DOSE:	32 drops	oral	Wormwood	(extract)
	1 oz	oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine

BODY WEIGHT:

155 lb

Wormwood Hangover

In an upbeat mood of experimentation I purchased 1 oz. Of Artemisia absinthium extract at a local health food store for the purpose of investigating its psychogenic effects. ( Extract of leaf and flower, 67-77% grain alcohol, dry herb / menstruum ratio 1 : 5 )

On Feb. 8th at 3:30 pm, in my kitchen at home, I took 2 droppers ( ~16 drops ) of wormwood extract on an empty stomach. Intending sub-lingual absorption, the vile taste ( extremely bitter but also perfumy) led to swallowing almost right away. Took 2 further droppers full in a shot glass of red wine about 2 minutes later. Taste still bad but the wine helped. Total amount : 4 droppers full of the wormwood extract in ~ 1 oz. Of wine. There are no other drugs, medicines or herbs involved, I was taking nothing else at the time.

Effects onset within 5 minutes: felt “ something happening” followed by lightheadedness, then slower physical reactions. Aural sense of cars driving faster down the street in front of the house.

15 minutes after ingestion, the visual field was lagging each eye or head movement by a fraction of a second, so that the act of looking around slightly smeared the visual field. This was accompanied by a mild euphoric feeling.

Stayed in house and watched some Korean drama on the internet. Then read a book while lying down. The “high” lasted about 2 hours. Rode the bicycle to a local bakery for bread at 2 ¾ hours with no problem.

Now comes the odd part. For the next several days, I noticed two annoying and unpleasant possible side effects, both memory related, for which I have not found other explanations.

1) A sudden difficulty in recalling names and other proper nouns. Example: getting to the place in a sentence where someone’s name should go and then stopping abruptly, finding no such recall available. Repeatedly.

2) A sudden impairment of memory of bodily actions. Example: losing track of where I just put something down, such as a mug of tea, or a bag I was carrying. Repeatedly. Such everyday absentmindedness is not characteristic of the life I lead and with effort I have brought more focus back into the moment. The memory lapses are decreasing. It has been 5 days.

I have been reading about Artemisia absinthium and many other psychoactives with interest. This was my first reportable experience. Given the “cost” of the experience in memory availability and mindfulness, I will not be taking any more Artemisia absinthium, and am reconsidering further experiments with psychoactives .

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 102583
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 50
Published: Dec 8, 2017	Views: 5,954
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Wormwood (50) : Hangover / Days After (46), First Times (2), Alone (16)