WORLD’S BEST HANGOVER CURES
As the Christmas party season gets underway we speak to a man who has travelled the world in search of the perfect hair of the dog
IF YOU are going to write a guide to hangover cures the first thing you have to do is get drunk. A lot. And no one can accuse Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, who spent 10 years on his quest to find the optimum remedy, of not taking his research seriously.
“I drank a heck of a lot and I did become extremely unhealthy,” he admits. “I gained about three and a half stone and my organs weren’t working the way they should.
“I was getting ill a lot and my blood pressure went up a lot. My liver enzymes were also through the roof. A lot of health issues arose.”
He adds: “I had some pretty wild nights out along the way. My wildest encounter has to be in Berlin where I got so drunk after one long night I thought I had lost my passport.
“I ended up being there for an extra week without any money. I eventually found my passport at my hotel’s reception. That was my idiocy there.”
And there was a life-threatening episode in the US. “At a wild party outside Tucson, Arizona, I got so drunk and afterwards went to the desert and almost died there,” he says. “It was a combination of heat stroke and the hangover effects.”
In all, the 44-year-old half-British half-Canadian father-of-one visited 30 cities in 14 countries. He tried everything from an intravenous drip to a so-called polar-bear swim in freezing waters and tested all manner of potions from different cultures.
As he says: “I have tried every tincture, tonic, powder, pill, placebo, root, leaf, bark, chemical and therapeutic process I could legally test, and then some others.”
Appropriately enough, Shaughnessy found his favourite cure in Las Vegas, the setting for hit movie The Hangover. “I went to see a hangover doctor to be put on an IV – intravenous therapy – drip but I was still drunk, so when that moved into hangover, it was very painful,” he recalls.
“I then jumped off a Stratosphere Tower in free fall and discovered a massive dose of adrenaline did blow the hangover out of me.”
SHAUGHNESSY believes his perfect cure, is to take an amino acid supplement that you can buy over the counter called NAC (N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine) along with vitamins B1, B6 and B12, some magnesium, a dose of ibuprofen and some frankincense – which is also known as boswellia in health food shops. But they must all be taken BEFORE going to sleep.
“I did focus it down to four key ingredients that seemed to eliminate the most aggressive aspects of hangover – gas distress, nausea, headache, muscle pain, exhaustion. It works again and again.”
While on his travels, he also found that, in moderation, wine can help stave off cardiovascular disease, colds, cataracts, macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, diabetes, fatty liver, indigestion, insomnia and ageing.
Meanwhile tequila helps prevent osteoporosis, Type 2 diabetes, dementia and obesity and beer can be good for your kidneys, cholesterol levels and bone density, as well as providing all sorts of necessary vitamins.
To order Hungover: A History Of The Morning After And One Man’s Quest For A Cure by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall (published by Bonnier Books at £16.99), with free UK delivery, call The Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 with your card details. Or send a cheque made payable to Express Bookshop to Hungover Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ. Or buy online at expressbookshop.co.uk