Hot Sauce and Aspirin

Today is Friday, which is perhaps not the traditional day to be hungover, but I live in Austin, we are all just a bunch of drunks here.  It’s a full time job.  Yesterday, being Thursday, I finally was able to make it to some plans I had to cancel due to sickness for over a week.  My friend Lisa, who is moving soonish, and I went to Midnight Cowboy, a speakeasy on dirty 6.  And it really is on the dirty part, the doorway next to the secret entrance stunk of pee and had some homeless people sheltering in it to get out of the rain.  The homeless population of our fair city is it’s own problem, and were this not a hangover blog, would be deserving of it’s own series of posts.  But, if you are hungover and also inclined to help, visit Frontsteps.org to donate or volunteer or learn more about it.  Anyway, we went to this awesome little place, where you have to press a secret buzzer and they let you in or not depending on reservations and if they want to.  It was fun to see them turn people away at the door throughout the night, it added to the exclusive and secret feeling.  More importantly, the drinks were strong and delicious.  These were not your standard vodka soda or beer, these were handcrafted, hipster delightful, prohibitionesque masterpieces.  We reserved a spot for 2 hours, and had 3 drinks.  After our time was up, they unceremoniously gave us the polite boot, but it was only 10:00, so we wandered into the world, and found a new bar.  The next bar was not adorable, hipster, handcrafted delight, but it was cheap and they had cranberry deep eddy, so I was set.  We hung out there for a couple rounds and made another reservation back at Midnight Cowboy.  By this point, Lisa was less than sober, and her husband had arrived to escort her about the town and then safely home.  Back at the speakeasy I had a rum, rhum, rummy punch, then headed back out into the rain in pursuit of pizza and a cab.  (6th street closes down to traffic, so drunk people don’t get run over, which makes it challenging to Uber, so they have good old fashioned cab lines.)  

Having learned last week that water was key, but also really wanting to try this new remedy I found on instagram, I drank a couple of glasses of water throughout the night, but not enough to completely ward off a hangover.  I do this for you, so you better appreciate it.  I also took a milk thistle before heading out, wanting to somewhat mitigate the effects of 4 very strong cocktails and 2 vodkas.  So, prepped and pretty sure I would be hungover today, I drank a small glass of water and went to sleep.

This morning, around 8:15, my bleary eyes opened, I took stock of my situation, and for a second I thought, “hmmmm, am I actually OK?”  Then I moved, and I was not.  Bizarrely, because all the prevention stuff has been working so well, I was kind of fine with being hungover.  At least I could finally try this remedy I bought almost 2 months ago.  The Remedy, is called SB Remedy, which stands for Sober Boost Remedy.  I don’t work for their marketing and naming department, or legal department, I don’t know what to tell you.  The claims of SB Remedy are that it will sober you up the next day, give you energy,  and make your stomach feel better.  The ingredients are pretty spot on for those claims, there is caffeine anhydrous, milk thistle, b vitamins, thiamine and activated charcoal.  The strange thing, though it makes sense from a science place, is that the ingredients are in different pills.  I think if you put the charcoal with the vitamins it might take down the vitamins in an epic dark versus light, good versus charcoal battle royal.  So, important takeaway, there are 4 pills you have to take.  And they are not vegetarian/vegan friendly, they have gelatin capsules.  I’m a terrible vegetarian and often take supplements with gelatin, unless they have a humane option.  Anyway…I am totally landing this plane, but I’m super caffeinated right now.  Wait, spoilers!

Once I realized I was really and truly hungover, I first thought, “if remedy this doesn’t work, I am SO staying in bed and watching Netflix all day.”  I then thought, “Oh my gosh, am I about to throw up?”  I didn’t, phew.  What I did do was swallow down those 4 pills and think about trying to nap until they kicked in.  So, I snuggled back down and kind of got right to edge of a nap without really letting it take over.  Around 9:00 I had the strange sensation that I was vibrating, I also had the strange sensation that I was less hungover than I was minutes earlier.  But the vibrating was a more immediate concern, so I rolled over and grabbed the packet the pills came in, rolled back the other way and grabbed my phone, and I googled Caffeine Anhydrous.  It’s basically pharmaceutical grade caffeine.  The little pill has several cups of coffee worth of caffeine in it.  It’s worth nothing that a teaspoon of the stuff is lethal and equal to like 28 cups of coffee.  I went to check their website today to get an official photo and description for you all, and it is down.  I assume it’s because they claim to “sober you up” which has some ugly legal ramifications due to drinking and driving, operating machinery, etc, and there is no disclaimer with the “sober boost remedy” that it can’t actually sober you up if you take it while drunk.  (If you read my first post, you know legal issues around alcohol are a real and serious thing, and that none of my “research” is backed by medical advice, and is likely contrary to it!)  That and they have pretty serious levels of caffeine in their product.  But I’ll tell you what, I am GLAD I bought a 5 pack of the stuff, because I feel AMAZING right now.  The caffeine high got me out of bed running around, motivated and happy.  The charcoal sucked out the bad stuff.  The b vitamins, milk thistle and thiamine work like they always do to improve mental clarity and kick start the liver.  All in all, if you aren’t sensitive to caffeine, it’s the perfect product.  It looks like it is still available through Amazon, even though their website is down.  I reached out to the company for an update about that, and will let you know if/when they respond.  But if they did go out of business, and I hope they did not, you should buy this stuff while you still can!  I am going to get a 10 pack of the SB Remedy in case this is the end of it.  I sent 1 pack to a lucky reader last week, maybe I’ll add another pack into a prize around Christmas.  Either way, the stuff is awesome, though I feel the caffeine crash sneaking up as I type.  Hopefully they did not go out of business, because it’s a game changer! So, if you are unlucky enough to have a hangover despite all the ways I have shown you to avoid them,  I hope you are lucky enough to have a packet of this hangover crack handy, it will save you from having to use a sick day, and make you want to organize your CD collection!  Alphabetically and by genre!  

Happy Friday, my drunkies!  Have a wonderful and safe weekend, don’t drink and drive, make good choices!  Oh, and while you are out celebrating or getting into mischief, #hellodrunkies or #hotsauceandaspirin your photos on instagram, twitter or facebook, so we can all see what you are up to! And follow my instagram page Hot_sauce_and_aspirin. If your weekend gets away from you, remember I am here to help you feel better!  I just received a new product in the mail to test that I think will be a crowd pleaser, especially among the organic, yoga, oil types, so stick around for that.

Update from the folks at SB remedy:

They are still in business, working with Amazon right now while they get some issues worked out with their web hosting. But never fear, hangover crack is not going anywhere. Also good news to you fellow vegetarians, they are changing the capsule soon to not be made of gelatin! As for the theory that they had some legal troubles with the vagueness of their claim that “It will sober you up after a night of having any kind of partying fun…” they are confident no one will be dumb enough to assume it’s something that can actually make you sober. And their Instagram page does clearly market it as being for hangovers now, so they are definitely heading in the “avoiding a lawsuit” direction. I am paraphrasing their message, they were much more corporate and pragmatic about it. However, look at our president and any Florida news story. If it were my amazing product, I would still change that wording to be “Nothing exists that can sober you up while you are still under the influence but we can help you in the morning after any kind of partying so you can …” Regardless, my faithful party goers, this stuff isn’t going anywhere, and I for one am very relieved to hear it! Thanks for the update, SB Remedy, good luck with your website and let us know once you have a new home!