Hot, Humid and Hungover

I’ve been putting my liver through a rigorous training program since my 21st birthday. I wasn’t a high school teetotaler — too much of a nerd for that — and I was even worse at drinking in college. I didn’t care for beer (Black Label? Can you blame me?), so we’d beer-bong the stuff just to kickstart a night of bad dance moves and worse decisions.

While my friends stocked up on Sun Country Wine Coolers, I’d proudly tote my “bottles of wine” — and I use the term wine loosely because those bottles were barely an upgrade from grape juice. Still, I preferred them over coolers.

My 20s? I was the ultimate weekend warrior. Monday through Friday, I was a cubicle queen; Friday night through Sunday morning, I was up until sunrise, thriving on a recovery time measured in hours, not days. Two nights in a row? Easy.

Then came my 30s — a time when my social life morphed into playdates and grape juice of the fermented kind. The Welch’s variety was replaced by Pinot Noir, and our kitchen tables became makeshift wine bars.

My 40s brought the art form of day drinking. It’s the perfect blend of fun and function — a sunny afternoon rosé with enough time to recover before bedtime. That is, until “I’ll only stay for one drink” turns into seven hours later, uncontrollable laughter, drunk dialing, and emergency pizza  that live in infamy for days.

Pro tip: Hydrate — obviously. But if you can down a little Perfect Amino electrolytes before the lights go out, you might just survive to toast another Happy Hour.