I (mostly) stopped getting hangovers in my late 20s, anyone else?

In my early 20s, I was a big drinker, big vodka drinker especially, I could clear about a fifth per day for a couple years there before my stomach decided it was done with vodka. Now (34 years old) it just makes me feel gross, I don’t like the feeling so I don’t drink it.

I used to get the most wicked hangovers ever, I mean head pounding, nauseous beyond all words, usually vomited a few times, and then it got even worse: in my mid-20s, I started drinking whiskey and bourbon, usually Jack Daniels or Wild Turkey. Both of them would absolutely fuck my shit up. Throwing up all day, sick for 24+ hours, without fail.

I sort of fell off in my late 20s because I didn’t have the money to spare and didn’t really care for it a lot, but by that time I generally avoided hangovers, I thought by drinking enough water.

I started drinking again at 32, and it’s safe to say I’m drinking as much these days as I ever did, but with significant enough gaps between binges that I know I don’t have physical withdrawal or cravings as such. I can imbibe truly enormous amounts: usually about 350 ml of Jack is where I call it because if I drink too fast it’ll tip me over into blackout, but sometimes I’ll have twice that just for the hell of it. (This is always a mistake.)

I usually hydrate well while drinking, but sometimes I absolutely do not, just flatout forget. Sometimes I’ll wake up with a very mild headache that goes away in a couple hours without taking any meds or anything. Sometimes I might feel a bit week from what I assume is vitamin depletion. I don’t get naseuous anymore and I don’t get the spins anymore and the last time I threw up from drinking, I was probably 25ish.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper. If it were just about hydrating better, you’d expect me to be a lot more fucked when I don’t, but the outcome is the same. It used to be that even when I had a high alcohol tolerance, a relatively small amount would be enough to have me throwing up the next day. It was damn near unavoidable.

The weird part is that as time goes on, my drinking hasn’t increased any and the gaps have remained steady, but the extroardinarily mild hangover symptoms that I only get every now and then have also gotten milder.

Most people will say that alcohol is easy to deal with in your 20s but really starts to fuck you up in your 30s and 40s in the hangover sense. Here I am having the exact opposite experience, what gives? Is it a genetic thing? A metabolic thing? Any scientists out there?

(Full disclosure: I call myself an alcoholic because I drink a lot very often and really like it, but in terms of withdrawal/cravings, I don’t get those. I don’t even get those from cigarettes when I get tired of them and stop smoking for a while.)