My Top 5 Hangovers (in no particular order)

As I get older my hangovers get worse. I’ve gone from ‘slightly tired but nothing a can of juice won’t sort’ to ‘physically unable to stand up for at least 12 hours’. In a bid to document the evolution of my hangovers, here’s a taste of some of the most heinous:

1. Christmas 2016. As usual I’ve started my boozing early on with midday prosecco cocktails and canapés. I arrive at my Aunty’s house suitably ‘merry’ and the evening goes downhill from there. I remember copious amounts of red wine, a magnum of champagne and a failed attempt at ‘All That Jazz’ - my signature sing song. I wake up at 4am and projectile vomit. The family WhatsApp is awash with general ridicule. I am unable to move. I haven’t wrapped any of my boyfriend’s presents and he’s due home any minute for our Boxing Day celebration. 

2. It’s 2007, I’ve just returned home from university for the summer. I’m nineteen years old and I believe myself to be heartbroken. I’ve been out the night before (I forget where) and I’m sitting on the couch at my Mum and Dad’s with an endless summer of nothingness in front of me. I’m watching MTV and the video for Avril Lavigne’s heart-wrenching hit ‘When you’re gone’ comes on. I sob uncontrollably. 

3. The late spring of 2012. I’m in Glasgow for a gig with a group of friends. We sing, we dance, we drink double G&Ts like our lives depend on it. At around 2am I decide I’ve had enough and toddle back to our hotel via a takeaway. Big mistake. I wake up to a noodle massacre. There is fluorescent orange Sweet and sour sauce on EVERYTHING. I can’t move without being sick. We check out, I’m sick in the reception toilets. We go to Nando’s, I am saved. 

4. I’m camping with pals at a festival in Spain in 2011. We wake up, still drunk, and decide to brave the tedious trek to the beach. We get there, it’s hot and the hangover is kicking in. After a couple of hours of agitated sunbathing we decide to start the journey back. We’ve been living off crisps and cartons of red wine, and our digestive systems begin to rebel. The long walk home becomes a race to the portaloos.

5. It’s a Wednesday in 2016, I’ve got a busy day at work but my boss and I went out for a glass of wine last night and ended up 4 bottles deep at karaoke. ON A TUESDAY NIGHT. What the fuck was I thinking?

the consequences of living for the weekend.

I, like many of my peers, am the epitome of a weekend warrior. A classic 9-5er, by COP (or whatever other moronic corporate acronym you despise but definitely use in work emails) Friday I can hear a Prosecco cork pop from 50m.

The thing is I'm just not built for binge drinking anymore. As I write this, on a Wednesday evening, I am still faintly aware of Sunday's abhorrent hangover lurking around in my temperamental gut. It has taken 2 pizzas, a Nandos, a mountain of mac and cheese, endless cups of tea, countless cans of Diet Coke and hundreds of comforting cuddles to help get me back to normal. And that's just the physical symptoms.

For me, the emotional aftermath of a heavy weekend is often as debilitating as the actual hangover. I feel anxious and sad (especially when my rum-fuelled drunk persona has been 'annoying crying girl') for days and the slightest thing can bring me to tears. Scuffing the shit out of brand new silver boots for instance.

This week, drowning in the depths of this harrowing hang, I cry; "never again". Until next Saturday that is...