I don't know exactly when it stopped "working" for me but at some point my drinking changed from something that I wanted to do into something I needed to do.
I distinctly remember the first few beers of the day were to just get my heart rate back down and the lingering headache/hangover gone. I definitely wasn't drinking them to enjoy the "taste" either...they were quickly gulped down simply to get the alcohol in my body as fast as I could. Then after that it was pretty much all about maintaining a good enough BAC to keep my heart rate/palpitations down for the rest of the day/night until I passed out and started all over again the next day.