So, I have a friend — who shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons pertaining to employment and reputation — who has, for the last several years, rung in the new year by vomiting out a quart of mushed-up, half-digested chunks of whatever he lined his stomach with prior to his annual festive ethanol assault. He is a good friend — a great friend, in fact — but he just can’t help but get super fucked up on New Year’s and literally spill the beans out of his mouth and onto his shirt and suit jacket (because he always dresses sharp for such occasions).
Bro, your friend is just like me! I always get super loaded on New Year’s, too. I may or may not have even shared my New Year’s kiss with the smooth porcelain underparts of a toilet last year.
I bet you did, especially considering that New Year’s Eve is the second booziest holiday of the year behind Mardi Gras, according to a report in Alcohol.org.
So you’re saying it’s cool because everyone gets so drunk on New Year’s Eve that they end up throwing up on themselves?
No.
Oh. So then, can you tell me how to manage my alcohol consumption so that I don’t end up forcibly making out with the toilet?
Well, guy, the advice for how to not get super loaded on New Year’s Eve can be split into two different categories. Let’s start with the practical advice, which comes from WikiHow (uh-oh) and suggests that you drink responsibly: In other words, drinking just one alcoholic beverage an hour. “A drink could be a shot, a beer, a glass of wine or a mixed drink. Whatever it is, try and only drink one per hour. This will prevent you from getting drunk, since your liver can metabolize the alcohol and get it out of your system in an hour. If you stick to this schedule you’ll be able to drink casually but stay sober,” reports WikiHow.
But I don’t want to stay sober, do I? I want to rapidly get to the point of garbling love sonnets I thought I memorized but am really just making up to people I’ve never met, ideally while dancing in a way that shames my ancestors.
Okay, so some more practical advice is drinking water before, between and after drinks. “Water is proven to help alcohol absorption and breakdown and gives you something to drink before refilling your cup,” reports WikiHow. Additionally, their guide suggests using the buddy system to mitigate your drunk ass. “You can look out for each other, gently cutting the other off if things seem to get out of hand,” WikiHow advises. “It also makes it easier to stay sober if everyone around you is getting sober, but you have your buddy on your level.”
Alternatively, Luiza Petre, a nutrition and weight-loss specialist and board-certified cardiologist, suggests lining your stomach with food a few hours before you begin your alcohol binge. “If dinner isn’t part of the evening, Dr. Petre suggests consuming grilled chicken and broccoli (for potassium and magnesium) with quinoa (full of fiber), which ‘mitigates how quickly that fuzzy drunk feeling arrives by slowing the time it takes to empty your stomach,’” POPSUGAR reported earlier this year.
Did she actually suggest eating grilled chicken, broccoli and quinoa for dinner… on New Year’s Eve?
She did. And yeah, I’m on your side here — that’s not a New Year’s Eve dinner and I agree that there has to be a better way. For example, Petre also suggests staying away from sugary chasers. “Combining alcohol with low-calorie mixers gets into your bloodstream as fast as drinking a shot,” Petre told POPSUGAR. “You will get drunk faster with a Diet Coke versus regular Coke as the sugar slows the absorption into the bloodstream.”
That seems doable—I prefer the taste of liquor straight up, anyway. But what other, less practical advice have you got for me?
What are your thoughts on the taste of dry yeast? I ask because Jim Koch, the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, the producers of Samuel Adams, told Esquire in 2015 that he has one teaspoon of yeast per beer, right before he starts drinking. “Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann’s dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable,” writes Aaron Goldfarb.
According to the same article, active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) that is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. “Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver,” writes Goldfarb.
That sounds gross, but like, just gross enough that I think it could work. But what about your friend? Y’know, the one who can’t help but upchuck his way into the impending year of our lord. Does he have any advice?
Ah yes. Of course, who could forget about him — the legend for whom the words, “one more and I’m done,” means absolutely nothing. He tells me that the only way to not drink yourself to inebriation is to really visualize how you’re going to feel the next day. “That guides me, especially as I get older,” he says. “Let loose, but if you’re going to let loose, just remember that feeling you had the day after the last time you drank too much.”
But really, he boils down his advice to a suggestion that he himself has trouble living by: “Try not to throw up on yourself,” he says. “Oh, and if there’s a room where people are doing powdery things, don’t even look in that room’s direction, especially if it’s full of hot girls.”
Wise words from a man who just two short years ago did not believe that he threw up on himself even after he was presented with the evidence right below his chin. Legend.
Andrew Fiouzi
Andrew Fiouzi is a staff writer at MEL.
