Ugh hangovers are the pits ain't they. Evil little fuckers, hangovers are.
When I say alcoholic, I really meant those who have a physiological dependency upon alcohol-who will either drink (or take another, non-alcoholic GABAa agonist) or else they will go into delirium tremens.
There are a lot of problems with alcohol as a recreational drug, compared to most other recreational drugs. It is inherently toxic in all but very small amounts, and has toxic metabolites, puts a lot of strain on the body, as does all that nasty acetaldehyde that EtOH gets metabolized into. (when I say alcohol here, I mean C2H5OH; since there are other drinkable alcohols than ethyl alcohol, and some that are actually, IMO, a lot more likely to be a lot healthier when not abused. And cleaner in their effects too. Such as tertiary pentyl alcohol (2-methyl-butan-2-ol), I've tried tert.pentanol myself, and it can be dosed by just measuring out a couple of grams into a drink, or putting it into a gel-cap and swallowing it followed by chasing it with a glass of fruit juice and then done (its a lot more potent on a weight basis than EtOH), and being a tertiary alcohol, tert.pentanol, unlike primary or secondary alcohols, which get metabolized to aldehydes or ketones respectively, aldehydes in particular being
in general very hard on the body, acetaldehyde being the metabolite of EtOH responsible for a large proportion of the nasty after-effects of alcohol, these tertiary alcohols can't be oxidized like that to form aldehydes or ketonic metabolites; and from the times I've tried 2-methyl-butan-2-ol it felt a HUGE amount cleaner than drinking ethanol ever has, no awful hangover.
Its dosed more like GHB is in terms of quantity, although the effects are quite different. Plus its also a lot more euphoric, and more dissociating than is ethyl alcohol, EtOH being the stuff people commonly drink, found in alcoholic beverages like beers, wines, cider, spirits etc. It felt so much healthier on the body physically it was quite astounding. I'd love to see it take off as an option, tertiary pentyl alcohol-based cocktails and the like would be great.
Also, for those poor unfortunate buggers who do ever have to experience such a nasty event, delirium tremens can do immense and potentially permanent, excitotoxic harm, literally destroying neurons. And due to the very short duration of effect ethanol has, in those who do get themselves physiologically dependent in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms, they end up making it worse and worse and worse still due to the fact they have to drink round the clock, waking up multiple times a night (and of course, such a badly disrupted sleep architecture is only going to contribute to stress too) in order to drink more alcohol so they can sleep a few more hours without withdrawing, potentially going into seizures, the diet is usually impaired leading to thiamine deficiency which causes Wernicke's encephalopathy, Wernicke-Korsakoff psychosis and Korsakoff's sydrome, where if not treated very rapidly (plus, IIRC alcohol also impairs absorption of thiamine directly, although I might be mistaken on that one, I seem to recall reading that it does though)
And with the directly neurotoxic at high levels effects, the poor vitamin B1 absorption and diet poor in B vitamins generally common amongst alcoholics just compounds things. Plus the very short duration makes it more or less impossible to taper using alcohol itself, and the physical withdrawal from alcohol or other GABAa-ergic CNS depressant drugs is both extremely unpleasant, can cause acute psychosis or psychotic breaks, chronic neurodegeneration, or brain damage that doesn't heal (excitotoxicity) and seizures. So that kind, the alcoholic physically dependent, they need to get help, and detox in-patient ideally, at worst outpatient. But better results, I should think would be had from an inpatient detox where it is supervised and can be combined with therapy. But the physically dependent alcoholic addict MUST get off it, and must be transferred onto a long-acting GABAergic depressant to prevent seizure and DTs, a phenobarb taper, or being put on diazepam plus an antiglutamatergic drug ideally too, and then the dosages slowly, slowly reduced.
Unlike say opioid withdrawal, which is a lot less likely to kill, alcohol or other depressant, GABAa agonist WDs can and frequently DO kill the subject.
Never really taken to alcohol myself. Its just got way too many side effects, nasty hangover effects, its more toxic than other such similar depressant drugs and it gives me nasty 'brain zaps' afterwards if I drink too much. Thats a large part of what makes me prefer most any other intoxicant, for my personal use, over drinking EtOH. I don't even like the smell of ethanol when I need it for certain ethanol-specific (over other alcohols) uses in the lab. It makes me retch a bit up inside.
Give me some t-pentanol any day, or if I'm to have ethanol, I'll take mine in the form of two molecules of ethanol condensed via dehydration to form one of the much preferable diethyl ether.
During prohibition, the polish, as well as americans took to drinking diethyl ether. It needs respectful, careful handling on a chemical/physical storage and maintenance level, and its highly flammable, but it doesn't give the vile hangovers ethanol does, and it has a long history also, of use via the inhaled vapor route, for some of the very first surgical anaesthesia, being less sedative (I.e GABAergic-like) and much more dissociative (ketamine or nitrous like) than alcohol. And mmm...I have to confess I've always loved the smell of ether. Even if I'm just using it in the lab, such as to mix a solution of grease, to be sprayed as an aerosol onto ground glass joint-ware, the sweet, sweet scent of the ether is just fantastic. One of my favourite of all smells in the lab is ether.
