theWorldWithin
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2005
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Absinthe - A restrospective for those who wish to destroy their brains
Personal Information
Sex: male
Weight: 110 ~ 120 lbs
This is not a single trip report but a retrospective of my experience with absinthe. For the past few months I have been living in Japan where high quality absinthe is easily available for a somewhat reasonable price. In total I have consumed about 3 bottles of absinthe, all of French origin (Pernod and mostly Versinthe Le Blanche). These are both real absinthes that contain thujone beyond the legal limits as defined by US law.
Dosage:
I started out drinking only 2 to 3 glasses of absinthe prepared with 5 parts water to 1 part liquor and adding sugar. By the end of my experience I was normally drinking 1/3 to ½ of a bottle. All of these dosages were consumed very quickly, most in 25 to 40 minutes.
With regular alcohol I am quite a heavy drinker. I usually go for the hard stuff and can kill close to a fifth by myself throughout a night of clubbing. I have had nights in the past 6 months when I have consumed far more than a fifth at “all you can drink” clubs but I am unsure of the exact amount. Let’s just say I can hold my spirits and know the difference between drunk and something more.
Subjective Effects:
Some occasions I felt incredible euphoria while under this drinks influence. There is definitely a highly aware element to the absinthe high. I felt drunk but remained very lucid in thought (or so I personally believed but my actions would suggest otherwise). While on absinthe I often believed I was not severely inebriated but became lost in familiar places and acted generally ridiculous. There is undoubtedly something more to its effects than simply drunkenness.
Subjective After Effects:
I normally do not suffer severe hangovers unless I drink insane amounts of liquor combined with wine and beer. When I drink absinthe I have day long hangovers from hell. There is a certain element of the hangover that seems delirious (not to be confused with psychedelic). Sleep patterns are severely disrupted and the sleep I do get is not restful. When I try to rest I notice strange morphing white blobs over my closed eye lids. Recently after some serious over indulgence I have began notice more static over my open eye visual field but I suspect I was always there, I am simply now more aware of it. During the day after serious overuse I often have an odd physical sensation in the upper portion of the middle right side of my skull. It is a “brain buzz” sensation but feels very dirty and toxic to me. Overall I feel like I am severely damaging my brain by drinking this spirit but the jury is still out in the field of objective scientific testing as to just how bad that damage is. Interestingly I can report much more about absinthes negative side effects than its positive peak. Please by careful and do not believe many absinthe proponents claims of total safety.
Overall Impressions:
Anyone who tells you absinthe is placebo simply has not consumed the real deal. I can understand why it has a reputation of making people a little nuts. It seems to take whatever emotional state you are in and amplify it substantially with added confidence and idiocy. While this is a great thing when feeling good in a safe environment it can spell disaster in many other cases (as you can read more about below). Although alcohol in and of itself is an addictive drug I find the urge to consume absinthe much greater than other hard spirits despite its much harsher consequences. Below are several trip reports including the more extreme of memorable times I have had with this drink. That is not to say that they are the sum of all my experience, just some interesting and hopefully entertaining highlights.
Some accounts of my experiences:
1. The first dance:
There is an absinthe cafe located in Osaka Japan, not more than an hour from my residence at the time. I was very curious what real absinthe was about and had no prior experience (not even with imitation absinthe). I drank 2 glasses of Versinthe Le Blance brand absinthe totaling about 100 ml of spirits in about 30 minutes. My initial impressions were that it tasted great, and I felt a little bit jittery. I found myself tapping my foot almost uncontrollably to the best of the down tempo techno playing in the cafe. Thinking absinthe was mostly hype I left the cafe and began walking around Osaka with my 4.5 Oz flask of Tanqueray Ten which I proceeded to kill in the next 20 minutes. At T+ 50 minutes I began to feel quite uncoordinated. I continued to walk around for a bit and visited a large novelty shop. At about T+ 80 minutes I realized I was totally wasted off of only 250ml of hard liquor, both about 50 percent alcohol. This is quite unusual for me as I mentioned above my tolerance for alcohol is quite high. I continued to wander around in my intoxicated state until about T+ 140 minutes at which point the time scale gets a bit fuzzy. I know I got lost in an area of Osaka I knew fairly well before catching a train home. On the way back to my apartment after a 45 minute train ride I smoked a semi decent tobacco cigar and arrived home at probably T+ 230 minutes.
This first experience I did not experience all the subtleties of absinthe but rather felt intensely fucked up off of relatively little alcohol. On a side note when I retired to bed I had a very enjoyable body load similar to smoking a quality indica strain. Music also sounded better.
2. Absinthe at a rave:
I drank about 1/3 of a bottle of Versinthe Le Blance over the course of 40 minutes. The set and setting was an outdoor rave during Cherry blossom festival at Osaka Castle. I began dancing and was having a great time, feeling intensely fucked up as usual from a relatively small amount of absinthe. After a short time a kind fellow sent some green smoke in my direction which I had not experienced in the prior 2.5 months. This sent me into another world and could easily be one of my best combo experiences ever. I almost instantly locked into the music and had an incredible body buzz with insane amounts of mental euphoria. I felt as if I was pulling away from my body while I danced. I have experienced this combination with regular liquor countless times and it was never this intense or good. Throughout the night I continued to hit my flask which was filled with a few more ounces of Versinthe. I continued to dance until the sun rose at which point it was about 6 AM and quite cold. I headed home and experienced a hangover from hell the next day. Despite having one of the best nights of my life I felt fairly depressed and just mentally not all there. I think it was 7 PM before I really got out of bed and showered.
3. Absinthe and self destruction
The set and setting is a friends birthday party and a Japanese style bar. The night before I had drank a moderate amount of absinthe but nothing insane but I was pretty hungover until about 6 PM. Around 9 PM I had one glass of Versinthe Le Blanche and headed towards the bar drinking 150ml of 25% alcohol shochu (Japanese style vodka). Over the next 3 hours I proceeded to drink six glasses of Pernod Absinthe for a total amount of about 350 ml absinthe consumed throughout the night. I was intensely wasted but not experiencing a notable amount of euphoria. I chalk this up to set and setting because some attendants made me uncomfortable. After about 4 hours of acting like a drunken fool it was time to head home.
At this point things go down hill fast. A “friend” sells me out in a big way and I flip out. Being in Japan the ass beating option was out of the question so I proceeded to punch concrete walls, bushes, etc. on the walk back to my apartment. Upon arrival I am still quite angry so I head to the local park with a friend and a bottle of Tanqueray Ten. I quickly chug about ¼ of the bottle of warm gin on the way to the park. At this point my memory fails me but according to my friends account I fell down 2 flights of concrete stairs in the park and bashed my head off of stone slabs two other times. One of the times I fell, become unresponsive for about 1 minute then got up like nothing had happened. I assume I was knocked out. The next day I was still intoxicated until at least 5 PM. I mean this in the most serious sense, although I felt mentally less drunk the room was spinning intensely and not in a hangover way. I was still severely uncoordinated and had strange sensations on my skin. It felt ultra sensitive yet numb at the same time. I felt like complete shit for the next two days and mentally not there for several more thereafter. In the aftermath of the night I walked away with a broken cigarette case, dented steel flask, lost Zippo lighter and remainder of the Tanqueray bottle, a broken digital camera, a severely cut up hand from punching things, and likely a mild concussion from being knocked out. In my best estimate during that weekend I remained intoxicated for 60 out of 72 hours if black out time counts. Not a good sign…
To top it all off the absinthe high did not feel all that great while I was on it.
4. Furthering the cycle of retardation:
So at this point I had still not learned my lesson about what happens when you drink too much absinthe too fast. The set is a bar one train stop away from my apartment with a few friends. Tonight there was going to be a house DJ at the bar so I grabbed a 1/3 full bottle of Versinthe and headed out. Once on the train I proceeded to drink what was in the bottle in about 20 minutes. I was not feeling all that messed up about 25 minutes after finishing the absinthe so I started on whiskey and headed into the bar. I felt a lot more sociable than usual but once again the awesome euphoria that my earlier absinthe experiences held was strangely lacking this time around. I danced for a few hours and consumed one beer and about 200 ml of 40 percent alcohol whiskey. For one reason or another my friend an I left the bar and headed towards his host families home. The last thing I remembered was walking through the rain.
I wake around noon on the floor of a modern style Japanese home. My hand is covered in blood, pants are soaking wet, and my cellular phone is utterly destroyed while still inside of its belt pouch. A few minutes later I find out that I am on the floor of my friend’s room and I had taken a nasty fall while charging through the rain on the way home. After some more sleep I head home feeling like utter shit and quite sick to my stomach. On the walk back to my apartment I throw up several times, once included a noticeable amount of blood. I feel awful for the next two days and very sore from the fall. After the third day of recovery may head started to feel normal again (in a mental sense).
During the peak I was having a good time but lacked euphoria. I was however pleasantly wasted beyond what alcohol alone could deliver.
Personal Information
Sex: male
Weight: 110 ~ 120 lbs
This is not a single trip report but a retrospective of my experience with absinthe. For the past few months I have been living in Japan where high quality absinthe is easily available for a somewhat reasonable price. In total I have consumed about 3 bottles of absinthe, all of French origin (Pernod and mostly Versinthe Le Blanche). These are both real absinthes that contain thujone beyond the legal limits as defined by US law.
Dosage:
I started out drinking only 2 to 3 glasses of absinthe prepared with 5 parts water to 1 part liquor and adding sugar. By the end of my experience I was normally drinking 1/3 to ½ of a bottle. All of these dosages were consumed very quickly, most in 25 to 40 minutes.
With regular alcohol I am quite a heavy drinker. I usually go for the hard stuff and can kill close to a fifth by myself throughout a night of clubbing. I have had nights in the past 6 months when I have consumed far more than a fifth at “all you can drink” clubs but I am unsure of the exact amount. Let’s just say I can hold my spirits and know the difference between drunk and something more.
Subjective Effects:
Some occasions I felt incredible euphoria while under this drinks influence. There is definitely a highly aware element to the absinthe high. I felt drunk but remained very lucid in thought (or so I personally believed but my actions would suggest otherwise). While on absinthe I often believed I was not severely inebriated but became lost in familiar places and acted generally ridiculous. There is undoubtedly something more to its effects than simply drunkenness.
Subjective After Effects:
I normally do not suffer severe hangovers unless I drink insane amounts of liquor combined with wine and beer. When I drink absinthe I have day long hangovers from hell. There is a certain element of the hangover that seems delirious (not to be confused with psychedelic). Sleep patterns are severely disrupted and the sleep I do get is not restful. When I try to rest I notice strange morphing white blobs over my closed eye lids. Recently after some serious over indulgence I have began notice more static over my open eye visual field but I suspect I was always there, I am simply now more aware of it. During the day after serious overuse I often have an odd physical sensation in the upper portion of the middle right side of my skull. It is a “brain buzz” sensation but feels very dirty and toxic to me. Overall I feel like I am severely damaging my brain by drinking this spirit but the jury is still out in the field of objective scientific testing as to just how bad that damage is. Interestingly I can report much more about absinthes negative side effects than its positive peak. Please by careful and do not believe many absinthe proponents claims of total safety.
Overall Impressions:
Anyone who tells you absinthe is placebo simply has not consumed the real deal. I can understand why it has a reputation of making people a little nuts. It seems to take whatever emotional state you are in and amplify it substantially with added confidence and idiocy. While this is a great thing when feeling good in a safe environment it can spell disaster in many other cases (as you can read more about below). Although alcohol in and of itself is an addictive drug I find the urge to consume absinthe much greater than other hard spirits despite its much harsher consequences. Below are several trip reports including the more extreme of memorable times I have had with this drink. That is not to say that they are the sum of all my experience, just some interesting and hopefully entertaining highlights.
Some accounts of my experiences:
1. The first dance:
There is an absinthe cafe located in Osaka Japan, not more than an hour from my residence at the time. I was very curious what real absinthe was about and had no prior experience (not even with imitation absinthe). I drank 2 glasses of Versinthe Le Blance brand absinthe totaling about 100 ml of spirits in about 30 minutes. My initial impressions were that it tasted great, and I felt a little bit jittery. I found myself tapping my foot almost uncontrollably to the best of the down tempo techno playing in the cafe. Thinking absinthe was mostly hype I left the cafe and began walking around Osaka with my 4.5 Oz flask of Tanqueray Ten which I proceeded to kill in the next 20 minutes. At T+ 50 minutes I began to feel quite uncoordinated. I continued to walk around for a bit and visited a large novelty shop. At about T+ 80 minutes I realized I was totally wasted off of only 250ml of hard liquor, both about 50 percent alcohol. This is quite unusual for me as I mentioned above my tolerance for alcohol is quite high. I continued to wander around in my intoxicated state until about T+ 140 minutes at which point the time scale gets a bit fuzzy. I know I got lost in an area of Osaka I knew fairly well before catching a train home. On the way back to my apartment after a 45 minute train ride I smoked a semi decent tobacco cigar and arrived home at probably T+ 230 minutes.
This first experience I did not experience all the subtleties of absinthe but rather felt intensely fucked up off of relatively little alcohol. On a side note when I retired to bed I had a very enjoyable body load similar to smoking a quality indica strain. Music also sounded better.
2. Absinthe at a rave:
I drank about 1/3 of a bottle of Versinthe Le Blance over the course of 40 minutes. The set and setting was an outdoor rave during Cherry blossom festival at Osaka Castle. I began dancing and was having a great time, feeling intensely fucked up as usual from a relatively small amount of absinthe. After a short time a kind fellow sent some green smoke in my direction which I had not experienced in the prior 2.5 months. This sent me into another world and could easily be one of my best combo experiences ever. I almost instantly locked into the music and had an incredible body buzz with insane amounts of mental euphoria. I felt as if I was pulling away from my body while I danced. I have experienced this combination with regular liquor countless times and it was never this intense or good. Throughout the night I continued to hit my flask which was filled with a few more ounces of Versinthe. I continued to dance until the sun rose at which point it was about 6 AM and quite cold. I headed home and experienced a hangover from hell the next day. Despite having one of the best nights of my life I felt fairly depressed and just mentally not all there. I think it was 7 PM before I really got out of bed and showered.
3. Absinthe and self destruction
The set and setting is a friends birthday party and a Japanese style bar. The night before I had drank a moderate amount of absinthe but nothing insane but I was pretty hungover until about 6 PM. Around 9 PM I had one glass of Versinthe Le Blanche and headed towards the bar drinking 150ml of 25% alcohol shochu (Japanese style vodka). Over the next 3 hours I proceeded to drink six glasses of Pernod Absinthe for a total amount of about 350 ml absinthe consumed throughout the night. I was intensely wasted but not experiencing a notable amount of euphoria. I chalk this up to set and setting because some attendants made me uncomfortable. After about 4 hours of acting like a drunken fool it was time to head home.
At this point things go down hill fast. A “friend” sells me out in a big way and I flip out. Being in Japan the ass beating option was out of the question so I proceeded to punch concrete walls, bushes, etc. on the walk back to my apartment. Upon arrival I am still quite angry so I head to the local park with a friend and a bottle of Tanqueray Ten. I quickly chug about ¼ of the bottle of warm gin on the way to the park. At this point my memory fails me but according to my friends account I fell down 2 flights of concrete stairs in the park and bashed my head off of stone slabs two other times. One of the times I fell, become unresponsive for about 1 minute then got up like nothing had happened. I assume I was knocked out. The next day I was still intoxicated until at least 5 PM. I mean this in the most serious sense, although I felt mentally less drunk the room was spinning intensely and not in a hangover way. I was still severely uncoordinated and had strange sensations on my skin. It felt ultra sensitive yet numb at the same time. I felt like complete shit for the next two days and mentally not there for several more thereafter. In the aftermath of the night I walked away with a broken cigarette case, dented steel flask, lost Zippo lighter and remainder of the Tanqueray bottle, a broken digital camera, a severely cut up hand from punching things, and likely a mild concussion from being knocked out. In my best estimate during that weekend I remained intoxicated for 60 out of 72 hours if black out time counts. Not a good sign…
To top it all off the absinthe high did not feel all that great while I was on it.
4. Furthering the cycle of retardation:
So at this point I had still not learned my lesson about what happens when you drink too much absinthe too fast. The set is a bar one train stop away from my apartment with a few friends. Tonight there was going to be a house DJ at the bar so I grabbed a 1/3 full bottle of Versinthe and headed out. Once on the train I proceeded to drink what was in the bottle in about 20 minutes. I was not feeling all that messed up about 25 minutes after finishing the absinthe so I started on whiskey and headed into the bar. I felt a lot more sociable than usual but once again the awesome euphoria that my earlier absinthe experiences held was strangely lacking this time around. I danced for a few hours and consumed one beer and about 200 ml of 40 percent alcohol whiskey. For one reason or another my friend an I left the bar and headed towards his host families home. The last thing I remembered was walking through the rain.
I wake around noon on the floor of a modern style Japanese home. My hand is covered in blood, pants are soaking wet, and my cellular phone is utterly destroyed while still inside of its belt pouch. A few minutes later I find out that I am on the floor of my friend’s room and I had taken a nasty fall while charging through the rain on the way home. After some more sleep I head home feeling like utter shit and quite sick to my stomach. On the walk back to my apartment I throw up several times, once included a noticeable amount of blood. I feel awful for the next two days and very sore from the fall. After the third day of recovery may head started to feel normal again (in a mental sense).
During the peak I was having a good time but lacked euphoria. I was however pleasantly wasted beyond what alcohol alone could deliver.
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