Planning to binge drink and not get drunk this Christmas? Then you need to read this

Christmas is just two days away and everyone knows that here in Nigeria, it’s not a one-day affair. For some reason, many people think it’s proper to fit in all their social activities during this period, from weddings to thanksgivings, from housewarmings to memorial services, yes even burials.

 

So in effect, people are not just celebrating only Christmas but are also taking advantage of the festive period to felicite, make merry and thank God for life mercies.  So, if you’re living in Nigeria, chances are that it’s one party after another right from the weekend of Christmas to New Year, even after that – the writer has two invites for two weddings holding in the first week of January.

So, oh yes plenty of opportunities to get drunk. Everyone  also knows it’s super easy to get drunk on free booze, but should we? Should we spoil the enjoyment of others and possible sell our self-respect and dignity in the name of having a good time? The answer, of course, is a resounding no!

To help our readers figure out how to stay sober this Christmas, or at any other time for that matter, we dug around on the internet to see what advice the web might throw up.

Our first port of call was “quora – the place to share knowledge and better understand the world.”

Not surprisingly, the basic advice to not get drunk were simple and very doable.

#1. Stay away from booze aka don’t drink.

#2. If number one above sound high near impossible, then drink less aka drink in moderation.

 

Without getting too technical, we’ll define moderation as about the time, one start to feel a bit tipsy. It’s a good time to stop.

Other tips we found that might help one to stay on the sober spectrum are listed below.

#1. Eat sausage roll or scotch egg at the same time. Apparently, foods that are high in both fat and protein have been proven to help soak up that alcohol and keep your energy levels high throughout the night. We think isiewu and nkwobi qualify as high fat, high protein food. Now, we’re wondering if that’s any reason bars serve these delicacies including pepper soup, suya, fish etc or just coincidence?

#2. Alternate your drinks with glasses of warm (room temperature is fine) not cold water to help flush out toxins from alcohol.

#3 … Or milk. Milk, it is believed will ‘coat’ your stomach and prevent you from getting drunk. Granny’s tale actually but still it’s better than knocking back several bottles of beer on an empty stomach.

#4. You could swallow a teaspoon of dry yeast if you can stomach that. According to a man called Jim Koch, if you swallow one spoonful of baker’s yeast for every bottle of beer you plan to drink, you’ll ‘mitigate’ the effects of the alcohol. He recommends mixing it into yoghurt to make it ‘more palatable’, and while others have tried the technique as a means of drinking all night and not getting drunk – with varying degrees of success – Koch maintains it’s foolproof. We maintain it can’t hurt to give it a go.

#5. Drink from a straight-sided glass or so researchers from the University of Bristol recommended. They found that people who drink from glasses with straight sides drink up to 60 percent slower than those drinking from glasses with curved sides. Apparently, it’s all to do with your brain working out how much you’ve drunk – and adjusting your drinking speed accordingly. If you drink from a glass with straight sides, you can tell how much alcohol is left, and slow down. If you drink from a glass with curved sides, it tricks your brain. In fact, the shape of your glass has such an impact, that bars serving drinks from straight-sided glasses make 25 percent less over the course of a weekend than those serving from curved glasses. Who would have thought that?

#6. Sit down to drink. Again, this relates to the speed of your alcohol consumption.  Just because if you stand up, you’re much more likely to knock back your drinks – and head back to the bar for another round. On the other hand, if you’re sat down, you’re less likely to get up and refill as quickly. Also, judging from experience, if you’re sitting down, you’re much less likely to fall over. But that’s beside the point. Not, saying we’re once upon a drunk, we know just by simply being observant and being aware.

#7. Drink red wine as opposed to its white counterpart (or beer/gin/tequila/whisky, etc).  That’s just because it’s harder for your brain to identify the quantity of white wine you’re consuming than its darker counterpart, so you’re likely to drink more than you could handle. Incidentally, we love Merlot!

 

So what do you think of the above? Have you tried any tricks that have helped you slowed down on alcohol consumption? Share with us in the comment section below.

 

Additional resources from Marie Claire website.