Drinking and B-School

Since liqour dehydrates you, what I have found to be the best remedy the day after is having a couple of glasses of water, then one of the larger size gatorade bottles - preferably lemon flavor. Dehydration also causes the loss of electrolytes which Gatorade is absolutely full of so you will feel better after a couple of hours, easily. If you wake up at 8am absolutely hung over, drink a couple of glasses of water, then in about a half hour period, drink the bottle of gatorade (i think it's about a liter or a little more than that) and you will start feeling "normal" again.

Some people take a couple of aspirin the day after but I think that is the worst thing to do because all you are doing is giving your liver more stress - and it's probably over-stressed as it is due to the alcohol. I would stay away from the aspirin/tylenol.

fwiw,
- tsd

in which case turmeric, which is prove to help the liver, should help.

Instead of gatorade, a banana contains plenty of potassium and sodium to restore the electrolyte balance. It`s why you see tennis players eating bananas in the middle of a match. Ha ha, that`s the sort of thing i was taught in the nutrition component of my sports degree. Very useful in the erm... technology world in which i work now.

I went through a phase where I had Pedialyte lying around (for marathon training). It was also pretty good for rehydrating post-drinking, pre-sleeping. It doesn't taste very good though--salty, watered-down apple juice, anyone?

right before i leave my house to drink a lot, i always leave a bottle of poland spring lying on the kitchen table. i always guzzle it down when i get back home before i go to bed, and wake up the next morning feeling pretty good!

gatorade has some weird crap in it. I drink it sometimes, but more often drink "rehydration drink" which is something that Peace Corps Volunteers use when they're dealing with an "intestinal upset," shall we say.

1 liter water
7 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Throwing in some lemon juice isn't a bad idea.

No one knows why (as far as I know), but the body absorbs and makes use of water better when it's got some salt and sugar in it.

sugar is for the calories and salt is for absorption.

your concoction is basically the same as gatorade, minus the high fructose corn syrup, crazy flavors/coloring, and savving marketing.

Yes, that's my point. Corn syrup and yellow number 5 have no place in a recovering body!

LOL

Damn tree huggers.

Doing everything I can to make filling the tank of your SUV (Porsche, in your case) as cheap as possible.

Here`s where my sports degree comes in.....

It`s to do with electrolyte balance. Liquids with a similar electrolyte balance to your body is absorbed at a greater rate into the body, whereas water is only about 70-80% efficient. It`s the reason why you see marathon runners and cyclists (e.g. Tour de France) collect their own bottles with liquid balanced to their own body. The extra % of liquid absorption can give you that little extra in an endurqance event which can give you an edge at the elite spectrum of professional sports

There's only 1 tried-and-true-tested-method....

Drink as much water as you can right before you go to sleep and eat some nice greasy food. Set the alarm to ring 4 hours later... wake up, take a big leak, drink as much as water as you can, eat some more food, and then go to sleep.

Steve Schwarzman (CEO of Blackstone) doesn't drink. Useless tidbit, but I found it interesting. In my opinion, there are plenty of real leaders who abstain. However, your average trying to fit-the-mold banker or consultant probably drinks. And this is coming from someone who drinks.

Most mormons abstain from not only alcohol, but caffeine and tobacco as well. They have had a really excellent track record of success in American business and finance. Mitt Romney comes to mind, but there are a few others who are slipping my my mind right now.

I'd say just be up front about it if people ask. Making up stories or excuses that people don't believe will just make you seem childinsh. On the other hand just saying "i dont drink" and ordering another ginger ale will leave everyone happy.
A colleague (at the Ibank in TOKYO i worked at - a heavier drinking culture may not exist on the planet) went out EVERY NIGHT to the bars with people, and he simply had ginger ale. No one ever gave him any crap!

THANK YOU westsider and terp! kudos.

I was worried about Japan (and Asia in general) where if you don't drink at business meetings, you're strange. Very good to hear!

I have never drank in my life, my college was about the most drinking centered culture possible. They live up to the reputation of drunken sailors...literally would get off the ship in port, walk to the nearest bar and spending the next three days completely wasted. No one ever gave me a hard time about it, they might offer a few times but people quickly give up and typically dont say anything about it. The funny thing about it though is my friends who drank heavily would be the first to defend me if anyone made a comment about my choices. I think if someone in a professional setting is making fun of a person for not, they are going to look like an idiot and are probably doing more harm to their image than to yours.

Don't have any advice to impart necessarily, but here's how I get around not drinking:

I'm severely allergic to alcohol, to the point where my face turns this scary shade of purple (not red) that immediately alarms anyone who looks at me. All my current friends know I don't drink but when I am with new people who ask "What are you having", I take that opportunity to joke about my purple face and occasionally throw in the story about how my mother tricked me into not drinking Coke for 20 years because she told me it kills brain cells... then that's my cue to order a Coke from the bar and give 'em a wink.

Works great for breaking the ice, and I've always found that having a drink is merely a type of signaling: that you aren't an unapproachable, stuck up, morally superior, I-art-better-than-thou type of person. So you just need to have other ways show that. I bet too that if you just focus on having a good time (instead of worrying about compensating for not drinking) the issue becomes irrelevant.