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The Rules of Drinking: Learn to Drink like a Pro
Drinking is a skill. Professional drinking is an art. Walk inside any pub on a Friday night, and you'll see plenty of amateurs - they start their evening with enthusiastic smiles on their faces, but these same faces will end up contorted in toilet bowls, lying on urine soaked pavements, and maybe even in police mug shots. These dilettantes spoil everyone's fun not to mention pub furniture, other people's faces and their own reputations.
Tired of being one of them? There's no need to give up alcohol. You just need to drink smart. Use the following simple rules, and your nights will become more joyous, and mornings will bring no headache (and no shame, no police records, no broken relationships and no disappointments).
1. Before you start drinking, make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from it, and act accordingly. Different spirits have different influence on your body and soul: tequila and sambuca will give you a funny and active mood, beer will make you relaxed, wine will cause drowsiness. Think of what you want to get out of your evening - and be clever choosing your drinks.
2. Beer contains alcohol. One of most common mistakes is drinking a glass of beer after a long evening full of wine, whisky, or other spirit. Amateurs will tell you that they are 'taking their foot of the gas', slowing down to sober up. Don't believe it? They could not be more wrong! Their nausea in the morning will be the strongest proof of their error.
3. Don't ever lower the proof of your drinks. It's easy to remember - start with beer, then go to wine, go on with whisky and finish with absinthe - but never the other way round! And even in this case try not to mix more than three types of drinks during the evening. In any case don't wash down your spirits with beer or wine - it's the fastest way to find your face down the potty.
4. Learn how you react to different spirits. Start with basic drinks - beer, wine, whisky and vodka, watch your mood and health after every one of them. Then go to more exotic ones, and don't be afraid to experiment - you need to know your own body! Remember don't listen to anyone else they will also be drunk and are not to be trusted. If somebody tells you that a particular cocktail will make you feel happy, don't believe them until you have tested it in good conditions. Alcohol is an extremely individual experience. One of the reasons for this is its influence on your circulation. For example, if you're a woman on your period, vodka narrows your blood vessels, which can be highly useful, whereas red wine widens them, which can cause you trouble. Sambuca and absinthe, have plenty of invigorating ingredients, raise blood pressure and heart rate, give you more energy and improve your mood, but in big quantities may cause insomnia and heart problems.
5. Remember that every spirit has its own 'fuddle speed'. Champagne acts pretty honestly - it kicks you immediately, and disintegrates pretty fast. Vodka is more deceptive, it hits you after about 20 minutes, and keeps you drunk for much longer. Therefore during this 20 minutes you can drink much more than you want before you realize how drunk you really are.
6. Carbonated drinks and fresh squeezed fruit juices give alcohol much stronger impact. Whisky mixed with coca-cola will make you more drunk than a straight whisky. If you don't like it straight, just mix it with some juice from a carton I suggest apple or cherry - and you'll get a nice cocktail, at the same time saving yourself from a morning hangover. Alcohol causes dehydration (you can feel it clearly in the morning after), so if you mix every portion of spirit with a soft drink, you'll ease morning dehydration.
7. Greasy food weakens impact of alcohol. Start your party with a salmon sandwich with lots of butter, or a nice pork chop, and don't forget to eat during the drinking process. Fat will cover the insides of your intestines, protecting it from absorbing too much of the alcohol.
8. If, in spite of all our warnings, you still got drunk, don't panic. The easiest way to deal with it is to move: go for a long walk, go dancing, or bowling or at least play pool. After an hour of physical activity you'll feel much better. Remember at the end of the night to drink water to stave off the hangover.
9. Don't neglect the advances of medical technology. If it is available in your local pharmacy try activated charcoal powder. A nice amount of this, ingested will help you feel better, so take it before the party (if you don't want to get drunk), during the party (if you start feeling dizzy), or after it (to avoid the hangover). If you're expecting a hard drinking time (for example, Christmas and New Year festivities), help your liver with some liver salts.
10. Don't forget about a hangover! It's an essential part of drinking life, like it or not. Don't be ashamed, and help your body recover, there's no need to punish it for your soul sins. If you woke up feeling dizzy, sick, thirsty, and your head is going to explode - then it's time to take care of yourself. Every drinker has their own recipe, and if you want to drink professionally you'll have to develop your own. Our advice is 'the hair of the dog (that bit you)' - start your day with a drink, the same one as you had the night before, and accompany it with a nice big plate of a rich soup. As Russians say, a drink in the morning makes you free for the rest of the day - try it once and you'll become a fan of this method. But remember, it's difficult to stop, and more than one drink and you run the risk of ending your day being even more drunk than the night before.
Use these simple rules for your everyday drinking, and they will help you save your health, dignity and social contacts.
For those who have mastered the basics, here are some advanced tips:
11. Maybe you do not have the money to keep you swimming in fine wines and spirits, don't hang your head, there are always ways to get drunk! The simplest one is to mix different types of drinks (yes, it breaks the 3rd rule - but these are hard times ?). The classic example is beer and vodka. One shot of vodka mixed with one glass of lager will give you an amazing feeling of happiness and courage (but, sadly, a sore head in the morning). If you only have one type of spirit available, use a straw. One shot of whisky drunk slowly through a straw counts as three ones drunk traditionally.
12. Learn to polish your drinks. The principle of polishing means that you finish your party off with much stronger and intense spirits than the one that you've been drinking. For example, drink whisky all evening, and have 2/3 of your usual amount (i.e. if usually you need 300ml to get drunk, have only 200ml). And then polish it with a shot of absinthe. And then stop. Your drunkenness will be strong, active and long-lasting, bringing you lots of unusual experiences. The main secret of a successful polish is simple - you shouldn't drink any more alcohol after it.
13. And the last one - be careful when leaving a prolonged binge. Don't just expect your body and mind to start working normally, it takes time. You may need as many days to recover as you have spent drinking. Don't try to stop suddenly, it's much better to slow down step by step. Give yourself a couple of days with nice relaxing beer or wine drinking, it will make things easier and may save you from getting delirium tremens (which, in fact, is far less funny than it sounds!).
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