The Dry Boak - and Four Other Things I Won't Miss About Alcohol

1. Waking up with a mouth like a badgers...

This is when you wake up and somehow or other your tongue has been replaced by the rear end of a specific member of the weasel family (the one with the black and white face). And what's this? It appears fairies have fitted a very small Persian rug in your mouth in the night.

Its almost as if thistles, or a bed of nettles perhaps, did sprout there in the night. Then there's your tongue - it has stuck to the top of your mouth, and you make "tcha tcha" sound to make sure its not welded itself there for good. Colgate and plenty of it does the trick - but you won't see this in a toothpaste commercial.

2(a) The Boak

This has happened to us all (even those who claim they don't get sick when they drink, the liars!). It happens near the end of heavy drinking, which can actually have beneficial effect of at least a bit of that alcohol before bed. It can even happen during the night...you wake up from your peaceful slumber and "no, no, no, no!" you need to dash to the "great white telephone" (the toilet) for you have received a call! A more serious variation of the said boak can happen the morning after, which leads me on to item 2(a)...

2(b) The Dry Boak

This is the demented evil twin of item 2(a) and a gazillion times worse. You would welcome back 2(a) with open arms if you knew this was coming. Just imagine (or even better - remember) the scene - you are lying there with the drouth from hell, like a bag of washing, like a burst ball - and then suddenly you feel you want to be sick. But lo and behold, there's nothing left to come up! In certain parts of Scotland this is known as the "dry boak". But that is because you've already done your boaking - your all boaked out! I believe when this happens you are suffering from borderline alcohol poisoning. Which also happens a lot in certain parts of Scotland.

3. The "Fear"

This is related to one of my earlier posts on hangover anxiety. It is when you awaken from your peaceful slumber, a slightly odd dreamless sleep - but there is something else not right. Something doesn't add up. Something you just...can't explain. Then you remember you had a monumental skin full the night before. The small matter of that very large amount of alcohol that you consumed previously. But wait! There's other things, something worse - nagging things! Did you make a fool of yourself the night before?  Did you text someone or something you shouldn't have. Did you do a million other weird and wonderful things? You check your outgoing calls and texts...nothing. You check your Facebook status...nothing untoward. You think you were okay...but were you? You don't know for sure...and yes it is irrational...because that is the nature of THE FEAR!

4. Pockets Full of Shrapnel

Pockets overflowing with coins. Not just a few ten and twenty pence pieces - this is copious amounts of inconvenient change clanging around your pockets, strewn across tables and the bedside cabinet, in your wallet...everywhere. Now lots of change lying around wouldn't normally be such a bad thing. But only hours before these little emblems of Her Majesty were in their original paper form - lovely crisp green and pink notes - hard cash - with eh, slightly bigger pictures of the Queen on them. And now there's tuppence, a bitter sweet reminder of how much you spent last night.

None of the above are particularly pleasant. But then drinking way too much is not a pleasant business:

Who are the people who are always crying the blues?

    Who do you know who reeks of self-pity?

Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all?

    Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?

It’s those who spend the night with a bottle,

    for whom drinking is serious business.

(Proverbs 23:29-30, MSG)