As I get older I find that hangovers affect my life a great deal more negatively than they have in the past. While not everyone will be able to relate to this alcohol has been a massive part of my life since I was 18 or so.
When I first moved out of my parents' house at 17 and went to college, I wasn't much of a drinker. I didn't really care for alcohol but quickly found out that if you want to be part of social circles in a college environment, there is no quicker way to accomplish this than by becoming a party guy.
Thankfully I managed to not completely fuck up my life with excessive booze although I am not going to lie, my intake was what most people would consider excessive. When you know the drink specials all over town for every day of the week and take advantage of them, I think you can say that at the minimum you have a drinking problem.
This kind of continued into my professional life when I had a traveling job as I would be at the hotel lobby bar nightly and sometimes a bit later than one really should be there when they have to head to the office at 7am the following day. This carried on into my life when I moved to Asia and even though I was dive instructor that had to be up at 5-6am every day, I still went out drinking the night before. It was kind of the norm for all of us in that industry and since we all actually really liked our jobs, it didn't interfere with it too much.
However, as I got into my late 30's and early 40's I started to notice that hangovers were getting more intense than they had in the past. They aren't something I can just shake off anymore. They aren't something I can solve by having a heavy greasy breakfast. Normally, if the hangover is too intense, the only solution is to start drinking again and well, that is not a good sign or system for anyone now is it?
src
I am not one of those guys that is just going to give up drinking because it is a massive part of my social circles and really, I don't know what else I would do if I didn't meet up with friends at the bars a few nights a week. However, lately in an attempt to make my life more productive and to not feel like crap all the time I have been limiting myself to 4 beers a day unless there is some sort of occasion such as our weekly Thursday bowling outings where I am certain I end up having 12 or more drinks easily.
Now, my strategy is to day drink with a few friends and get some food on the way home. Normally I am back at my house by 6 pm even though I don't even leave it until around 4 or 5pm. I drink conservatively and if I truly have my head on straight, I will have a water or two in between beers.
Here is what the end result has been of this after a week or so of trying this method.
For starters, I am going to be a lot earlier and therefore, waking up a lot earlier. 4 beers is not a lot for me. I often say that if I have less than 6 it is kind of like a "normal person" having none at all.
A little bit of booze makes me tired, a lot, for some reason, energizes me. Therefore, when I have 4 beers or less and then head home with my take away food, I normally end up feeling pretty tired after I eat. It has been rather routine of me lately to be showered and in my bed by 8-9pm. I know this is a grandpa time of night to go to bed but I don't go to sleep at this time, I will start to watch a movie or something and normally will be asleep by 11 or so.
This has resulted in me waking up at 5-7 am almost every day, which for those of you out there that have jobs is probably what time of day you get up every day. For me, since i don't set an alarm ever unless there is a flight, is quite an early start for me. This early start results in me getting a ton of work done in the morning and normally I am finished before noon.
This early finish results in me heading to the gym to lift some weights... nothing major, but at least it is something.... then going back to chill and get a snack in my condo. Then I'll play some video games or watch TV until about 4, then I head out to meet up for a few drinks and repeat the process.
I'm not going to say that I love waking up in the morning but here is another benefit of morning without a hangover: It doesn't hurt to get out of bed. In the past I would wake up, feel sorry for myself, then go back to sleep several times. These days, provided there is some level of light going on outside I wake up no matter what time it is.
I had previously written a post about how I am accepting the fact that I am getting older and well, I guess this is just part of it. I am learning to embrace the morning even though for almost all of my life I have hated it, even, if you can believe this, Christmas Day when I was a child.
So let's see if I end up sticking to this. I do know that in the past 3.5 years a great deal of my wakey-wakey time has been closer to noon than to 5am, so I do feel less like a piece of shit by waking up at normal adult times of day.