Feeling bad after a night of drinking doesn't make a difference
Many of us have uttered the words “I’m never drinking again” following an especially debauched night–probably in college.
But a new study suggests that’s hardly ever true. The research, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, looked at 386 young adults, the majority of whom were college students, who kept diaries of their drinking habits for three weeks.
Each morning, the participants recorded whether they were hungover and rated their likelihood to drink later that same day. Even when the participants were suffering from the effects of a hangover, it did not impact their intentions to drink again later. At the same time, they found that the participants did not attempt the questionable but popular “hair of the dog” trick: to drink more alcohol in an attempt to ease their symptoms.
The researchers concluded that our hangovers have little influence over our drinking intentions. “If hangovers don’t strongly discourage or punish drinking, links between current problem drinking and frequent hangover seem less incongruent. If hangovers don’t generally hasten drinking, we can rule out a direct causal role of hangovers in the acceleration of problem drinking,” study author Thomas Piasecki told the BBC.
There’s no solid evidence that there’s a cure for hangover, but you can find some tips for minimizing them here.