The people who somehow or another always manage to abstain from drinking get more than a little sanctimonious about their non-drinking when around drinkers the day after a night out. While it’s always nice to have non-drinking friends who are willing and able to be the designated driver, it’s not as much when to listen to them gloat the next day as you pray to the porcelain God.

These same people would suggest not drinking at all as a method to avoid a hangover, but believe it or not, there are a few simple remedies to help out the situation, some of which are more obvious than others:

• Water: Re-hydrate throughout the evening. Drinking one glass of water for every beer, glass of wine, shot, or cocktail you consume during the evening really goes a long way towards re-hydrating your system and keeping your brain from drying up the next day.

• Vitamin B-12: Drinking alcohol depletes the body of the Vitamin-B’s, so you definitely should take a Vitamin B-12 before going to bed or even before you go out drinking if you can.

• Take an aspirin before bed: Tylenol is not a good option to take when you are drinking because it can damage your liver.

• Eat before and during drinking because this can lessen the effects of the alcohol.

• Know your tolerance. If you are a 100-lb girl, remember that you are not going to be able to drink as much as your 200-lb friend on the football team. This means pace yourself, which is the key to drinking wisely.

Avoid:

• Mixing up your alcohol. I have no idea if the old “Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, never fear” line is true or not, but mixing up your alcohols throughout the night does not help much.

• Drinking games unless you can pretend you are not drinking by carefully placing the keg cup to your lips and not sipping. I definitely recommend this strategy to Freshman drinking with an older student.

Unusual Remedies and Cures

• Hair of the dog. This refers to waking up and drinking a beer before a morning cup of coffee. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any scientific research into the effectiveness of this method whatsoever.

• According to this article, drinking pickle juice is also an effective cure the next day.

For more hangover remedies, click here.