I had a professor once. Very short, skinny, Korean man. In his 60s. Somehow he was able to drink like a fish, get totally wasted, and go back to work the next morning like nothing had happened. He said that he limited it to "just once a week" now, but when he was younger he used to do it 2 or 3 times a week.
I've taken memantine and n=1 but for me it doesn't feel fun. At 10mg/day it's totally not noticeable, at 20mg/day I feel woozy but not euphoric, like I'm going to keel over all the time.
OTOH 400 mg of oral bioidentical progesterone *does* basically make me feel drunk for a few hours without the hangover!
Problems with prog:
- it's expensive, requires a prescription
- kind of a wildcard hormone and doesn't have consistent effects from person to person. side effects basically. can mess up the menstrual cycle.
- long story but from asking claude looks like there could be issues with GABA-A receptor adaptation if you do it too often.
fascinating! although my understanding of all the recent articles about the health effects of moderate drinking is that even a drink a day only shortens one’s life by mere months. it’s still poison, of course, but even roasting vegetables instead of boiling them is technically more carcinogenic, so i don’t think that’s nearly as strong of an argument against building a “better alcohol” as all the others you listed here and in your first article.
I had a professor once. Very short, skinny, Korean man. In his 60s. Somehow he was able to drink like a fish, get totally wasted, and go back to work the next morning like nothing had happened. He said that he limited it to "just once a week" now, but when he was younger he used to do it 2 or 3 times a week.
My guess is that he must have been using something like this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/28/south-korea-hangover-cures-booming-market-traditional-novel-remedies-k-cure But I don't know exactly what, or how it worked, or how he lived. But there is definitely a place for this sort of medicine to "cure" alcohol...
Lactaid but for alcohol dehydrogenase... a man can dream
I've taken memantine and n=1 but for me it doesn't feel fun. At 10mg/day it's totally not noticeable, at 20mg/day I feel woozy but not euphoric, like I'm going to keel over all the time.
OTOH 400 mg of oral bioidentical progesterone *does* basically make me feel drunk for a few hours without the hangover!
Problems with prog:
- it's expensive, requires a prescription
- kind of a wildcard hormone and doesn't have consistent effects from person to person. side effects basically. can mess up the menstrual cycle.
- long story but from asking claude looks like there could be issues with GABA-A receptor adaptation if you do it too often.
fascinating! although my understanding of all the recent articles about the health effects of moderate drinking is that even a drink a day only shortens one’s life by mere months. it’s still poison, of course, but even roasting vegetables instead of boiling them is technically more carcinogenic, so i don’t think that’s nearly as strong of an argument against building a “better alcohol” as all the others you listed here and in your first article.