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Comment by bradleyjg | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate the response. Mostly I hate throwaways but this is an appropriate use.

As I’ve gotten older (I’m 40ish) hangovers have gotten worse and worse. It’s now to the point if I have 4-5 medium beers on Friday night I can write off Saturday. Has your subjective experience of hangovers gotten easier over time?

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I've have never had much in the way of hangovers in my life, with the exception of the few times that I have gotten nearly blackout drunk and spent the next day curled up around a toilet bowl.

I tend to drink more on Friday and Saturday nights, and I will wake up the next morning feeling seedy and in need of a big greasy breakfast.

Weekday mornings, if I have had more than usual (by my own standards) to drink the previous night, I will wake up feeling like I slept poorly, but no more than that. It'll take me an hour to get up to speed, and then I'm likely to go to bed earlier than usual that night.

None of this has changed noticeably over the past decade.

It may or may not make a difference that I am meticulous about getting 8.5 hours in bed each night, I don't know, and it may make a difference that I've always had a fairly high tolerance for alcohol's effects.

In my 20s-30s, a few beers or cocktails before dinner. Then a few bottles of wine (with friend, co-workers). Then scotch, or the like. At late 40s, I could write off the next day.

Now, a cocktail (lockdown has turned my wife in to master bartender). Glass of wine with dinner. Maybe a whiskey after. All good.

Have friends over, turns into a bit to much and write off next morning.

Not OP, but I drink quite a bit too. I discovered ZBiotics and it's made a very large difference in my experience with hangovers. I was also starting to feel worse hangovers as I aged (from being practically immune in my late teens / early twenties), but using ZB has taken me back to those levels. They're a YC startup, and the product is a GMO probiotic that produces the enzyme to break down acetaldehyde in your digestive system helping you cope with a much larger amount of alcohol than your body would naturally be able to do.

Important disclosure: I'm an investor in ZB. I use the product at least every other day and have done so for a few years.

Alternately there's NAC, which anecdotally I can say is a miracle if you're expecting to do a lot of drinking, and has some generally good reputation for this purpose and others (including, generically, as a nootropic).

It's a key ingredient in a lot of those commercial pre-drinking drinks. Cycteine itself is used as a combatant against Tylenol poisoning and it accelerates metabolism of acetaldehyde (at least in rats).

If nothing else, it’s a clever idea. I put in an order and we’ll see how it goes.

If you drink 4-5 medium beers everyday, you'd need to drink at least 10 to induce a hangover.

hangover's get worse when you are older, or when you are older you drink less regularly so you get a worse hangover?

The "hangovers get worse when you are older" tripe is a miscorrelation. Any ageing alcoholic can attest to that.

The majority drink hardest when they're in their 20s, start slowing down in their 30s, and all but teetotal as they progress through their 40s. Hangovers are all just a product of your tolerance.

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