How much can you drink without a hangover and is it always the same?

[PurpleSteak]

Last weekend I was away with a friend. On Friday we had a couple of pints of beer in the afternoon watching a rally and shared a bottle of wine with dinner.

The following evening we didn't drink during the day, but shared a bottle of wine with dinner and had a cocktail instead of pudding.

I had a much worse hangover on the Saturday morning. On Sunday I felt a bit jaded/tired but no headache or other symptoms.

I'm not a regular drinker so both evenings were enough for me to be quite tipsy, but if anything I'd have expected to feel worse after the cocktail evening, as the alcohol was consumed more quickly.

I can drink 2/3 of a bottle of wine with no effects (apart from maybe feeling a bit tired). Depends what kind of hangover you mean - for a banging, sick, death warmed up type hangover id need to drink loads and loads 🙈. Haven’t had a hangover like that since my twenties!

I can drink quite a lot of gin without feeling drunk or being hungover. I will feel absolutely pissed on 3 pints of stella/san migual/moretti and definitely feel it in the morning. This evening I've had 4 pints and a pizza down the pub, I feel drunk, I'm going to sleep in a minute 😂 I could drink 4 DOUBLE gins and not feel anything like I feel right now.

Up to a bottle of wine.

I haven't drunk anything for a while though, so don't know if that's still the same

Bat shit MN overreaction of the day award goes to… 🤣

I can drink a bottle of wine and not feel hungover the next day, and loads of G&Ts as long as I keep to singles and a full bottle of tonic each time, gin is my proper safe drink!

I don't understand why technically a unit is a unit and apparently it's a myth that makes drinks effect us differently, but yet I really do get pissed a lot quicker on certain drinks!

Don’t drink wine or beer but I can drink about 5 double Malibu and pineapples and I’m fine the next day! Plus a few shots mixed in and I probably drink twice a month max!

Jack Daniels and coke/ginger/cherry coke: as much as i like - No hangover.

Any other alcoholic drink: one sip and i've got a headache within an hour.

Oh, and that's been the way it is since my 20s (a LONG time)

Half a bottle of wine

Hangovers vary massively for me. I've never pinpointed why. Sometimes it's a harder hangover and seems there's no reason!

Now it is somewhere between 4 and 6 single vodka and cokes. I don't drink anything else anymore - wine makes me feel rough even after 1 glass.

I know my limits and stick to them - this is after turning 40 and becoming perimenopausal, I used to be able to drink loads!

I get far less hung over if I drink two days or more in a row. Hangover also depends on how much non alcohol I drink, when I stop, if I eat. Too many factors to be sure.

I have pathetically low tolerance made worse by being a woman of a certain age and I feel the effects of 2 glasses of wine the next day. It's increasingly not worth drinking which is sad. Still forced down a glass of rose with dinner but will go to bed with a pint of water to conteract the effects 😂.

Great minds @Largershandy 😁😁

First reply cracked me up 😂

Last night I drank a glass of prosecco in the bath, then in the local pub with my friend I had a 750ml bottle of white wine, a single glass size bottle of prosecco, and 2 aperol spritz. Usually I'd be drunk but not too bad. Last night I was carried out the pub and I've spent today unable to see straight and throwing up the minute I tried to move 😆

No idea how or why my hangovers are so bad, seems they are getting worse with age. In my 20s I never ever had hangovers no matter what.

The older I get the less tolerant of alcohol 🍷 I get. But I cannot mix drinks. I feel rotten afterwards

My hangovers are very histamine triggered as Ive gotten older, wine would be an absolute no for years. Cocktails were ok as long as not mixed with orange but now pineapple will also be an issue, spirits were fine if mixed with classic coke. I dont actually bother drinking now because I could be half way through a pint and my head will start banging (its very hard to keep track of how highish my histamine level would be from whatever I ve been eating, and that obviously plays into at what point alcohol will tip me over the edge.

I used to be able to drink a lot and never get a hangover. For about the last 18 months, my hangovers, or lack of, make no sense. I can have a couple of drinks and feel like death the next day, then another time I can drink much, much more and be fine. I now seem to get flushed cheeks and feel boiling hot sometimes after one drink, other times nothing....43 and blaming peri menopause for it all... it’s a bastard! 😩

Thats probably a histamine response. As far as I understand it progesterone (the first hormone to decline) is involved in the breaking down if histamine in the blood, and oestrogen (levels can shoot uo v high in peri) is involved in prompting mast cells to produce histamine. Alcohol can contain histamine, cause body to priduce histamine and interfer with the breaking down of histamine so can be a recipe for disaster. If you know you are going out say for a celebration, taking an anti histamine and trying to have a low histamine diet the day before/of can help - though its a pain having to do all that forward planning so i just dont even bother with alcohol now. The only flushes i ve ever had, and im about 7 yrs post menopause, were randomly mid a drink. Id be flaming and v obviously red all of a sudden, v annoying

Cheap wine - even a glass would give me a headache.
Decent wine - I could potentially drink a bottle (over a whole evening + food) and wake up fine.

I presume its the sulphites?

@MILLYmo0se Thank you for that. I’ll have a look into low histamine foods and give it a try.

I’m not a big drinker now but it would be lovely to be able to have a couple of drinks and know I’m not going to feel awful later or turn bright red and have others asking if I’m ok because I look hot. I can understand you just not bothering to drink at all now.

Thanks again. 😊

I feel shitty if I have more than a couple of drinks, way worse if it's wine. That really doesn't seem to agree with me.

" I drank probably a bottle of Prosecco to myself over the course of the evening and I was right as rain the next day."

Prosecco is the least likely to give me hangover too.
Clear and white drinks might give me a stomach ache, but not a headache unless I've really gone overboard on them.
Dark drinks, like red wine, can give me a headache quite easily, but the organic ones are supposed to be better.
I'm not 100% sure mixing is that influential in how you feel the next day. I'd think general levels of tiredness etc. would be more important. And it also gets harder as we age.

I can drink about three quarters of a bottle of wine. If I go 1mm over this, I suffer the consequences next day. A whole bottle would probably finish me off for two or three days.