Sun, 8 Jun - Absinthe Forum: first absinthe experience

For what it's worth, here is my first, and hopefully last, experience with Absinthe. It was served me without my knowledge, and I also think that the host of the party had little idea of what effects it could have. I was with 2 friends who were staying in a condo and we were there to attend a party later in the day. The day proceeded as follows:
3 pm – went to a brewpub with 2 friends and had a pint of 6.5% locally brewed ale.
4 pm - had a 10oz glass of 4.5% locally brewed ale.
4:30 pm – went to party in big house on a lake with pool and about 20 guests.
5 pm – sipped on a 6 oz glass of wine
6 pm – was served a drink called a “Duck Fat Sazerac” which was advertised as a whiskey drink popular in New Orleans and in the south. Tasted OK, not real fond of it, could taste fat and other weird flavors. At least half of the people there were served a Sazerac.
6:30pm – 7:30pm - went back to sipping ½ glass of wine and ate a plate of spaghetti.
7:30pm - It was light out, warm day, talking to a guest on the balcony overlooking the pool and lake, that's my last memory for about 2 hours. I've tried to recreate the events during this blackout period by talking to some of the people who were there.
8pm - ~9:30 pm – have no recollection of anything except that they say I was acting normal and talking to old friends.
9:30pm – about this time I apparently decided to swim in the pool and dip in the lake and maybe hot tub. Went out the front door, through parking lot to car, got bathing suit, towel, came back, walked down 2 flights of stairs to the pool. It was now dark out so I changed into my bathing suit at the edge of the pool. This was noticed by the hostess and since it was dark she got 2 people to try and stop the swim. My first memory since blacking out, very foggy memory, was being in the pool. After that I got out of the pool and tried to open the gate to the beach, except it was dark and rocky and they were holding the gate shut. Apparently I protested but they would not let me go past the gate. I was herded up the stairs to the balcony and sat for a while, talking. It was chilly and I wanted, apparently, to change back to clothes so got up and crashed into a screen door going into the house. At this point I was thought to be totally drunk. I recollect trying to walk through the screen door and not much else. Apparently, I was mad about not swimming and said I was going to drive back to town, 3 hours away. All I recollect was standing on a bare floor in swim suit with a lot of people around. The people left and I changed out of swimsuit in the middle of the living room with no one around, except there were people on the deck who saw it.
10pm – The hostess insists that I leave immediately with the 2 friends I came in with. According to those there I was not stumbling or slurring words but was acting really weird. We left and I crashed in a sleeping bag in the condo.
Next morning – came back to the house to get my car and apologized for making a scene and being so drunk. I could not figure out how I could have been drunk because I didn't drink much and had little to no hangover, but they convinced me that I was totally smashed and had experienced an alchoholic blackout.
Few days later – I still couldn't figure out the whole thing and decided to research the “duck fat sazerac” and found out it had Absinthe in it. Looked up Absinthe and realized I had experienced at least 2 of the effects of absinthe. The first effect was blackout, I was blacked out for nearly 2 hours with no memory at all except a fuzzy memory of being in the pool and then crashing into a screen door and then standing on a bare floor with a lot of people around. I sort of came to when I was being driven back to the condo with my 2 friends.
The second effect was single-mindedness, that is, the ability to clear ones mind and concentrate on one particular thing. I was concentrating on going swimming, regardless of anything else.

'Meeting the Green Fairy' is a metaphor sometimes used to describe the curious effects of the green liquor.

About the effects of absinthe

When it comes to the effects of drinking absinthe, people's opinions -- and experiences -- vary wildly. Some go as far as to claim the drink is psychoactive, while others say there is no "secondary" (that is, other than alcohol-induced) effect at all.

As early as 1993, Matthew Baggott posted his Absinthe FAQ in the Usenet newsgroup "alt.drugs" (there wasn't much of the web as we know it back then). As you will suspect from the newsgroup's name, the issue of absinthe's "psychoactive qualities" was one of the interests of the document.

Some people take it further still. We definitely do not recommend any experiments with Paxil and absinthe (nor, for that matter, mixing any medicine with alcohol). Anyway, it's quite clear which way the wind blows here, since Jasmine Sailing's bizarre piece more or less concludes absinthe is a narcotic. Is it really? Yup, it does read like the girl was out of her mind when she wrote the page -- and no, we don't think the Fairy was to blame!

A far more sober look at the effects of the Green Fairy can be found in "The Return of the Green Faerie", an article written by Frank Kelly Rich of the Modern Drunkard magazine (no pun intended). Recommended reading.