So there I was...
I don't smoke. Never liked it, had a minor nicotine addiction as a child thanks to my dad's habit (after he quit, I found myself standing downwind of smokers, enjoying the scent). Moderate asthma gave me an insight into what it might be like to have awful lung ailments.

However.

It was December, 1992, school was finished for good, and along with a group of friends we rented a holiday house close to the beach for about a week. Being in the southern hemisphere, this meant it was warm and sunny, of course.

Much drinking was done by all, and on the second night or so I was sitting happily in the crappy 70's style kitchen, admiring the slices of awful orange processed cheese that we had managed to stick to the ceiling. The funky meat cleaver we had found in the drawer was half buried in the kitchen table. I had earlier blown a hole in the flywire door (yes, metal mesh DOES burn when you blast it with a fly spray flamethrower).

Amazingly, we got our security deposit back at the end of the stay, thanks to a day of plastering, mesh replacement and wood putty.

But I digress.

As I said, I have never smoked, and never really liked it, but I was happily drunk and in a more accepting frame of mind. `Why not just try it?' I wondered, and accepted a smoke from my friend.

I sucked that smoke down like it was some sort of competition. I felt pretty good! Kind of weird, too, a bit light headed! Look at me, the big smokin' man! I wasn't completely gone, but certainly too far gone to refuse the second fucking cigarette my fucking friend offered me. Fucker.

By the time I was done with it, I was DONE. I sat in the chair for about a thousand years, reeling. Everyone else finally headed to bed.

`Are you okay?'
`Mm.'
`Did you smoke both of those?'
`Mm'.
`I'm off to bed'
`Mm'

I stared at the ground for another thousand years. My head felt horribly light, my skin felt clammy. I felt almost entirely disconnected from my senses, but somewhere in my head an alarm was going off.

I knew with crystal clarity that if I stood up, I was going to puke. With this knowledge, I did the only thing I could - I stayed in the chair and puuuuuuuked.

So long alcohol, farewell hamburger, adieu, greasy chips. All fell from my gaping maw like a tsunami of bad food and butyric acid.

Within seconds I felt fine. Not just fine, but GREAT! I was awake, I was sober, the awful feelings coursing through me mere moments ago were now slopped across the floor, externalised.

I found the most ridiculously shitty mop I've ever seen, and pushed the pile of goo around the floor until it was all gone. Being my own puke, it didn't worry me at all.

I woke up early the next morning, sober and hungry. Was it a positive experience? Well, it was an educational experience, and that's really all that matters in this case I guess.

Now, I have had alcohol more than once, and it doesn't make me sick. I've smoked tobacco again since, it was mixed with some other smokeables, and I ended up dry retching for 20 minutes.

Tobacco = my stomach's worst enemy.
(Tomble Underground, overground, Tombling free., Thu 27 Mar 2008, 6:49, Reply)