oooh man. I had the pancreas thing blow up on me once. They told me to stop drinking. Which obviously...I didn't do. If you aren't into pot or anything, it's not much fun.

What I blame it on, though, was living in South American and drinking a lot of really cheap local wisky. After my Kermit the Frog - green week from hell barfing, I stopped drinking hard booze; stopped everything for about 3 weeks, then slowly started with beer again. And now, I only drink beer. It hasn't come back for the last 4 years. I try to keep it to 6-9 beers a night (4-6 for the first year afterwards). I can't guarantee the same results for you.

On a short term basis I'd recommend taking one Xanax, one Vicodin and 1-2 beers, as that won't cause another pancreatitis attack and it pretty well mimics the effect of a twelve pack. If you're one of the 19-drinks-a-night crowd though, I'd suggest treatment because nothing is going to fix it without almost killing you.

Party on, amigo.