One of the least
amusing and most
dangerous results of a
night out.
So you've had your
beer, your
spirits and maybe a glass or two of
wine. The journey home is a bit of a
blur, but a
taxi seems to have somehow been involved. It's time to
collapse in bed and,
hopefully wake up with full
motor control and without an
unwanted guest lying beside you.
Unfortunately, being
drunk plays
havoc with your body's
natural impulses. Normally, a need to
vomit would cause you to
awaken and make a
bee-line for the
toilet or the nearest
plastic bucket.
Under the influence of excessive alchohol, however, this is
not always the case. Many have noted that
drunk sleeping is easier and deeper than normal
sleeping, but the full extent is
not revealed until you can't manage anything beyond a
semi-conscious state whilst your stomach empties itself onto your
bedclothes. This would all be quite
amusing and a little
embarassing story for your
flatmates to trot out were it not for the
very real possibility that you won't wake up after this sort of
incident. If you don't have your
wits about you, you'll just go back to sleep in a
pool of your own vomit, justifying this in a way typical of
drunken logic. As anybody who's ever fallen asleep in a
bowl of soup -- and there aren't very many of these people -- will tell you, this can result in
suffocation, and all of that
bile isn't exactly doing
wonders for your
skin. It's like having a
cat fall asleep on your face, except that you don't have the
capacity to properly remove it, and so your
breathing grows shallower and
shallower until you
pass out. With
oxygen still not making its way to your brain, you'll
die. And
nobody wants that to happen.
Fortunately, the quick
burst of
adrenaline that impacts your body upon sudden
cessation of breathing will
clear your head enough that you can roll onto the
floor and sleep there. At the very least, you'll have some very
dirty sheets, and not as a result of the more
pleasurable ways of causing this.
Most
drunks will have a few
shuddery memories about these sorts of nights: waking up
incapable of breathing and
uncertain as to the root of this problem, fighting
desperately against the pull of
drunken sleep.
Not many
die from this, but it's a mildly
terrifying experience. The best
remedy is a few pints of
water before bed. Of course, if you're feeling
nauseated and
drunk, you should make yourself
puke before you go to bed. It may not be
fun, but you'll have a better
sleep and you'll be
alive in the morning and comforted by the presence of
clean(er) sheets beneath your
dehydrated body.