Being drunk in your 40's is not the same as being drunk in your 20's. 

According to Wall Street Journal, as an individuals gets older alcohol hits their system harder causing a more painful hangover. 

"All of the effects of alcohol are sort of amplified with age," says David W. Oslin, a professor of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Withdrawal is a little bit more complicated. Hangovers are a little bit more complicated."

Oslin said the reasons behind the more painful hangover includes changes in a person's body composition, from the brain to the liver functioning. In addition to losing muscle and unpredictable weight gain and weight lose, a person has less body water.

Another reason is that people in their 40's do not drink as much as they did in their young adult days, which can lead to lower tolerance. 

"You're becoming more work-oriented, more family-oriented," said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2011 National Health Interview Survey, about 52 percent of people age 45 to 64 are "regular" drinkers, meaning they had at least 12 drinks in the previous year. 

Alcohol is metabolized in the liver and according to Gary Murray of the NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, as people enter their older age, the organ becomes bigger but less efficient. Oslin explained to the Wall Street Journal that neurons lose efficiency as people get older.

"So you impair them with a little bit of alcohol, they are that much more inefficient," he said. "Somebody who goes to a cocktail party at 65 can have one or two drinks and be really impaired."

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest the people who desire to drink alcohol moderate their intake to one drink per day for women and two drinks for men. One alcoholic drink is defined as a 12-ounce beer, a 5 ounce glass or wine or 1.5 ounces of liquor.