We all know it, we all hate it: our bodies, without the numbing effect, try to get rid of a fun night out legacy with too much vodka shots. Ouch! Yes, it is painful and the process can be aided but certainly not stopped.
Hard to think there is something good around this. Well, maybe there isn’t, in a strict sense. However, when going into us, we find that it is quite a natural reaction for doing something harmful to ourselves. Hence, it can be educational. ‘What is he blathering about?’ will you think just now. And this quite rightfully so, as most of the time we are all too willing to engage in another night just about 6 days down the line. In any case, whether you like the booze or not, a hangover is something that will not help you changing your habits. Meaning, you will still go out next weekend, maybe even party harder.
And why is this? In my opinion this is motivated by the fact that we perceive the reaction to the alcohol as something negative, while the actual drinking is, in the core of our minds, unrelated to this. We also find multiple examples for this. Think of the whole childhood education: anything that was not an intrinsic effect of an action, causing a reaction that could be directly and causally mapped to the initial event, was useless. We were relying on quite the long, drawn out process called parenting wrapped around this to get the point.
Now in my world it is actually very naive to believe that, adding a great night out and a paralysing effect of the booze together, humans are capable to use this as a learning exercise.
As a consequence, I propose to change the whole approach. Two options really: either stop drinking or embrace the hangover for what it is – a single, unpleasant way of spending a Sunday. Well, doesn’t sound like we need to learn anything from that after all.