Curing the New Year’s hangover

But then again, any excuse to get drunk is a good one: Break-ups, framing posters, watching Family Feud ... but especially New Year’s Eve.

After a rambunctious night of drinking while framing your favorite poster of babies dressed as strawberries, the dreaded hangover creeps its way 0.04 seconds into your skull after you wake up.

The cure may be as simple as not drinking, but really, who wants to not drink when John O’Hurley comes on television posing all those difficult questions at 11 a.m., or the ball dropping in Times Square.

However, inside the Yuppie Bar in San Mateo, a Rocklin, Calif. man believes he’s invented the one drink guaranteed to prevent hangovers - if you’ve got the stomach for it.

The drink contains a one-to-one mixture of Goldschläger and Jägermeister, either as a mixed drink (no cola) or as a shot.

Named a 9-1-1, it was used on the mountains because it wouldn’t freeze, Jimbo V. said.

"We put it in little bota packs for antifreeze for the ski slopes," Jimbo said.

Similar to the movie "Medicine Man" where Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco discovered that it was not an Amazonian flower that contained cancer curing properties, but the ants that ate the flower. It may be the Jägermeister that is the secret ingredient.

"But that’s why I don’t get hangovers because I drink Jägermeister every day," Jimbo said. "One shot. A shot a day will not give you a hangover the next day, it’s like drinking NyQuil."

Jimbo’s friend, Knarly D., had a different approach to dealing with a hangover.

"Just don’t drink in excess and then you don’t have to worry about it," Knarly said.

But he did throw out a couple tips he’s picked up over the years: Two glasses of water and four aspirin before bed, and experience above all else, he said.

"It’s like life, you got to learn how much to drink, when to drink and when not to drink," Knarly said. "So, a little experience will keep you from having your head hurting really bad the next day."

Professional hangover assistant (i.e. bartender) Gillian Thirlwall said she wasn’t sure if there was a legitimate hangover cure, but so far there was no escape once a certain threshold had been breached.

"If I drink enough to get a hangover, there is no curing my hangover," Thirlwall said.

By being a bartender, Thirlwall had heard nearly every possible known remedy. From Bloody Marys, one aspirin before bed and one Gatorade in the morning, to 20 tacos from Jack in the Box.

Maybe hangover cures are like snowflakes, each different in their own beautiful ways with different effects for everyone.

For Thirlwall, sticking to the same type of alcoholic drink, hydrating one’s self and eating throughout the night can prevent hangovers, she said.

From broken resolutions to creeping out that person across the room who you wanted to know biblically, the night is finished and you’re probably reading this from the comfort of your home with a splitting headache.

Like El Dorado, the lost city of gold, the hangover cure is just as sought after. But as long as the myth grows, people will search for ways to combat it using some of the most bizarre combinations possible.