Something I've always noticed and am going through now. Sometimes I'll drink too much the night before and be concerned about a hangover the next morning. Morning comes, and almost always my first thought is "gee I feel like shit but actually this is way less bad then I was expecting" this misplaced optimism gets washed away at an indeterminate length of time later when a wave of awful nausea crescendos to a peak of crappiness before gradually receding leading me to think "maybe that was the worst of it" only for the cycle to repeat.
This happens even when the hangover is not one severe enough to have caused vomiting. Feeling sick from drinking too much I understand, but I wonder what's physically happening during the peak of these waves that's not happening during the troughs.
I had the same thing I had a hangover kit that I would follow to make the hangover less harsh it was right around the time I quit too
I'm happy you had a safe environment around your family mine would prefer I "loosen" up by drinking, in fact quitting made me realize that there was a lot of toxic dynamics within my family that need to be addressed, I never realized drinking was a form of tolerating it. I'm naturally extroverted so I thought parties and dancing was gonna be different, it was an adjustment but I still like to be outgoing and boogie, I just had to do it without alcohol, I find good substitutions in weed or psychedelics though as my tool to unwind when I need it