GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1039: HANGOVER

 To be read to this song.

Here's something you won't hear many alcoholics reminisce about when they talk about the things they miss about drinking. I miss hangovers.

Not all of them. The hangovers I got in the last three or four years of my nearly lifelong bender were rough. Nothing good about them, and they didn't often signal the thing I always tried to experience when suffering the morning after. I was proud of my hangovers before then. They meant I'd done something meaningful the previous night. I'd gone to battle and emerged victorious. I had stories to tell. I still do. But those hangovers were glorious. They were so great I named some of them and gave them personalities. Some came back to visit like old friends. Maybe a cousin. Never a sibling, not that close.

But in those last years, they were just vile. By then I was mostly drinking at home, doing nothing more glorious than watching movies. I didn't give hangovers much time to get going, anyway, because I kept a bottle between my bed, my night table and a garbage can. If the morning felt rough, I took a couple of swallows. Hair of the dog wasn't a cure, but it helped me function. And what the hell? A couple of drinks'll do me good, so why not have a few more drinkypoos? Start doing fuckin' GREAT! So yeah, those hangovers were a bunch of losers.

The above song came on while I was driving to work the other day, and I thought about the liquor store about three blocks from where I live. I could really live the romantic life of the struggling writer in a place like this. Hell, if I was going to do that, I needed to get to work on my first relapse. The cliche demanded it, and I wanted to oblige. I didn't just think it; I said it out loud: "I'd bet those hangovers would be awesome."

I could probably find out.

But I won't. Hangovers exist for a reason. Back then? I thought they were the price to pay for greatness. Now? They're an early warning system that should be heeded, not celebrated. Perhaps that was one of the reasons I drank so much. I have a bunch of 'em, but that might be one of the bigger ones. There are a few that are reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally out there. Like, batshit insane reasons. Maybe I'll talk about some of them eventually. It's been three years and 214 days since my last drink. I intend to keep making that number go up.

In the middle of writing this I remembered the greatest hangover music video of all time. It's not from Alestorm but Korpiklaani. It's a cover of Anthrax's "Got the Time," sort of. Korpiklaani wrote their own lyrics, but otherwise, it's the same. Behold!