SYSK Selects: What is a hangover, really?

After a night of heavy boozing, many partygoers find themselves the victim of a hangover. But what exactly is a hangover, and what causes it? Join Chuck and Josh as they break down the science behind hangovers -- and how to avoid them, in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey, everybody, Chuck here on a Saturday morning. Last
night was a long one, That's all I'm gonna say.
So my pick for today from October two nine, What
is a hangover? Really? We talked about hangovers signs behind him,
how to fix them? I'll give you a hit bananas.

(00:25):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles Chuckers Bryant and
that means it's the Stuff you should know? Right, Yes,
the over twenty one years old and Chuck Bryant. Yeah,

(00:46):
that's a that's a big deal for this one. Chuck,
you're just gonna go ahead and see o A right now,
say that this is about drinking and if you're under
twenty one you should not drink, Chuck, have you ever
consumed an alcoholic beverage? I have over still c o A.
If you're over twenty one you should drink responsibly. Yes,
don't drink and drive. Um. If you have a uh yeah,

(01:09):
heavy machineries a big one. If you have a problem,
you can contact alcoholics anonymous. Right. I've always wanted to
test that one. Get really plowed and just sit down
behind a bulldozer. For I always imagined forkliffs with heavy machinery.
I go straight to the dozer. So, yes, I have
had an alcoholic beverage before. What was your experience with it? Like?
Did you feel a little light headed, a little crazy,

(01:31):
a little inhibited? I wanted to kiss somebody? Did you
end up kissing anybody? I did? I kissed my dog.
Didn't you make out with a friend's sister at a
YouTube concert once? I did? Were you under the effects
of alcohol during that time? I was, okay, this was
give me a break, Chuck. Did you end up with
a hangover that day? Yes? I did the same day

(01:54):
the next day? Yeah? Sure. So how did you feel?
I felt I had a headache, I had a poor
sense of well being. Uh i's had sensitivity to light
and sound, diarrhea, loss of appetite, trembling, nausea, fatigue, you
have the whole list, hydration, anxiety, trouble sleeping, weakness. Wow. Yeah,
that's a bad hangover right there. That's all the symptoms,

(02:15):
you know. The one that always gets me the worst
whenever I have a hangover is the loss of the
sense of well being. I feel like I am right
there on the edge of danger. Everybody's gunning for me.
I feel horrible. Then, really, yeah, it's really bad, it
really I've always assumed it affects my serotonin level. Sure,
but I didn't see anything in this article about that, right.
I thought I was gonna have to get taken to

(02:36):
the hospital in Portland, Oregon one time, did you? Yeah?
The next day Emily asked me as her friend's wedding.
She said, Okay, do you like need to go to
the hospital? And I went maybe I was serious. So
let's talk about this, Chuck. What are the mechanisms that
lie behind the cursed and dreaded hangover? Vice algia? Yeah?

(03:00):
Is that the correct pronunciation. That's how I took it.
That's the medical, minormal medical name for hangover is vice algia. Yeah,
And it comes from a Norwegian word for uneasiness following
debauchery vise, and a Greek word for pain algaea, which
is weird. I've never seen a Norwegian and Greek put together.

(03:20):
I haven't either, but yeah, you come up with vice algia?
Can I say that? The Bible verse two? Yeah, Yeah,
there's a Bible verse that talks about hangovers. It's Isaiah
five eleven. Woe unto them that rise up early in
the morning, that they may follow strong drink. In other words,
I feel real sorry for you that you had to
get up early if you got hammered last night. Truer

(03:41):
words have never been written in the Bible, least translation
at least translation there. Yeah, so, um so, okay, so
we've got that down. We have the word origin and
a Bible quote, as is pretty much whenever you talk
about a hangover. Right, So what's going on there, Chuck, Well,
there's a bunch of things. Um, let's go ahead and

(04:01):
start with a vasopressin. Yeah, here's here is, by the way, everyone,
a cocktail party conversation tidbit. So it's your next cocktail party.
You might want to just bring this up. Okay, it
might be kind of depressing to bring this up actually
a cocktail party. Well, this is the This is how
you explain breaking the seal, which I know that you
have experienced. Sure, it's crazy once you once you urinate,

(04:25):
and we're gonna stick to the clinical terms here, Chuck.
All right, let's keep it above the breaking the seal.
That's clinical. Um, once you urinate, that first time after
you've started drinking, it seems like you just keep going
and going and going, and you can't stop, and you
actually can't, right right, So vasopressing vas a pressing. Yes,

(04:45):
when you drink booze, Uh, it enters your bloodstream and
the pituitary gland blocks the creation of vasopressin and without this,
your kidney starts sending water straight to your bladder basically
right to the tune of four times more than you
actually drink. So you drink two fifty million leaders of alcohol. Uh,

(05:06):
you can shoot out up to a thousand milli leaders
or a leader? Is that the clinical term to shoot out? Yeah,
So that's no mistake. If you've ever had a few
beers and you're thinking, wow, that's so weird. I use
the bathroom and now I can't stop, that's vast oppressing
right there, right, um, And that's called the diuretic effect. Um.
As the the um presence of alcohol increases in the bloodstream, Um,

(05:30):
you expel a lot more water, right, But you're not
just expelling water. Also, we should say this leads directly
to dehydration. If you're expelling four times more liquid than
you're consuming, brother, you're getting dehydrated, which is one of
the signature results of the hangover. And you get the
headache because of that and other things too, you do
and the headache. And we've talked about this before, I

(05:51):
don't remember where, so we probably shouldn't, you know, try
to come up with a time stamp. But um, when
you have a hangover, your brain at truly shrinks the
next day. The other organs in your body are like
you brain, you've got a bunch of water exactly, So
a lot of the water is shuffled from your brain
to other organs, causing your brain to actually shrink in size,

(06:14):
which pulls on the membranes that connected to the skull.
The meningingies right, and you know, when you have a
really bad hangover, you wake up and you feel like
the membranes of your skull are being pulled in different
feel like that. So when I read that, I was like, oh,
so that's what that is. Or like there's a four
hundred pound ham fisted man with hair and his knuckles

(06:34):
like doing little twirls in your head. You know. Have
you ever speaking of breaking the seal? I don't think
they did this in Athens at Georgia, but I know
some friends at Georgia Southern there were bars there that
had the drink till you pee for free promotion. Have
you ever heard of those? No, but it sounds awesome.
Basically like starting at six o'clock, they monitor the bathrooms

(06:55):
and everyone in the bar gets to drink for free
until the first person in the bar goes to the bathroom.
And I don't think they have that in Athens, where
they didn't when I was there. And of course because
it's you know, a college, there's like dudes peeing in
beer pictures in the corner, you know, just to keep
not to not have to pay the two hours whether
or not there's that, you know, uh, contest or promotion.

(07:16):
So it's science science. Uh so, okay, that's vast oppressing, right, yes,
resulting in dehydration. But when you're um urinating everywhere every
which way, whether it's in a beer picture or otherwise, um,
you're also expelling a lot of other needed stuff like electrolytes, salt, potassium, salt, potassium, magnesium,

(07:40):
and these all affect how you're like cells function, how
your muscle's function, right, and you're getting rid of it
without putting it back in. So you're gonna feel lousy. Yes, indeed,
you are going to feel lousy. So you're dehydrated. You've
lost electro lights, right, and the electrolyte and balance is
really important. Um. If you have too much salt in
your electrolyte and balance is too high, uh, you die. Um.

(08:03):
If you have too little, you get the shakes, the tremors,
which I understand is the most uncommon symptom of hangovers,
which makes me nervous because I get the shakes just
about every time. The next day, I've never gotten the shakes.
What I've never gotten the shakes. It also points out
in this article that hangovers are subjective, so for each

(08:24):
person you know, they might experience different like oh, I've
never had a hangover, or when you get the shakes
and you have a loss of a sense of well being, Yeah,
that's like Nick Cage and leaving Las Vegas kind of wow. Yeah.
I've always been like, Wow, that'd be great to have
a grocery cart in a liquor store. What a great scene.
Should we talk about glacogen real quick too? Yeah, that's

(08:46):
another thing you lose. Yes, Um. The glacogen is a
is a key energy source and Uh, it turns it
goes to the liver and turns into glucose. Is that correct, right, Well,
the liver turns it into glucost and then sends it
out basically like what the heck is going on and
just does something and all of a sudden, you've just
lost all of your energies. I'll just pee everything out

(09:07):
just to be sure exactly. Basically it's what's going on. Yeah,
and that actually accounts for like the weakness the next
day fatigue um. And actually that's not that's not the
only thing that accounts for fatigue. Um. You don't sleep
very well after a night of heavy drinking Gluto mine. Yes,
you have gluto mine, which is a another it's actually

(09:29):
a stimulant um natural stimulant, yes, which is the only
good kind of stimulant um. And uh, when you drink alcohol,
the production of this natural stimulant is actually blocked. So
when you stop drinking e g. Go to sleep, your
body tries to make up for lost time and overproduces

(09:50):
glutaman So means you're not getting as gonna sleep exactly.
And the next day you also feel restless and anxious. Um,
maybe you've got the shakes. That's another cocktail party tip.
If you know that if you start saying all these
things that your next cocktail party, you probably won't be
invited back to the next cocktail party. Though, you know,
I think you can wow some people. It depends on
how cool your cocktail party. I guess I could see

(10:13):
them all saying that, like, why are you telling us
all these awful things about drinking unless my kind of
cocktail party, it's great for me. Another one, screw glycogen
Its screw vass repressing. Uh so what else? Josh? Well,

(11:02):
we could talk about the impurities of liquor. Okay, well
the different alcohols. Yeah. The rule of thumb is the
darker the alcohol, the more impure it is, and therefore
the the heavier the hangover. Yes, which is why I
think everyone pretty much knows that like your worst alcoholics,
they like start drinking every morning when they wake up,

(11:24):
they're probably drinking vodka. Yes, it's actually a good thing
to drink if you are an alcoholic, because you're going
to be able to be as close to a function
alcoholic as possible. Right. How about that study with the bourbon, Yeah,
thirty they did study between bourbon and vodka and uh,
of the people who drank amount of bourbon relative to
their body weight had a severe hangover, and only three

(11:46):
percent had to hangover when they drank vodka. That's a
big white wine that kind of thing. Um, light rum, yeah,
jin Yeah. Conversely, dark rum, it's bad. Tequila is good. Basically,
if it's dark, it's gonna kill you. I'm in bad
shape then, because I'm you know, I mean, I'm a
bourbon red wine beer guy. That's funny. I'm like the

(12:08):
whatever is in the glass guy, Right, that's good. You're
fun to have at the cocktail party because you're not picky. No,
as long as you don't run an ice, so you know,
as long as there's not a cigarette but floating in it,
I'll drink it. And then sometimes even then, I don't
think that hasn't happened before, Chuck. Basically, what I took
from this article is when you drink, you are poisoning
your body through coningers. There's through impurities in the alcohol,

(12:32):
but also through the body's natural processes of breaking down
out alcohol too. It Actually, there's a there's a byproduct
produced when the liver metabolizes alcohol, um called acid aldehyde. Yeah,
take this one because this kind of I read it
like three times and I was still a little lost. Okay, chuck,
allow me please. So basically, when the liver metabolizes alcohol,

(12:57):
it produces a byproduct that's a toxin called acid aldehyde.
And acid aldehyde is actually more toxic to the body
than alcohol itself, which is crazy. But we have natural
mechanism for neutralizing acid aldehyde called appropriate appropriately enough acid
aldehyde dehydrogenase appropriately so that stuff goes in a tax

(13:17):
the acid aldehyde. Right. Then we have this other stuff
that is called glutoth ione, right, and it contains high
levels of a substance called cysteine, and cysteine actually is
attracted to acid aldehyde. So the two things combine, acid
aldehyde dehydrogenase and the cysteine in the glutoth ione uh,

(13:38):
combined to neutralize the acid aldehyde, right, and it does
it pretty quickly. Um, you you are going to feel
some ill effects. But the less you drink, the easier
it is for these two substances to neutralize this byproduct.
Is the alcohol is metabolized, here's the problem. You have
a limited store of glutothione in your liver, so you

(14:01):
use it up pretty quick. And women have even less
than men exactly, which accounts for why women tendn't have
more harsh hangovers harsher hangovers than men. Sure, not just
body weight, although that does matter. Um. So use up
your glue to th ione stores and once you do that,
you're blood is just basically circulating this toxin acid aldehyde,

(14:22):
while the liver generates more glue to ione. Hence you've
got this horrible hangover and why ultimately time is the
only remedy for it. Yeah, well, let's get to that
in a second. Let's get to the remedies. Let's talk
about liquor before beer, never fear or is it the
other way around here, Before liquor never sticker or sicker.
There's a little bit of truth to that turns out

(14:44):
because of it when focus to be true totally. Um,
it turns out that the carbonation and beer speeds up
the absorption of alcohol. So if you start with beer,
your body's gonna have and then move on to liquor,
your body is in fact gonna have a harder time
processing those toxins. Even though there's a certain age. My
friend Justin, I you know, Justin, we were talking about

(15:05):
this a few years ago. Someone was remarking about we
had a big night out and like, what was it
liquor before beer before liquor? I can't remember, And I
just said, you know what, it doesn't matter anymore. No,
you're gonna be hurting. You reach a certain age and
it either doesn't affect you, or it's gonna affect you,
no matter what. Those are college rules. I've noted through
my own personal observations, um that at about age twenty

(15:26):
four you get as you start getting really severe hangovers.
I haven't figured out exactly why yet, but that seems
to be about the age when you switch over from
I can do this constantly to oh God, why why
I've got the sikes. I have a loss of sense
of well being. Right, yeah, I'm vomiting diarrhea. I don't

(15:46):
know why. Maybe that's when puberty ends. There's something to
do with hormones still floating around in the buddy. If
you're puberty ended at twenty four, then uh, puberty doesn't
in your twenties. Uh. My pubity ended when I was
like fourteen, I know, could have started when I was seven.
So seven, Uh where are we now? Are we talking

(16:07):
about vomiting? Yeah? It turns out that that actually does help.
And also chuck, um, since we have a drinking game
based on this and we're talking about hangovers, allow me okay,
chuck chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck chuck. That should keep them
for a little while. Go ahead, chuck uh. Alcohol. What's

(16:29):
going on there is it is indeed better to vomit
because when alcohol is absorbed directly through the stomach, and
when that happens, you're the lining of your stomach is
gonna become irritated and say, hey, thanks for putting all
this poison in me. And um, it's gonna start secreting,
secreting hydrochloric acid, right, And the hydrochloric acid is actually

(16:50):
what makes you vomit. Um here sends messages to the brain.
Is really connected to the brain via hormonal signals which
don't necessarily end after a pure right and um, yeah,
your stomach says you've got to get rid of this stuff.
And yeah, and it turns out that's you know, you
probably shouldn't make yourself throw up because it's dangerous. It

(17:12):
could become a problem. If you're drinking so much and
you're making yourself throw up, you probably do have a problem.
You should check into a clinic or something. Check into
Promises in Malibu if you've got the cash. But it
will make you feel a little better because obviously your
body is not gonna have to process whatever alcohol is
still in your stomach. So there you have it. Uh,
what are we on too, now? Buddy? I think we're

(17:33):
we kind of nails what it is. So should we
talk about some of the cures that people spout? Yeah,
there are plenty of hangover cures. Everybody's got one. Yeah,
and actually I'm surprised to find that some of them
actually are real. Now that you understand what causes a hangover,
you can actually identify what will help cure hangover. Sure,

(17:53):
because really, what's going on is you've expelled electrolytes. It's biology.
You've expelled exactly. You've expelled your natural energy stores. Um,
you are dehydrated and your brain is strung. Yeah, so
what do you do to make yourself feel better? Chuck?
My personal favorite's hair of the dog. Well, that helped

(18:14):
me or not? Uh? It will not. You know where
that comes from? Uh, it's the Bible again, isn't it.
No Nazareth medieval times though the hair of the dog
that bit you. Supposedly, if you got bit by a
rabid dog, you would take some of that dog's hair
and apply it to your wound, and that will cure you.
This is the same culture that buried a cab at
midnight to cure war exactly. So just like that is

(18:36):
false hair the dog. It's faults as well. Having a
drink the next day to make yourself feel a little
bit better will not work. Might make you feel a
bit better in the in the short term, but ultimately
you're just adding more toxins that your body is gonna
have to process, and you're kind of just staving off
the inevitable hangover. Unless you just drink all day again. Sure,
and then you'll have to hang over the following day hangover, Yeah, exactly. Um,

(18:59):
unless you just keep going until you die, Yeah, and
then you you won the game. I was taking a
walk with Emily yesterday with the dogs the shows how
twisted I am, And I saw it was eight o'clock
in the morning, seven thirty in the morning, something like that,
and there was a guy down the street from us
in the parking lot, you know, cracking his first King Cobra,

(19:21):
And I said, you know what, am I said, ninety
nine times out of a hundred. I see those people
and I think, God, how could you live your life
like just getting bombed for the moment you wake up
every day? I said, But every once in a while,
I think what a way to live? She said, she said,
what is wrong with you? Basically doesn't she Well, she

(19:41):
doesn't let me get up and get drunk every day.
If that's what you mean, that's keeping you in line. Okay,
she does, Um chuck. One of the things that kills

(20:21):
me is drinking coffee. I learned a long time ago
that if I ever have a hangover, I stay away
from coffee. So I was surprised to find in this
article that actually it does have some benefits agreed, which
are it will actually um alleviate your headache a little
bit because it's caffeine and that's a vasso constructor, so
it reduces the your blood vessels. It reduces the swelling,

(20:43):
so that'll help a little bit. It'll help cure the
headache some. But it'll dehydrate you because it's a diuretic.
Because it's a diuretic, which is how you really got
into this trouble in the first place. So stop being stupid.
I would say coffee along with a lot of water
might be a good idea. Possibly, it's just me, right, Okay,
So what else? Uh, fatty fatty food, fried food the
next day. Yeah, which is odd because I know I

(21:04):
crave fried food the next day. Cheeseburger, bacon chili cheeseburgers,
like two hamburgers a year, and they're on hangovery days.
She doesn't eat meat beef at all, but when she
wakes up with a really bad hanger, she's like quarter pounder.
It's very It's strange because obviously she's not the only
person who experiences that craving. But that doesn't necessarily help

(21:26):
Anne could actually make you vomit. It could tip the
scales when you've got a bunch of hydrochloric acid in
your stomach. But it could help if you ate a
bacon chili cheeseburger or two bacon chili cheeseburgers before you
started drinking it. Why because it contains oil, and the
fat and the grease will line your stomach and pakes

(21:48):
longer to digest. Absolutely, And in fact, in the Mediterranean
they have long drank a little bit of olive oil
before imbibing. Yeah, it's an old thing they do. They
are not trying that. I'm not either. I like of
but I'm not going to drink a tablespoon of it. No,
me neither. Okay, Uh, how about a banana. I'm just
gonna pull that one out of my head, out of

(22:08):
your banana tree um remedy, yes, okay, loaded with potassium
electrolytes and because remember you lose potassium, which is an electrolyte,
so if you can remember, restore the balance. So banana
will help your hangover as well. Eggs yes, since we're
on breakfast, because they contain cistine, right, which is something

(22:29):
that's attracted to acid aldehyde. Right, So eggs in a
banana and water would be a great way to start
your morning if you had to hangover. Not just water,
but water loaded with sugar and salt actually right, because
the carbonation it would do the same thing as it
did with the beer. So you want uncarbonated water load
of a salt sugar, not a red Bull no, because

(22:53):
it has caffeine. Not an energy drink. Uncarbonated non caffeine
water with salt sugar, which I think I just described
a supports drink, right, A banana and some eggs or
you know what else you can do? Set of water,
put some fruit juice in there. Fruit juice. Fruit juice

(23:13):
is the kind of the kind of sugar you want.
Fruit tose and uh, studies have shown that it increases
the rate at which your body gets rid of the toxins,
and uh, that's a good idea. It also gives you
vitamins of course. Okay, what about um, say, etcetera. A
set of menafin, A seed of menifin is uh, well,
you you want to avoid etcetera because it has caffeine, right,

(23:35):
which can help. But ultimately, no, and a seed of
menafin I believe you don't want to take because that
can mess with your liver. Ultimately, if you have alcohol
in your if you take a seed of mena fin
for a hangover, you are probably going to feel a
little better. Actually you'll probably feel a lot better. But
in the long run, your liver is gonna fall apart. Yeah,

(23:56):
you're doing your body. Damn, You're gonna expel that through
your urine. So you want to do is get a
non caffeinated anti inflammatory prostaglandin inhibitor, which is also known
as aspirin, which is good. So aspirin wal help that
it's shown that prostagland in actually uh reeks havoc on
your body during hangover. So if you take a prostaglandin inhibitor,

(24:18):
you're gonna feel a lot better. And apparently there have
been studies that show yes, aspirin helps, especially if you
take one before you go to bed and you take
two when you wake up. But be aware people with
tender stomachs often vomit from aspirin. Right, you know what,
my curious let's talk about each other's cures. Have you

(24:39):
got one? Um, surely you do? What do I do?
You want to hear mine? Yeah? Mine is? My deal
is I can't sleep in anymore. It doesn't matter if
I was out till three in the morning. I'm still
gonna wake up at seven. It's just the way it is.
When you're old, you'll you'll experience this. One day. I
get up at seven like I normally do, and I

(25:00):
drink I pound like three or four glasses of water,
take a couple of aspirin, and then I get right
back in bed and see if I can get like
another hour to a sleep. And then I wake up
in a great that works crazy well, especially works with advil.
If you take a couple of advil and you have
even like a half hour, preferably an hour extra to sleep.

(25:20):
For some reason, advil always makes me sleepy. It makes
me fall asleep very easily. Never figured out why, but yeah,
you wake up an hour later and you are set.
It's a great one because sleep is only real, real
key to carrying a hangover. They say, yeah, well, time, Well,
that that's usually what I rely on as time. Um,
and I pound a few Coca colas in the morning,

(25:42):
which is not good for me, but it works, right.
And then aspirin is that what they say? Yeah? And
then I don't make eye contact with anybody because they're
all out to get me. That's how I make it
through the day when I have a hangover. Sure. Yeah,
we should say, please don't find any of this funny, entertaining,
or amusing if you're twenty one years or older. And
if you are twenty one years or older, please find

(26:03):
it amusing responsibly. Uh, we should talk about some of
these over the counter, like anti hangover pills that you
can buy. You heard of these, yeah, like Chaser's. Yeah,
they're they're basically multi vitamins. And here's the deal. Well,
some are activated carbon which cane. But here's the deal.
If you if you read on the package, it'll say

(26:24):
something like this, Um, drink a full glass twelve ounce
glass of water before you start drinking, and take a pill.
And then after your second or third drink, drink another
glass of water and take another pill, and then do
that again. Then before you go to bed, drink a
glass of water with a pill, and then wake up
and drink a glass of water with a bill. So
you're basically taking a vitamin downing tons of water, which
is and that's the key is the water. Yeah, you're

(26:45):
hydrating yourself. So it's a bit of a rip off, Um,
but not necessarily because it is recommended that you do
take a multi vitamin the next morning. But just take
a multi vitamin. Don't pay for some hangover cure. You know.
What else helps is to actually be cognizant and not
a total drunk while you're drinking. Yes, Um, if you

(27:06):
drink glass for glass water for alcohol. Number one, it
keeps you hydrated, but number two, it also paces your
drinking so that your body has more time to process
this alcohol. It's not just like bom bom bomb. You
know I've gotten better at that. Oh yeah, sure, I
try to be If I have like a big night out,
I try to be pretty aware of drinking a cup
of glasses of water here and there, and always will

(27:28):
pound two or three glasses before I get to bed.
Good for you, Chuck. It's a way to do it,
all right. So there you have it. That's the hangover, right. Yeah.
A couple other things you can do beforehand is eat. Obviously,
alcohol in an empty stomach is gonna get you there quicker,
but it will get you sicker and make you feel worse.
So water, what else you say? Multi vitamins? Drinking Moderation,

(27:50):
of course is the key with everything. Watch what you're drinking,
red wine, bourbon. It's gonna make you feel bad. Yeah,
it tastes sugary sweet on your tongue, but it'll make
you feel worse. Yeah. I'm in trouble though. I wish
I could learn to drink vodka. I just don't dig
it is so wonderful. Yeah. I drink gin and tonics
occasionally during the summertime months, but I can't drink those.

(28:12):
Gin actually makes me crazy. I have a self imposed
band on gin. I won't drink it. I don't allow
myself to drink it because it makes me nuts and
apparently not the only one. In the seventeenth century, the
UK actually banned, or I should say England banned because nuts. Yeah. Yeah,

(28:33):
so jin was banned in England for a little while
because people went like I did. Sure, you know, different
alcohols through that. Tequila is notorious for making people violent,
and the act out of Sorts never had a problem
with the quela. I mean neither. My buddy Scottie has
a red wine thing. Completely personality shift when he drinks it, really,
but yeah, it becomes a completely different person. You know,

(28:55):
Alexander the Great died from a red wine drinking competition. Really,
one of his soldiers challenged into it and they apparently
drank like five million gallons apiece, and Alexander's a great
one off and died. Boy. I bet the alcohol back
then was rough too, man. Yeah, you know, they love
their wine. Those are the good old days. Well, if
you want to learn absolutely every last detail there is

(29:19):
to know about a hangover, you should read this fine,
fine article by freelancer Lacy Perry called how hangovers work.
You can just type in hangover in the handy search
bar at how stuff works dot com. Also check out
our kiva dot org page and growing so far. Yeah,
very proud of you, guys. You can help fund a

(29:39):
loan for an entrepreneur in uh developing country for as
little as twenty five bucks and best part, you get
it back. We have a team that's to be found
at www dot kiva dot org slash team slash stuff
you should Know. If that's too hard, you can click
on community and then arch stuff you should Know. And

(30:01):
we've been posting a link at the bottom of every
one of our blog posts. Yes, we've got close to
a hundred members and about bucks raised and it's pretty cool.
Let's do listener, Mai. Let's do listener to mw okay, Josh.
I'm gonna call this, uh, don't kill me. I'm just
the enumerator. This is a good one. Hi, guys, hope

(30:23):
this finds you well. My name is Mark and I
live in fish Kill, New York, which is an interesting town.
I was listening to the Gross National Happiness podcast and
you mentioned the census worker being killed. I thought i'd
send an email. I was a Census Bureau worker in
two thousand. It was I was a care free nineteen
year old on summer break. My friends and I saw
the ad in the paper and took the exam and

(30:45):
became official enumerators, including a shiny plastic badge from the
Treasury Department to boot. He says. So, our task was
a travel door to door and talked to the people
who didn't return their survey. Some people got the short form,
some got the long form, arm and former. I remember
the forms were assigned at random. Usually the long formers
didn't mail them back in and uh, that's who they

(31:08):
usually had to confront, shakedown and shake them down. Uh.
People were downright mean when I knocked on their door.
One this is a good one. One man asked me
to hold on for a second. He closed the door,
and within a few minutes I heard the garage door
open and he drove out and waved goodbye. It's such
a jerky move. One woman answered the door with a

(31:28):
baby in her arms, shouting something at me. I heard
dogs barking, and the next thing I knew, she had
let the dogs loose on us, and I was running
safely back to my safety of my Buick Regal quickly
learned my lesson, and when someone would open the door
and give me the skinny on their neighbors who didn't
mail their forms back in, I was happy. And I
was even happier when it was a grandma who would

(31:50):
offer me a cold drink, because you know, the old folks,
they're just like, come on in, let's talk for a while. Exactly. Um.
I did not know, however, that enumerators were killed. I
must have missed that part of the training. Uh. Most
of the rants would be anti government. They would say
I was the man sold to get off their property
and all the expertives that go with it. It's not

(32:11):
being it's not easy being an enumerator, So give them
a shout out. So shout out to all you enumerators
out there. Hey, hey, And that's pretty much it, he
uh said. I thought i'd chime in. Actually I was
chiming in this morning in the car, and then realized
that I was alone. So Mark so lonely. Mark the
former enumerator is a funny guy. And he says, by
the way, podcast suggestion, how hippie rob works. Oh that's

(32:33):
a good one. That would be a great one. That'd
be audio trying to track them down. Sure. Yeah, so
thanks Mark, and good luck if you enumerate in the future,
and all you enumerators out there accounting heads, I'm sorry,
I didn't know it's so rough on you. And uh,
let's see if you're an a numerator or a denominator
or you know the current whereabouts of Hippie Rob put

(32:54):
in an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works
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