I don't really like getting fully wasted on kava, or anything else, but due to the very variable strengths of kava served in Vanuatu I have found myself taken by surprise and completely mashed more times than I remember. Mostly it is not really unpleasant, as you recognise what is happening and know that you need to aim for a bed, but sometimes I have been helpless and overpowered.
One time on Aniwa, my favourite island in Vanuatu due to it rarely being visited, combined with them having the John Frum cult, and pristine reefs, we ran out of kava. They didn't grow it then on the island due to root theft, and it was all shipped from nearby Tanna. A cyclone had stopped the shipping so every day at 5pm the 150 or so male inhabitants looked 25km across to Tanna and said " they will be drinking now...be yumi nogat"
When the weather settled I arranged with a friend in Vila to have 50kg of fresh roots delivered airfreight - there were 2 flights a week. It all got shared out amongst the various clans and that night the Nakamal was full. I had maybe 3 large shells of chewed kava and was very effected, but nothing I hadn't felt before. After the fires had died down we walked very slowly to the kitchen hut to eat rice and the octopus someone had speared that afternoon, but after eating maybe half the plate the kava accelarated so fast that I couldn't even hold the plate or sit up. Many people had told me that food after strong kava knocks you out but this was the first time I had felt it ( about '96). I couldn't even get up to go to my bed 10m away, and slept in the kitchen hut getting drained by mossies.
It wasn't a sick feeling, just a helpless paralysis.
