I've been meaning to post this message for quite a while, but haven't quite gotten around to it until now, after someone here asked me about using kudzu to stop drinking. About the kudzu question: I did use it for a while, when I was motivated to quit, but was never quite sure of its effectiveness, since I was taking a lot of things at the same time. Actually if there was any substance that helped reduce my alcohol cravings, it was through boosting my serotonin by taking 5'HTP with cal/mag/zinc and B-vitamins (5'htp usage has been well-described on the curezone depression forum, although I admit I'm too lazy to find the link to post here). I still take the latter combo, to this day, and for me, it helps keep my moods up and cravings down, somewhat.
But I found out several months ago that I have Asperger Syndrome, and my therapist suggested that perhaps the alcoholism was the result of my social/sexual frustration that comes from this unfortunate condition. After thinking about it some, I'd tend to agree. So I forgive myself for being an alcoholic and for continuing to drink, even though this most likely implies a shorter lifespan.
In light of the Asperger thing, I'm far less motivated now to quit drinking, and in fact am not even trying anymore. But as long as I continue breathing, I am committed to making my life less painful, which of course means less pain from hangovers. In fact, I found a way to completely avoid hangovers while still getting my booze fix, and that's what this message is really about:
A few months ago, while in pain the next day after a night of drinking, I was reading some online stuff about homemade hangover remedies, and I noticed that many of them involve consuming salt. What we all know very well is that through drinking, we become dehydrated, peeing out all our water. But what some of us do not know is that not only do we lose water, but we are also losing electrolytes -- salt, in other words. I got the idea of drinking not just water while having alcohol, but of putting salt into the water.
I also took a lot of biology classes in college, and remember that the human body is dependent on not just having salt in order to function, but also maintaining the correct ratio of the different kinds of salts: sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc. Especially for nerve and muscle cells to function correctly, there has to be a precise ratio of sodium to potassium. When we drink booze, this ratio is disrupted because the salts get thrown out with the urine. Another thing i remember from my cellular physiology class is that this magic ratio between different ions is evolutionarily conserved between various vertebrate species -- meaning that mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish all have the SAME RATIO of these various salts/electrolytes in their bodies, and furthermore, that this ratio is the same as what is found in SEAWATER. Makes sense, doesn't it -- that fish blood and ocean water should have the same proportions of salts, right? Mammals evolved from fish, and yet the salt balance has remained the same for millions of years, suggesting that this ratio is so important for life to continue.
For these reasons, I deduced that replenishing the body with seasalt should help restore the preferred Na+/K+ ratio that is necessary for muscles and nerves to function -- basically, using seasalt is a quick way to make bioavailable saline, which is the same junk you'll get injected with in the ER. By contrast, the iodized, processed salt that is readily available in supermarkets has been processed such that only the sodium remains, and all the other good electrolytes such as potassium have been removed and used for industrial purposes. ((I seriously doubt that hospitals would use that Morton's iodized crap to create life-saving saline!!! Think about it.)) Kind of a dumb thing to do, if you consider it in this way -- but sometimes making money is more important than health, at least for some folks.
To test this hypothesis, I drank the normal amount of booze that I always do, but simultaneously drank about 3/4 gallon of water with seasalt over the course of the night. I put a generous pinch of seasalt in a cup of water and drank it during my binge. Each time the cup was empty, I'd refill it with water and salt, and the next morning, I saw that I'd drunk about 3/4 of a gallon of water. That's about as precise as I could manage. The next day, my head was clear, and there was no pain. I wasn't embarrassed to look people in the eye, and my muscles worked, so there was no need for me to want to lie down. I was able to function both mentally and physically, even though I was still tired from the lack of sleep. I'd also tried the experiment of drinking just water without salt during a binge, but it wasn't as effective, not even close.
So I don't see this as a cure for alcoholism, but it is certainly a means for damage-control, or 'harm reduction'. I like having carbonated water, actually, and when you throw the seasalt in, it should fizz. I use the Eden-brand seasalt, which is in a lot of healthfood stores. I dare you try this and see for yourself!
Incidentally, our grand society has reached the conclusion that having too much regular salt in the diet leads to hypertension, and I think what's going on is that the processed, iodized salt disrupts our electrolyte balance over time, leading to high blood pressure. After all, the heart is a muscle, right? So then it makes sense that the heart is equally strained when the electrolyte balance is disrupted with too much sodium and not enough of the other cations.
I haven't had the flu in a while, but would be willing to hypothesize that the flu makes us so achy and sore and foggyheaded because we are losing not only fluids due to diarrhea/vomiting, but also the profound loss of electrolytes, and when you have the flu, the desire to eat is greatly reduced, which is the usual source of our electrolyte intake. Just a thought. I promise you that the next time I come down with the flu, whether swineflu or whatever, I'll be swilling down water with seasalt. Hopefully someday bars and pubs will serve salted pretzels with their drinks that have seasalt instead of the crappy iodized variety.
So the next time you guys binge, I dare you to do as I described above -- to simultaneously drink water with dissolved seasalt, while poisoning yourselves with ethanol. I suspect that you won't be in nearly as much pain and confusion the next day. Of course, having seasalt won't cure the addiction, and won't prevent your body's withdrawal from the alcohol, but it will seriously soften the blow.
THE KEY IS TO REPLENISH YOUR SALTS *AS* YOU LOSE THEM, NOT TO WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT DAY TO DO SO.
I think I should get an "R" for this one, or maybe even a double RR. So far nobody seems to have yet presented a similar fix for the alcoholic hangover here, and still it's something that those of us who suffer from this painful malady deserve to know. And please none of you think that I found this solution because I needed a new Science project: I found this out of personal desperation.
Here's an update: a friend of mine died from alcohol, and i found out about it 4 months ago. I've been sober since then -- 4 months now. These days i've got plenty of nicotene and coffee handy, and that's just fine. I still use the electrolyte supplementation that i described above, and all of this seems to be enough to keep me sober.
It's funny, because i'd tried for years to quit boozing, but what really made the difference this time is that i know about the asperger genetics going on, and the codependency that resulted from nobody knowing how to deal with or even identify this genetic condition. My friend (and most of her family) was aspy too, but didn't know it. It was when i was trying to track this person down to get in touch with her that i found out that she was gone. So after that experience, alcohol just doesn't look the same to me.
What I realized is that i don't want to do that to someone else, and i don't like it when someone does that to me. The image of her passed out at the kitchen table and not ever waking up again is something that i will never forget.
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Alcoholism and Electrolyte Loss 
