Never again! Grace Dent's most epic hangovers

As London’s party season arrives, brimming with Christmas fizz, beers and spirit, I must reveal a terrible truth. These days, I hate hangovers so much I hide at home with the cat to avoid them. Yes, I still occasionally get tipsy, even hammered, and with grand aplomb, but mainly I am that dickhead juicing kale at 7am. Oh, it happens to the best of us. If you’re under 29 and reading this, please party on! Burn bright, burn fast! You’re still in that glorious hangover bounce-back zone where two Nurofen, a Pret cheese croissant and a cold can of Irn-Bru will shift anything. But be warned, past the age of 35, a big brassy London night out will leave you gasping in bed for 48 hours, whimpering, vomiting, seriously pondering if you haven’t caught cholera, and begging your housemate to finish you off with a shovel. To jog my own memory in prep for party season, these are my three worst hangovers:

December 1996, Carlisle

This was a legendary hangover: it featured damage to a building as well as myself. At the age of 18, I went to see the DJ Todd Terry at the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester, a venue not renowned for its smoothie bar or Pilates facilities. I began drinking Jacob’s Creek at around 5pm on Saturday, while titivating my hair into a Heather Small-style pineapple up-do and ironing my Valentino split-leg dress. My Carlisle girlfriends and I (WARNING: never drink with women from Carlisle) swigged vodka in the Renault Clio on the way, drank several bottles of Sol at the Dry Bar (it comes with lime! how sophisticated!), and downed Bacardi Breezers, some shots of Sambuca, and other things unsuitable to mention, in the Hacienda itself. At some point during the evening, due to the fact that I still resembled Helena Christensen more than Alice Cooper, I pulled a minor Third Division footballer and thought it would be a brilliant idea to let him drive me home — both of us smashed — along the M6 in his sportscar. This did not seem reckless to the 18-year-old me but highly romantic.

As I was dropped off at 8am at my mother’s house, waving off my new friend — by that point I’d established that he wasn’t a footballer but someone on remand — I realised I’d lost my house keys and there was no one home. The ‘logical’ drunk thing to do then was take the small wrought-iron doorstop in the shape of a Scottie dog from the porch and smash the glass in the front door, just like a burglar would. As I set about attacking the house, my mother pulled up in her Volvo estate. ‘What is wrong with you!’ she screamed, swatting at me with her hands. Rather than ashamed, I was incredulous. I knew I was in the right. ‘No. What is wrong with YOU! Why are you pretending to be OUT!’ I screamed back. I woke up nine hours later only to begin vomiting. I had a right-eye migraine, cuts on my hand and a bill from Speedy Glass. But I was young. I was still in the bounce-back zone. A few good nights’ sleep and I was out drinking again, unlike…

October 2003, Euro Disney

A press trip to Euro Disney to report on… something. I want to say ‘a new roller coaster’. That sounds right. I have no real idea what I was there to report on. I remember there were a lot of people from The Mirror and The Sun with me. WARNING: never drink with tabloid journalists as someone will end up in A&E, fired the next morning, or pregnant. We began drinking complimentary champagne on the Eurostar at 10am and got to Euro Disney well-refreshed, which is the only way to arrive in drizzly France for a day pretending to be charmed by It’s a Small World and Mickey’s parade. Someone had a bottle of Scotch in their handbag and, like a bunch of naughty (translation: pathetic) schoolkids, we wantonly drank it all the way until dinner, which was in a rodeo show. The waitresses were dressed as cowgirls and all that was on offer were massive flagons of foaming cheap French lager, which we all guzzled happily to rehydrate as we were already hungover. The rest of the night is blurry, but I vaguely remember getting a fireman’s lift home from a sub-editor from Rugby World. I was so sick when I woke up that the only explanation was that I had meningitis. I had no Nurofen and the staff at the hotel refused to understand my terrible A-level French. ‘J’ai une malade grave,’ I wept. ‘Vraiment?’ the receptionist said dryly. As I lay weeping in bed, the PR appeared and made me go on a number of roller coasters. I can’t write about this part as I am still prone to flashbacks. I did not drink for TWO WHOLE MONTHS.

October 2013, London awards ceremony

My most recent hangover. A restaurant awards ceremony full of chefs and restaurant owners. WARNING: never drink with these type of people. They are nocturnal, mostly feral, and own their own pubs and restaurants, so even if you have exhausted every late-licence hellhole in London, you can go to theirs. I remember a lot of cocktails — five or maybe six? — which had ornate names but were essentially pure gin in a glass with some lemon rind. Also a lot of Taittinger. By the time I left I was so well-oiled I agreed to get into a rickshaw. Why, God, why? I’ve mocked people in rickshaws for 20 years. I ended up in The Groucho until 3am, at least seven more glasses of champagne down, and then had further cocktails in The Box until 5am. At 8am my phone began ringing with an editor reminding me he was holding a page for 800 words of copy. I stood up, threw up, then lay on the floor holding on and making a murrrrrrr sound, while the cat licked my face. I hoped this was to comfort me, but now I look back it was probably marinating me before eating my dead body. I sat at my laptop, fingers like pork sausages, and began to type. Between projectile vomiting and crying I filed the column. But I knew one thing: I will never let myself get a hangover again like that, ever. And this time I really mean it. ES