The reason why we get sick when mixing alchohol | Hacker News Reader

The reason why we get sick when mixing alchohol

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5 pointsTheAuditor9 comments

> beer before liquor, never been sicker, liquor before beer, you’re in the clear

Interesting fact: in Russian tradition, if people do mix drinks, they usually do it in the opposite direction: from lower alcohol content drink to higher.

I would have thought this is pretty obvious. If you ingest too much ethanol you will get sick. The rhyme should really just be teaching you to moderate yourself. Don't start drinking low alcohol concentrations and then move to high concentration alcohol after your judgement has been impaired. Some alcohol may give certain individuals worse hangovers if they contain tannins and other items that they do not tolerate, but if you drink too much alcohol in any form, you will get sick.

They're entirely overlooking genetics in this. Different people process different amounts of alcohol differently quickly. I've seen people with decades of experience with alcohol get unreasonable after some beers, and have a shit time the entire next day. Meanwhile i and my motherly line of ancestors can drink (compared to the people around us) ridiculous amounts of alcohol really quickly, and for extended amounts of time, sober up quickly, stay in control throughout, and not suffer hangover.

It's also not entrainment. My parents and grandparents drink daily, and not in small amounts either, while i drink maybe 6 times or so a year and i have exactly the same kind of quick processing and resistance as they do.

Interestingly it may be related to the fact that my motherly line of ancestors has a lot of east-european blood in it.

> It's also not entrainment. My parents and grandparents drink daily, and not in small amounts either, while i drink maybe 6 times or so a year and i have exactly the same kind of quick processing and resistance as they do.

This might as well be because you are younger, and thus naturally process alcohol better then they would.

I used to be able to drink a lot and I have never had an hangover until my late twenties even if I got wasted, these days I regularly get it if I drink a bit too much[0].

[0] which might also be habit: I seldom drink much these days, while I did it more often in the past.

I'm 32 and process equally well as my mother. So depending on what your theory is (less efficiency through long term exposure, or increased efficiency through entrainment) one of us should be getting hangovers when drinking considerably more than people around us, but it just doesn't happen.

I am not saying you don't hold alcohol better than other people, I do believe genetics plays a role (though research is not 100% there, see for example the one on native americans[0]).

I am saying that you might be at tolerance level 8 because your are young, while your parents start at 6 but gain 2 points because of resistance they built up with daily use.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans#C...

Ah, you're saying both apply. Maybe. I guess further study is needed. :)

Saw people going to sleep after slowing down with a glass of beer after drinking vodka shots all night. So only way to stay reputable is to pace yourself and not to get wasted.

IMHO the article author should also have googled how different alcohol make your head hurt :)

This is the sort of Hot Take -- sourced from a year-old Buzzfeed article -- that's going to save Yahoo!...

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