I’ve spent more than eighteen years as a professional drinks’ educator, accredited sommelier, and drinks writer. Tasting alcohol isn’t just something I enjoy — it’s my job so when I started getting hangovers from just a couple of small drinks, it wasn’t just miserable, it threatened my professional work.
That predicament spurred me to spend months on research that entirely changed how I drink. What I found surprised me and debunked almost everything I thought I knew about the cause of hangovers. With my new knowledge I was able to develop a prevention method that has worked for me consistently ever since.
This article outlines some of my learning, what the popular hangover remedies get wrong, and why prevention – before your first drink – is the only approach that actually works.
There Is No Cure for a Hangover, Only Prevention
Once a hangover has developed, your body is waiting for the process of clearing the toxic by-products produced by alcohol metabolism to be completed. No greasy breakfast, no sports drink, no painkiller and no hair of the dog changes that timeline. You’re managing the symptoms, not solving the problem.
Prevention is the only real option — and it must happen before you start drinking, not after. This sounds obvious once you understand the biology, but it’s the opposite of how most people approach the problem. Much hangover advice is aimed at the morning after and by then it’s too late.
Why Did I Start Getting Hangovers So Easily?
When I reached my 50s, I noticed that I was suffered from hangovers even from a small amount of alcohol. I already knew about rehydrating before bed but despite doing that and drinking moderately, I’d still wake up with a bad headache, brain fog and weariness even after a couple of drinks.
I became anxious about drinking at all and I thought the only way to successfully prevent a hangover would be to give up alcohol completely. But that would have jeopardized my business, and besides, I enjoy alcohol and don’t want to cease one of my life’s pleasures. Something had to be done! I started to drink non-alcohol beers or wine interspersed with alcohol beers or wine, always drinking lots of water. And that’s how it went for a couple of years until one morning I awoke with a migraine that lasted a day despite drinking litres of water in between my two pints of 3.6% alcohol beer and a can of Guinness 0.0 (alcohol free). What made it worse was that I’d done everything right. I’d eaten beforehand, stayed hydrated, drunk slowly and moderately. And I was still unable to function properly the following day.
This was my turning point, and I was determined to find the answer to the question how to avoid a hangover.
Why Hangovers Get Worse With Age
You’re not imagining it and you’re not becoming less robust. There is a straightforward biological reason why the same amount of alcohol hits harder in your 50s than it did in your 20s.
The activity of the liver enzyme responsible for breaking down alcohol slows with age. This means the toxic by-product that causes most hangover symptoms clears from your system less efficiently than it once did. The alcohol intake is the same or less. The recovery capacity isn’t.
This was one of my most important discoveries during my research, because it explained why all the best practice I did such as hydrating and eating carbs before a drink had stopped working. My approach hadn’t changed, some of my body’s mechanisms had.
Why Some People Suffer Worse Hangovers Than Others
If you’ve ever watched someone drink considerably more than you and wake up without a scratch, this section is for you.
Hangover severity isn’t about willpower or luck. It comes down to the individual person. Several factors influence how efficiently your body processes alcohol. Age is one of them. Biological sex is another: women tend to process alcohol less quickly than men for physiological reasons, which is why hangovers can be worse and last longer. Genetics, ethnicity, body composition, and hormonal balance all play a role too.
This is why generic hangover advice so often fails. It treats everyone the same when the reality is that two people can drink identically and have completely different experiences the next morning. Understanding your own body is part of the solution.
During my research I came to understand exactly which factors were relevant in my own case — and that knowledge shaped the prevention method I developed.
Which Drinks Give You the Worst Hangovers?
Not all alcohol is equal when it comes to hangovers, and this was one of the crucial findings from my research and testing. Unfortunately for me my favourite drinks – dark beer, red wine, and whisky – turned out to be among the worst offenders. That’s because they contain high levels of congeners – by-products of fermentation and present in the barrels in which darker spirits and red wines are aged. The liver breaks down congeners and when it’s busy breaking down alcohol at the same time it cannot efficiently handle both. White wine and clear spirits such as vodka are lower in congeners so they contribute less to liver overload than darker beer, wine and spirits.
Once I understood about congeners and which types of alcohol contained higher levels, I was able factor it into my hangover prevention method.
What I Tried That Didn’t Work
Before I found a method that worked, I spent a long time trying everything that’s commonly recommended. Here’s my honest verdict:
Drinking lots of water. Staying hydrated is essential but it isn’t sufficient on its own. Keep drinking water though because alcohol is dehydrating and it also encourages urination which is also dehydrating.
Eating carbs before drinking. Useful for slowing alcohol absorption, but it doesn’t change what happens once alcohol reaches your liver.
Milk Thistle. I took it regularly for years. It supports liver function in a general sense, but on its own it wasn’t enough to prevent the hangovers I was experiencing once my body’s processing efficiency had declined with age.
A full English the morning after. Comforting and delicious. It helps to restore blood sugar balance which is affected by alcohol but it does not mitigate hangover symptoms.
Hair of the dog. This simply delays the problem while adding to it by increasing blood alcohol content and dehydrating you. It oftens make the hangover worse.
What My Method Involves
My course is called the Hangover Prevention Method and it works by understanding what is happening in the body when imbibing alcohol and how the body processes it. It also explains the different factors involved in why people differ in how they process alcohol. It outlines the necessary supplements that are required to support your body’s ability to process alcohol more efficiently and explains what they do and why they are beneficial. These are over-the-counter natural supplements – amino acids, enzymes, and vitamins – taken at a specific time before your first drink. They don’t work if you take them during or after drinking.
I’ve tested this method repeatedly in both professional and social settings. My friends tested it independently and were astonished.
Caveats: It works with moderate drinking if the technique is followed to the letter. One other caveat – I sometimes have a minor headache in the night even after following the method and drinking moderately. This is because the body is processing alcohol. I drink some more water in the night and the headache is gone in the morning.
How the Method Changed My Professional and Social Life
Before I developed this technique, I had become anxious about drinking because of how I’d feel the next day. Now I drink my favourite things without worrying. I wake up the morning after feeling clear-headed and hangover free. I can exercise as normal, go for a run, and then have a productive day.
Want the Full Method?
The Hangover Prevention Method is a 40-minute pre-recorded course covering exactly how the body processes alcohol, why certain people suffer more than others, and the complete step-by-step prevention protocol — including which supplements to take, when, and why.
It costs £16.99 (British pounds) plus VAT where applicable. You can stop start the course to suit your schedule and it works on any device, at any time.
If you drink moderately and want to stop dreading the morning after, this course was made for you.
Buy the Hangover Prevention Method Course — £19.99
About Jane Peyton
Jane Peyton is the founder of School of Booze, established in 2008. She is an accredited sommelier of beer, cider, and is accredited in wine and spirits. She was the UK’s first Beer Sommelier of the Year; the UK’s first accredited Pommelier (cider sommelier); a former Guinness World Record holder; and the creator of Beer Day Britain, the UK’s annual national beer day. She is the author of fourteen non-fiction books on alcoholic drinks and drinks history, and she writes fiction under the pen name B.A. Summer. Jane is available as a public speaker and media drinks expert.
