My Fellow Inebriates,

Twelve hours of swilling amber ale, champagne, red wine and Malibu leads to several things:

• a furry tongue (if it isn’t already)
• massive dehydration (especially if you’re non-polyester-based)
• a thundering headache

Spending half the night in jail never helps either.

New Year’s Day is only tolerable with the hair of the dog. And if you still haven’t mixed yourself a Bloody Mary yet today, then you must be a masochist. Why try to convince yourself that bacon and eggs will solve the problem? Hair of the dog trumps pig flesh and every other hangover solution.

But why?

There are a few schools of thought:

• A hangover is essentially withdrawal from alcohol. Replenishing your system with fresh vodka will effectively quell its cries of privation.
• The worst hangover symptoms are caused by methanol, an alcohol congener and the principal culprit in darker drinks such as red wine and bourbon. Methanol is metabolized by alcohol dehyrogenase—but so is ethanol. In fact, your body favors ethanol as a substrate, so by feeding yourself some nice clear booze, you generate a processing uptick. Arguably you simply delay the inevitable hangover, but in an oh-so-pleasant way.
• Alcohol causes a sugar spike and hypoglycemic low. Drinking more of it is the fastest route to a new sugar bounce and happy times again.
• The hair of the dog is homeopathic—“like cures like.”

If it’s good enough for Nazareth, it’s good enough for me.