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Top Drunks: Keith Moon | Modern Drunkard Magazine

Jon TaitModern Drunkard Magazine

A Fate that Oughtta be Reserved for the Higher Numbers in Dante's Hell

Who has two-day hangovers?

After a big night of drinking, those most prone to feel the aftereffects for multiple days fall, paradoxically, into two camps: people who drink heavily quite often, and people who rarely do.

If you routinely consume large quantities of alcohol, you might be familiar with the agony that sets in as your body strains to process all that booze. This is particularly true if you binge-drink, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as a woman having at least four drinks on one occasion or a man having at least five. But, in some cases, what you consider to be a hangover may actually be the start of serious alcohol withdrawal, said Lara Ray, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who researches alcohol use disorder.

The symptoms of a hangover and alcohol withdrawal can overlap, and it’s important to know the difference, said Anthony T. March, an addiction medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital. If you are vomiting persistently and cannot keep fluids down, having frequent diarrhea, experiencing confusion or even mild hallucinations, or if your skin is turning blue, you may have a severe form of alcohol withdrawal and you should go to the emergency room as soon as possible.

Conversely, if you don’t drink very often but overindulge one night, one hypothesis for why you may have a longer hangover is that your liver may not be conditioned to produce acetaldehyde, Dr. Ray said. That means your hangover symptoms might stick around, she explained.