Of the miseries regularly inflicted on humankind, some are so minor and
yet, while they last, so painful that one wonders how, after all this
time, a remedy cannot have been found. If scientists do not have a cure
for cancer, that makes sense. But the common cold, the menstrual cramp?
The hangover is another condition of this kind. It is a preventable
malady: don’t drink. Nevertheless, people throughout time have found
what seemed to them good reason for recourse to alcohol. One attraction
is alcohol’s power to disinhibit—to allow us, at last, to tell off our
neighbor or make an improper suggestion to his wife. Alcohol may also persuade us that we have found the truth about life, a comforting experience rarely available in the sober hour.
-The New Yorker
