5 ms·

How I Felt After Binge-Drinking 'Hangover-Free' Alcohol

39 points by bloat 4y ago

marssaxman 4y ago
I wonder how the results compare with ZBiotics. Extracting anti-oxidants from grapes seems like a more down-to-earth process than genetically engineering probiotics, but with the probiotic approach you don't need to get bartenders & liquor companies on board in order to benefit.
cglan 4y ago
Isn’t GHB hangover free alcohol (other than the part where you can date rape people with it). The real downside is that when these drugs are hangover free it’s basically like Xanax (which shares a similar chemical property to alcohol), and it’s very addictive. Alcohol is already extremely addictive
- operator-name 4y ago
  GHB is also far easier to overdose on with an estimated LD50 of only ~15g.
- skhm 4y ago
  Why can’t we just have nice things
elecush 4y ago
Hangover-free alcohol will still shrink grey and white matter for daily units in excess of (0-1]
permo-w 4y ago
for someone purportedly so intent on having a scientific experiment, he didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that these two days of drinking were in a row if I drink on consecutive days the hangover will be markedly weaker on each additional day
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  There was a day in between, but yeah, not the best protocol.
  - washadjeffmad 4y ago
    Ethanol tolerance builds quickly and is still in effect within a few days. Just having someone binge drink twice in 72 hours is typically enough to reduce hangover symptoms. I don't produce enough acetylaldehyde dehydrogenase, so when I was young, I had to drink more frequently than others leading up to a party to keep up with their regular drinking pace, and typically suffering worse from the aftereffects. I didn't understand why at the time, and as soon as I did and the significant increase in risk of cancer and liver damage, I quit drinking.
- rjh29 4y ago
  Also he wasn't told which day was the hangover-free alcohol day (some weak attempt at making it 'scientific') but of course the first day was normal alcohol. So upon the second day he already knew it was hangover-free alcohol, making placebo effect more likely, and possibly changing his drinking habits (time before bed, hydration etc.). Not that I believe the account at all, this is just a pop article for Vice.
  - operator-name 4y ago
    > I awoke at 5 AM with a piercing headache and a parched throat. I drank some water and flopped back into bed but it was no use. I was awake, horribly hungover, and hoping that I’d spent the night drinking plain old tequila. Otherwise I’d have to tell Dahl that his science-alcohol didn’t work. Like any pop-sci article it's not ment to be rigorous, but provide an interesting narritive. Ideally there would a double blind study with control groups given any combination of normal alcohol and hangover free alcohol but I wouldnt expect that level of rigour from a Vice article.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
drooby 4y ago
Weird… I tried this literally last night. Not his product. But drinking green tea while drinking alcohol to see if it prevents hangover via antioxidants. Currently writing this from bed… I feel good. Needs more experimentation. More potent antioxidants.
- sph 4y ago
  Maybe because you were hydrating together with your booze? Dehydration is a big part of the next day headache. In my 20s when I knew I had a long night of drinking ahead, I would get a glass of water together with each serving of alcohol. Seemed to work pretty well. Once dehydration is taken care of, the remaining effects or hangover can be cured with protein-rich food. IIRC vitamin B6 depletes after heavy alcohol intake, and is one of the factor of hangover. But avoiding alcohol binges often is the better option. The Ballmer's peak of giddiness, sociability and mood elevation tends to be well below what one would call a "binge", and has carries next-day effects.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    My technique is to anticipate when things are going to start winding down, and switch to drinking pints of water at the same rate you were drinking alcohol (this is much easier if you were drinking beer). If the night rekindles, you can always switch back.
- kampsduac 4y ago
  Interesting! I’ve noticed less hangover effects when drinking herbal tea before bed as well. I even use unintentionally have a/b(ish) tested this with water and have much better results with tea. I thought maybe the warm water was doing the trick, but maybe now ill test different tea. So far team with tulsi seem to work well for me.
Our_Benefactors 4y ago
> A third of a bottle of tequila is probably not what you would consider a wild night out This is sad to see. You know what’s better than binging on hangover-free alcohol? Not binging in the first place.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  A third of a bottle would probably kill me.
- permo-w 4y ago
  your expectations should be tempered by the fact that this is an article for a company named Vice
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rjh29 4y ago
  I can't work out if you're suggesting that a third of a bottle doesn't qualify as a binge, or making a negative remark on society's binging habits. Binge drinking is defined by the UK at 8+ units for men and 6+ for women, 250ml of tequila is around 10. Although I think reality most men will drink far more than 10 units.
  - Our_Benefactors 4y ago
    [dead]
  - axpy 4y ago
    Isn’t a unit usually defined as 1.5oz (~45ml)? So it would be 5-6 unit, not 10.
    - rjh29 4y ago
      UK units are 25ml of 40% spirit, but my comment holds up if you adjust the numbers. Fun fact about UK units: they are equal to the alcohol % (ABV, half of US proof) in 1 litre of the liquid, so calculation is easy. For example a 6% ABV lager means there are 6 units in a litre, so a 500ml can is 3 units and a 330ml can is around 2 units.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
About twenty-five years ago I product tested a hangover prevention pill that appears to have been little more than capsules of activated charcoal. IIRC, we were instructed to take one pill before drinking and then one after every other drink. If it wasn't the drunkest I've ever been, it was close. The next day I was low on energy but was otherwise unaffected by the previous night's drinking. As one of my fellow product testers put it "I feel unreasonably ok". I suspect that the product didn't take off because activated charcoal can interfere with absorption of things you want absorbed, like prescription drugs and also because it turned your poop absolute jet black.
- selfmodruntime 4y ago
  The „worst“ interaction orally ingested activated charcoal has is with birth control. BC pills are relatively tiny with a low dosage of active substance, which appears to bind to the charcoal unreasonably well. This interaction should be mentioned by OB GYNs to every woman out there, but sadly they seem to be the worst offenders when it comes to spectacularly failing at their job to inform patients. I am not mindlessly bashing, or advising against birth control. Seriously, ask women you know if they are aware that birth control fails when you‘re sick with diarrhea, take charcoal or any kind of antibiotic.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    Anecdata: the leaflet in the packets of all the ones I’ve taken in both the US and Germany mention the antibiotics pretty clearly, the diarrhea too obliquely, but I’ve never heard of the charcoal thing!
  - escapedmoose 4y ago
    I knew about the antibiotics interaction but not the others! That’s… mildly horrifying.
    - selfmodruntime 4y ago
      There is more. Epilepsy medications, obesity, antidepressants, flaxseed, alfalfa, St. John's wort, Crohns, Celiac, IBS, the list goes on and on.
browningstreet 4y ago
I don’t drink anymore, but as I got older the hangovers got worse. I looked for different alcohols (low sugar wine) which improved things but every single digit “n” times I drank I’d have a terrible hangover. I figured there’s was an emotional vulnerability component involved. When pot was legalized I went through all the pot options, but even one drag on a pot vape would leave me with an altered hangover physical feeling the next day. I just stopped chasing an altered state, or one beyond coffee, and working out more.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  You can't dig a ditch all day like you could at 18 either. The hangover isn't getting worse. Your body's ability to just keep going after anything compromising (like mild recreational poisoning) is getting worse so you sit around feeling sick rather than getting up and going about your day like would have.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Oh, so it's the hangover that's getting worse, not the hangover?
operator-name 4y ago
Supposidly the Chinese spirit Maotai is known for its lack of hangovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maotai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maotai
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danielfoster 4y ago
NAC has been very helpful for me. I have no idea if it really works, but it is the best option I have found. It’s really hard to evaluate the author’s experience because we don’t know “what a little tired” means or how much alcohol the bar put in his drinks. A BAC reading before bed would have made this more credible.
nunez 4y ago
What also works is drinking one or two cups of pedialyte before bed, as hangovers are usually the result of massive dehydration.
71a54xd 4y ago
This is interesting - however as someone who used to enjoy mild drinking and just lost interest in booze, it's still worth stating that alcohol is definitely still bad for the body in a myriad of ways. 2022 was my first completely dry year - health and mental clarity has never been better even in my late 20s.
pstuart 4y ago
It doesn't specify the actual ingredients. The "grapes" bit makes me think perhaps resveratrol? Dihydromyricetin is touted as being protective before and after drinking. It appears to have other benefits as well. I've now become a big fan and follower of Andrew Huberman and a recent podcast has helped sway me to effectively give up alcohol (I was already trending in that direction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY My one remaining active vice is Kratom and I'm pretty comfortable with my relationship with it, considering the value it gives in managing chronic pain. Obviously different strokes for different folks.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

39 points by bloat 4y ago

I wonder how the results compare with ZBiotics. Extracting anti-oxidants from grapes seems like a more down-to-earth process than genetically engineering probiotics, but with the probiotic approach you don't need to get bartenders & liquor companies on board in order to benefit.

cglan 4y ago

Isn’t GHB hangover free alcohol (other than the part where you can date rape people with it). The real downside is that when these drugs are hangover free it’s basically like Xanax (which shares a similar chemical property to alcohol), and it’s very addictive. Alcohol is already extremely addictive

operator-name 4y ago
GHB is also far easier to overdose on with an estimated LD50 of only ~15g.
skhm 4y ago
Why can’t we just have nice things

elecush 4y ago

Hangover-free alcohol will still shrink grey and white matter for daily units in excess of (0-1]

permo-w 4y ago

for someone purportedly so intent on having a scientific experiment, he didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that these two days of drinking were in a row if I drink on consecutive days the hangover will be markedly weaker on each additional day

tonyarkles 4y ago
There was a day in between, but yeah, not the best protocol.
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  Ethanol tolerance builds quickly and is still in effect within a few days. Just having someone binge drink twice in 72 hours is typically enough to reduce hangover symptoms. I don't produce enough acetylaldehyde dehydrogenase, so when I was young, I had to drink more frequently than others leading up to a party to keep up with their regular drinking pace, and typically suffering worse from the aftereffects. I didn't understand why at the time, and as soon as I did and the significant increase in risk of cancer and liver damage, I quit drinking.
rjh29 4y ago
Also he wasn't told which day was the hangover-free alcohol day (some weak attempt at making it 'scientific') but of course the first day was normal alcohol. So upon the second day he already knew it was hangover-free alcohol, making placebo effect more likely, and possibly changing his drinking habits (time before bed, hydration etc.). Not that I believe the account at all, this is just a pop article for Vice.
- operator-name 4y ago
  > I awoke at 5 AM with a piercing headache and a parched throat. I drank some water and flopped back into bed but it was no use. I was awake, horribly hungover, and hoping that I’d spent the night drinking plain old tequila. Otherwise I’d have to tell Dahl that his science-alcohol didn’t work. Like any pop-sci article it's not ment to be rigorous, but provide an interesting narritive. Ideally there would a double blind study with control groups given any combination of normal alcohol and hangover free alcohol but I wouldnt expect that level of rigour from a Vice article.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

drooby 4y ago

Weird… I tried this literally last night. Not his product. But drinking green tea while drinking alcohol to see if it prevents hangover via antioxidants. Currently writing this from bed… I feel good. Needs more experimentation. More potent antioxidants.

sph 4y ago
Maybe because you were hydrating together with your booze? Dehydration is a big part of the next day headache. In my 20s when I knew I had a long night of drinking ahead, I would get a glass of water together with each serving of alcohol. Seemed to work pretty well. Once dehydration is taken care of, the remaining effects or hangover can be cured with protein-rich food. IIRC vitamin B6 depletes after heavy alcohol intake, and is one of the factor of hangover. But avoiding alcohol binges often is the better option. The Ballmer's peak of giddiness, sociability and mood elevation tends to be well below what one would call a "binge", and has carries next-day effects.
- mindslight 4y ago
  My technique is to anticipate when things are going to start winding down, and switch to drinking pints of water at the same rate you were drinking alcohol (this is much easier if you were drinking beer). If the night rekindles, you can always switch back.
kampsduac 4y ago
Interesting! I’ve noticed less hangover effects when drinking herbal tea before bed as well. I even use unintentionally have a/b(ish) tested this with water and have much better results with tea. I thought maybe the warm water was doing the trick, but maybe now ill test different tea. So far team with tulsi seem to work well for me.

Our_Benefactors 4y ago

> A third of a bottle of tequila is probably not what you would consider a wild night out This is sad to see. You know what’s better than binging on hangover-free alcohol? Not binging in the first place.

ceejayoz 4y ago
A third of a bottle would probably kill me.
permo-w 4y ago
your expectations should be tempered by the fact that this is an article for a company named Vice
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rjh29 4y ago
I can't work out if you're suggesting that a third of a bottle doesn't qualify as a binge, or making a negative remark on society's binging habits. Binge drinking is defined by the UK at 8+ units for men and 6+ for women, 250ml of tequila is around 10. Although I think reality most men will drink far more than 10 units.
- Our_Benefactors 4y ago
  [dead]
- axpy 4y ago
  Isn’t a unit usually defined as 1.5oz (~45ml)? So it would be 5-6 unit, not 10.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    UK units are 25ml of 40% spirit, but my comment holds up if you adjust the numbers. Fun fact about UK units: they are equal to the alcohol % (ABV, half of US proof) in 1 litre of the liquid, so calculation is easy. For example a 6% ABV lager means there are 6 units in a litre, so a 500ml can is 3 units and a 330ml can is around 2 units.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

About twenty-five years ago I product tested a hangover prevention pill that appears to have been little more than capsules of activated charcoal. IIRC, we were instructed to take one pill before drinking and then one after every other drink. If it wasn't the drunkest I've ever been, it was close. The next day I was low on energy but was otherwise unaffected by the previous night's drinking. As one of my fellow product testers put it "I feel unreasonably ok". I suspect that the product didn't take off because activated charcoal can interfere with absorption of things you want absorbed, like prescription drugs and also because it turned your poop absolute jet black.

selfmodruntime 4y ago
The „worst“ interaction orally ingested activated charcoal has is with birth control. BC pills are relatively tiny with a low dosage of active substance, which appears to bind to the charcoal unreasonably well. This interaction should be mentioned by OB GYNs to every woman out there, but sadly they seem to be the worst offenders when it comes to spectacularly failing at their job to inform patients. I am not mindlessly bashing, or advising against birth control. Seriously, ask women you know if they are aware that birth control fails when you‘re sick with diarrhea, take charcoal or any kind of antibiotic.
- MandieD 4y ago
  Anecdata: the leaflet in the packets of all the ones I’ve taken in both the US and Germany mention the antibiotics pretty clearly, the diarrhea too obliquely, but I’ve never heard of the charcoal thing!
- escapedmoose 4y ago
  I knew about the antibiotics interaction but not the others! That’s… mildly horrifying.
  - selfmodruntime 4y ago
    There is more. Epilepsy medications, obesity, antidepressants, flaxseed, alfalfa, St. John's wort, Crohns, Celiac, IBS, the list goes on and on.

browningstreet 4y ago

I don’t drink anymore, but as I got older the hangovers got worse. I looked for different alcohols (low sugar wine) which improved things but every single digit “n” times I drank I’d have a terrible hangover. I figured there’s was an emotional vulnerability component involved. When pot was legalized I went through all the pot options, but even one drag on a pot vape would leave me with an altered hangover physical feeling the next day. I just stopped chasing an altered state, or one beyond coffee, and working out more.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
You can't dig a ditch all day like you could at 18 either. The hangover isn't getting worse. Your body's ability to just keep going after anything compromising (like mild recreational poisoning) is getting worse so you sit around feeling sick rather than getting up and going about your day like would have.
- thfuran 4y ago
  Oh, so it's the hangover that's getting worse, not the hangover?

operator-name 4y ago

Supposidly the Chinese spirit Maotai is known for its lack of hangovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maotai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maotai

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

danielfoster 4y ago

NAC has been very helpful for me. I have no idea if it really works, but it is the best option I have found. It’s really hard to evaluate the author’s experience because we don’t know “what a little tired” means or how much alcohol the bar put in his drinks. A BAC reading before bed would have made this more credible.

nunez 4y ago

What also works is drinking one or two cups of pedialyte before bed, as hangovers are usually the result of massive dehydration.

71a54xd 4y ago

This is interesting - however as someone who used to enjoy mild drinking and just lost interest in booze, it's still worth stating that alcohol is definitely still bad for the body in a myriad of ways. 2022 was my first completely dry year - health and mental clarity has never been better even in my late 20s.

pstuart 4y ago

It doesn't specify the actual ingredients. The "grapes" bit makes me think perhaps resveratrol? Dihydromyricetin is touted as being protective before and after drinking. It appears to have other benefits as well. I've now become a big fan and follower of Andrew Huberman and a recent podcast has helped sway me to effectively give up alcohol (I was already trending in that direction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY My one remaining active vice is Kratom and I'm pretty comfortable with my relationship with it, considering the value it gives in managing chronic pain. Obviously different strokes for different folks.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]