7 Surprising Side Effects of NOT Being Hungover

1) Improved dental hygiene.  When you’re stumbling home drunk at 2am you are typically spending your last few awake moments searching for pizza, removing shoes by throwing them at the walls or crying hysterically.  This is not conducive to remembering to floss, brush your teeth and use mouth wash.  Since cutting back on the sauce, I’ve found that there is actually time in my life for me to be kind to my teeth.

2) You don’t have to struggle to remember who you pissed off the night before. When you’re drinking, it feels like a good idea to tell people what you really think.  The morning after, the laws of human decency kicks in as you struggle to remember what you shouted to a crowd during karaoke.  Maybe you told everyone “heyyyy these ladies here (point to friends) are single … are we surprised?” as crickets chirped and your friends shot you the look of Satan.  Or maybe you dropped the bomb that you were recently fired?  It’s all a little hazy the next day. 

3) You know the whereabouts of your debit card.  It’s in your wallet!  Same thing with your shoes, your earrings, your copy of the Brideshead Revisited DVD, your drum sticks, your sink tequila and your dignity. 

4) Hassle free grocery shopping.  You know why the grocery store is as empty as a wine bottle on Sunday mornings?  Because everyone else in the world is hungover.  Capitalize on the American right to booze and find yourself skipping gleefully down the frozen aisles, not bumping into creeps and homeless people.  You can buy those blueberries in 3 minutes or less.  Fuck yeah!

5) You can be (slightly) more honest to your primary care physician.  When he/she asks you how many drinks you typically drink in a week you can actually throw out a number that is marginally closer to reality.  You have now closed the gap by 10 drinks. 

6) More money to buy other useless, random crap.  Outside of college towns, bars are expensive.  Bars in LA, even more so.  At $14 a martini, you can shift those funds to more practical things such as new running shoes, flour sifters, overpriced almond butter, herb plants for your balcony, organic pain juice, leather vests and lottery tickets.

7) You can devote more time feeding your inner loser.  Less time boozing means more time available for watching Open Yale courses, baking, fantasizing about your life with Jason Segel, and blogging.  Let your freak flag fly!