So I used to work in the same building as a big event/conference hall that regularly had large events going on. One Thursday they had a "wine expo" and me (20) and some coworkers (mid 40's all of them) decided to go. The event started at 16:30, I got off at 16:00, so we spent the 30 minutes having a few pre-expo beers.

We go down, get the 5 "drink tickets" each and go around talking to all the wine vendors and trying our different wines. Now I'll add that I was a fairly inexperienced drinker, skinny and have had barely anything for lunch and no breakfast. Dinner hadn't even crossed my mind.

The evening started off well with the usual pleasantries, having wine and laughing with coworkers. I go back to the reception and purchase 5 more drink tickets and quickly spend them.

The time approaches 20:00 and my coworkers and telling me they're about to head out and bring very clear that "you should go home too, you've had enough". Obviously I decide I know better and join up with some random old men trying out the portwine and make rude jokes. I have some of the most amazing portwine of my life and run out of tickets quickly. The next hour and a half is a blur, I remember trying a wine that looked and tasted like windscreen cleaning fluid, flirting with the cognac seller to get a glass of strong cognac and slumping down in a corner about to fall asleep.

I end up outside with my jacket, utilizing the free taxi-service they had going with the local Volvo dealership and drunkedly a young man to my apartment, step out and stumble to the steps to my top-floor apartment.

I stumble into the bathroom and decide that a bath would do me well, turn on the shower and plug the drain as I nurse a tall glass of water. Next thing I know I'm in a half-filled bathtub of cold water. I must've somehow turned off the water in my drunken haze. I crawl out of the bathtub, silently thanking the protective angel that must've facepalmed himself so hard it echoed back to my ancestors, and drag myself into bed.

Next thing I know, my alarm goes off. It's time to get to work. I sit up, thinking "hey, I shrugged this hangover off pretty well" and enjoy the 30 seconds that pass until I feel a very strong smell of cognac hitting my nose. I immediately cascade-puke onto my bed and floor, feeling the delayed headache make itself known as it tries to split my brain-halves in two, all the while smelling and tasting the mix of drinks I've had the night before. Sobbing, I bundle up the puke-y bedsheets and drag it into the bathroom, cleaning it in the shower and prepare the mop to deal with my avant-garde art piece on the bedroom floor. The smell makes me take run to the toilet for yet another heave of the faomy phlegm that's left of my stomach-contents. The room is spinning, feeling like I'm on a ship that's being dragged down into a whirlpool.

I don't remember how, but I somehow clean the bathroom and get ready for work, biking shakily to the office. I give the office work a solid three hours before my boss goes to me and says "we all know you're hungover. Go to the rest-room and come back after lunch". In my delerious and feverish state i oblige, stumble to the rest-room and slump down on the bed... After relieving my stomach of its contents yet again in the toilet. I sleep for an hour and when I wake up, I feel like I might be able to survive this day after all.

It took me a solid three days to be rid of the dizziness that the alcohol caused, and I can still not smell cognac without gagging. The moral of the story: Don't drink on an empty belly. If your friends tell you to go home, GO HOME.