ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
DRAGGING A CHAIR into the shower the next morning has forever been indicative of a larger than usual night was had. Now a new hang over clinic in central Brisbane is offering something better.
Rather than slumping over in your own filth and anxiety, specialist shower chairs designed for geriatric and less mobile patients are available for people left disabled from alcohol and amphetamine abuse.
As most people who’ve ever used an outdoor setting chair in the shower will tell you, it’s the only time when drinking the shower water is acceptable.
Clinic nurse Beryl Wang says that drinking shower water is a part of traditional Australian medicine and has been thought to help cure hangovers for generations.
“Modern scientific medicine will tell you that rehydrating is key to getting over a hangover,” she said. “We use more traditional methods, like putting a hash brown in a bacon and egg roll or enjoying a naughty inside cigarette.”
In addition to the chairs, Indian food can be administered intravenously while a patient lies in bed watching reruns of The Simpsons on Fox8.
If you’re easily scared by needles, then the nurses can organise for a feeding tube to be used instead.
Patients also have a choice of breathing pure oxygen through a mask or something more a little more cheeky and exotic, like Peter Stuyvesant smoke or nitrous oxide. The latter is colloquially known “nang therapy”, which is popular amongst Brisbane’s dead shits and electronic dance music fans.
However, qualified doctors have lashed out at the new hangover clinic, saying “it’s just a matter of time until somebody is seriously hurt or injured.”
“You should only use a shower chair when there’s a danger you might pass out,” said Dr Alan Mobb. “And any type is intravenous food is a bad idea. Putting Indian food down a feeding tube is just reckless.”
Fortunately, the local Brisbanese people have taken a shine to the new facility.
During the festive season, executives and students alike have flocked to the clinic after a big night, attracting the likes of Brisbane’s sole finance worker.
“Being the only stock broker is Brisbane is a tough gig. Lots of long lunches, big nights at the Regatta listening to Powderfinger with clients. It really takes a toll,” says exiled Sydney banker Glenn Peterson. “I’m a big fan of this new hangover clinic. I can flop around in bed with a feeding tube all day then get hand-washed by an indifferent Chinese woman. This is living.”
Echoing Mr Peterson’s sentiments, 33-year-old stay-at-home-son Sam Gunston says his life was saved by the facility after he almost overdosed on Jim Beam cans last weekend. He’d downed a 30-block in the space of a few hours, then was forced to order a 10-pack of MDMA caps because “that’s all his dealer does”.
“The next morning, I thought I was having a stroke,” said Gunston. “I got in an Uber straight away. When we got to the hangover clinic, I collapsed at the front door. They rushed me into triage and gave me a nang to take the edge off. Saved my life.”
