Gatorade, a whole bottle of Advil, and the TV on with the sound down low. No longer can you walk into a room and command the kind of attention you used to receive. Girls have moved on to younger, more supple prey. Why is that?

What happened to you?

It’s your liver. Or more accurately, the cells manufacturing an antioxidant called “glutathione.” Chemistry-wise, alcohol is the Devil’s cum, but it’s “acetaldehyde” that really messes you up. Acetaldehyde is the first thing your cells convert booze into, and it’s 30 times more toxic than alcohol. Almost like they’re giving you the finger for poisoning them. Weak move, cells.

Normally, some other, non-asshole cells show up. These guys realize being piss drunk is the only way you’re ever going to reproduce, so they break down the acetaldehyde using glutathione to let you keep partying.

But according to Dr. Young Chul Kim, a Korean, these cells get weaker as you get older. Dr. Kim’s studies seem to suggest that glutathione production specifically decreases rapidly with a combination of age and overuse. Koreans are pretty good at science, so you should probably take his word for it. If alcohol intake exceeds glutathione production, acetaldehyde is free to go wild in your blood stream, which causes headaches, pain, and all the classic hangover symptoms you know and love.

So now you know. It’s not because you’ve grown old and can’t hold your shit anymore. It’s because your damn cells don’t have your back! Find some way to whip ’em back into shape. Just because you’re graduating is no reason to slow down now..