Nowadays, there are a lot of reasons to drink. However, not many people know that even a minimal dose of alcohol that does not cause intoxication is still considered hazardous to health. Surely most people know that after drinking alcohol, memory disappears, that is, a person begins to forget certain moments of life. Why does amnesia occur after drinking alcohol, how does alcohol affect a person's condition and why in the morning you do not remember anything after drinking? These questions are of concern to many people who are faced with this unpleasant problem.
Important: alcohol and human memory are seriously linked. This is due to the effect of ethyl alcohol on the brain cells. Based on this, one can accurately answer the question - why memory loss occurs and amnesia occurs after drinking alcohol, as well as what to do when drunk in such a situation. Indeed, in this case, the treatment of failures will be inhumane, since they arose as a result of alcohol intake, and not as a result of brain dysfunctions.
Memory lapses, or in other words, amnesia, often occur after a stormy and long feast. After it, many people cannot remember what happened yesterday - in this case, this does not happen when drunk, or rather, not because of the symptoms of a hangover. Therefore, it is worthwhile to figure out why memory loss occurs, and is it necessary to carry out treatment in this case?
In fact, the answer to this question is not entirely simple. Memory blackouts after drunkenness are caused by ethanol, which is found in many alcoholic beverages. This component is quickly absorbed into the walls of the stomach, thereby penetrating into the bloodstream. As a result, after a moment, ethanol is in the human brain and begins to negatively affect cells and nerve endings, which leads to their destruction. This destruction is memory loss. It is important to note that lapses and memory loss with amnesia also occur from drinking a minimum dose of alcohol. Therefore, doctors say that amnesia is considered a wake-up call on the road to alcoholism.
Alcoholism is a serious disease, the elimination and treatment of which is long and very difficult.
Therefore, it is better to prevent its development, since the consequences may not be the most favorable:
- Development of dangerous diseases.
- Brain dysfunctions.
- Deterioration of the work of internal organs.
- General weakness of the body.
- Memory loss.
- Constant headaches.
It is important - memory lapses or amnesia may differ from person to person. For example, inveterate alcoholics temporarily lose their memory as a result of taking a large dose of alcohol. When you fall asleep, memory is restored until the next drink. However, in this case, the human brain suffers much more, therefore, such patients are advised to stop drinking alcohol.
Why drinking alcoholic beverages has such an effect on the human brain cannot be explained by scientists who are actively studying the effect of ethanol on the human body. Most of them say that the mechanism of action of this substance is versatile, therefore, along with memory lapses, other systems and organs of a person can also be affected.
For starters, it is worth noting that not every drinking of alcoholic beverages leads to amnesia.
For memory gaps to occur, you need to combine the effect of these factors on the body:
- A large amount of alcohol consumed, since small portions do not affect the brain enough - therefore, amnesia does not occur. The only exception in this case is the intolerance of the body to the components of the alcoholic beverage. Also, the dose of alcohol is influenced by factors such as a person's weight, gender, age, the presence of diseases, heredity, as well as the frequency of drinking alcoholic beverages. For example, a woman in her 20s and 30s will need much less alcohol to induce amnesia than a man. And an inveterate alcoholic, when taking a large dose, can lose memory for a while, while he is unlikely to remember a forgotten segment.
- The greater the strength of alcoholic beverages, the faster memory lapses after consuming alcoholic beverages will make themselves felt.
- If a person takes alcohol on an empty (empty) stomach, the alcohol will be absorbed into the blood somewhat faster. In addition, in this case, the body will need half the standard for amnesia to manifest itself in the morning. Important: with an empty stomach, the effect of alcohol components is considered the most destructive and dangerous.
- The intake of narcotic and medical drugs, as well as smoking, are considered to be many times enhancing factors in the development of amnesia.
Why do memory lapses occur after drinking alcohol? We have found out the answer to this question. But do not forget that alcoholic products have their own effect on each organism, therefore, amnesia when drinking a small dose of alcohol may occur, or may be bypassed. However, you should not experience memory lapses on your own body, since the consequences of this can be dire, because treatment of the brain with drugs is not always effective.
Alcoholic drinks are capable of acting only on short-term human memory. More specifically, amnesia in most cases does not last long - most often half an hour. However, such memory does not have the function of recovering, therefore, in the morning, a person cannot remember what he did while drinking alcohol.
Previously, scientists believed that memory lapses arise from the death of neurons as a result of their destruction by ethanol. Recently, however, researchers have concluded that memory lapses are active due to steroids, which prevent nerve cells from creating strong connections. The same effect can be expected from drugs that can stimulate brain cells, so before taking any drug, it is worth considering its compatibility with alcohol products.
Important: failures and memory loss during intoxication also occur under the influence of psychological factors. In other words, with certain feelings of a person, the body independently causes amnesia, preventing a person from remembering a certain segment of life.
These factors include:
- Feeling of fear.
- Deception.
- Anxiety.
- Betrayal.
- Guilt.
- Shame.
In this case, treatment is carried out using the methods of hypnosis or special individual psychotherapy, which allows you to restore fragments of memory.
Amnesia or partial memory lapses begin with the erasure of certain fragments. This violation is manifested by the fact that the patient for some time is unable to remember what he did in the evening or at another period of time. If alcoholism is not cured at this stage, memory loss will increase after each dose of alcohol, that is, the patient may forget what he was doing a few hours ago.
It is important to note that over time, the brain will no longer remember information while drinking, which can be considered the development of amnesia. In this case, the treatment of memory lapses after taking alcohol will be carried out only after the treatment of alcoholism and addiction.
Smirnova Olga Leonidovna
Neuropathologist, education: I.M. Sechenov. Work experience 20 years.
Articles written
Memory lapses after alcohol are common. Scientists all over the world are studying the effect of alcohol on the brain. It is difficult to determine the exact causes of memory impairment, since under the influence of ethyl alcohol, the work of not only the brain, but also other organs worsens.
Why is the problem
Not after every drink a person experiences memory problems. For such a problem to occur, several factors must be combined. Whether the memories of the events that happened will disappear depends on:
- How much ethyl alcohol has entered the body. The dosage of alcohol that causes intoxication is individual for each person. It depends on body weight, age, general condition of the body. In order for memory to disappear after alcohol, an elderly person needs a much smaller amount of a drink containing alcohol than for middle-aged men with a normal state of health. Sometimes it is not even possible to recover lost information.
- Ethanol intolerance.
- Strength of alcoholic beverages. High alcohol alcohol quickly leads to symptoms of amnesia.
- Whether a person has eaten food before or not. High-grade drinks that a person takes before meals are absorbed faster into the circulatory system. Therefore, intoxication sets in quickly. Ethanol destroys the body more strongly if a person has not eaten anything before taking it.
- What was taken in combination with alcohol. If a person drank drugs, took drugs and at the same time drank alcohol, then the likelihood of amnesia is much higher.
It is important to remember that everyone reacts differently to certain drinks. Two people can drink the same amount of alcohol, but one will not remember anything the next day, and the other will not experience such a problem. Similar problems can be troubling regardless of age.
Views
Memory loss after alcohol is common. Almost every person has experienced this for himself at least once in his life. If alcohol is consumed regularly and in large quantities, then this is not even paid attention to. But rarely drinking people manifestations of amnesia are very surprising. Doctors say that with the constant intake of alcohol into the body, one should not hope that the memory will be normal. Therefore, those who suffer from alcoholism must undergo treatment.
Alcoholic amnesia can take the form of:
- Palimpsest. It is difficult for a person to compare the events that happened last night if he constantly drinks alcohol. There is a loss of memory of individual fragments, but the alcoholic remembers very well what happens after taking drinks.
- Narcotic amnesia. You don't need to be addicted to alcohol to develop this problem. She is not alien to healthy people. Under the influence of a certain portion of alcohol, a person gets drunk. After the onset of sobering up, the memories of the last evening are erased.
- Total. It is detected in the presence of the third stage of addiction. A person does not remember anything from what happened while drinking alcohol. In this situation, it is important to treat immediately.
Excessive alcohol intake significantly impairs the state of memory. If a person cannot remember anything after a feast, then this indicates the beginning of the development of addiction. At first, failures occur if a person drinks a lot, but gradually the condition will worsen, and even small doses of alcohol will contribute to the development of amnesia.
Dangerous consequences
Previously, it was widely believed among scientists that under the influence of ethanol death of brain cells occurs. It was believed that this is the reason why alcoholics have a narrowing cognitive field, dementia develops, hands tremble, signs of aging appear ahead of time.
But recently it was experimentally proved that alcohol poisoning of cells does not cause their death. According to animal studies, the area of the hippocampus suffers most from toxic effects. It is in this part of the brain, located in the temporal lobes, that current information is stored and memories are formed.
Information fragments are overwritten in the hippocampus, memories cease to be short-lived and remain for a long time.
When ethanol enters the nerve cells in this area, their functioning is blocked, but they do not die off. Because of this, electrical impulses are incorrectly transmitted along the synapse circuits. This leads to a violation of the process of encoding and redistribution of information.
But not all neurons are blocked. A certain part of them, under the influence of alcohol, begins to intensively produce steroids, which do not allow recording information objects. When the cells begin to reproduce steroids, memories stop forming.
Therefore, the fact that memory disappears after alcohol is explained by the fact that large doses of alcoholic beverages help turn off the recording of memories for a certain time. This pause can last for several minutes or hours. Usually, it is impossible to repair the failure.
It is important to prevent the development of such phenomena, as they can cause adverse consequences. As a result of drinking alcoholic beverages:
- dangerous pathologies develop;
- the functioning of the brain is disrupted;
- the work of vital organs worsens;
- weakness is felt;
- headache constantly;
- memory is disturbed.
The development of such failures occurs differently for each person. If a person drinks alcohol for a long time, then large portions of alcohol are needed to impair memory. When he sober up, a certain amount of memories are restored before the next feast. But this significantly worsens the state of the brain, so it is important to permanently refuse to take alcoholic beverages.
The reasons for such adverse reactions after taking alcohol are not known for sure. Scientists have not yet succeeded in studying the mechanisms of action of ethanol. Many stop at the idea that the substance has a negative effect on many organs and systems.
Treatment and prevention options
If memory disappears during alcohol intoxication, then treatment should be carried out. After the intoxication has subsided, the person wants to know what happened. But narcologists say that there are no ways to completely return the lost memories.
In order not to have to think about how to restore memory after drinking, one should take into account the influence of certain factors that reduce the likelihood of such failures:
- Drink alcohol only after meals.
- It is necessary to give preference to one type of drink per evening, since mixing them will lead to the development of negative reactions.
- After consuming large portions of ethyl alcohol, you need to take activated charcoal in a dosage of 1 tablet per 10 kilograms of weight.
Scientists have found out that drinking alcohol negatively affects short-term memory. It is she who is responsible for memorizing the events that occur during the hour.
To restore the functioning of the brain, doctors recommend using drugs that strengthen blood vessels and normalize blood pressure. Relief can be achieved with vitamins and. They contribute to the normalization of metabolic processes in the tissues of the brain, and improve the condition of the brain.
For preventive purposes, the following recommendations should be adhered to:
- you should give up alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, do not take sleeping pills and antidepressants;
- include foods that are good for the brain such as fish and nuts in the diet;
- lead an active lifestyle and regularly walk in the fresh air;
- provide yourself with moderate physical activity.
Thanks to complex treatment, even after prolonged use of alcoholic beverages, memory improvement can be achieved. Also, do not continue to take alcohol and follow all the doctor's recommendations. You should not count on the restoration of forgotten events, but it is possible to improve the memorization process.
Why, when alcoholic intoxication, memory disappears, no specialist will be able to say for sure. But to avoid worsening the situation, you need to avoid alcohol.
Memory- one of the most important properties of the human psyche. Without memory, human life itself becomes impossible.
All possible types "beat" from memory intoxication of the body... Any chronic poisoning destroys human memory. Also, any degenerative diseases deform it, and these are pathologies that destroy the body as a whole. Every adequate person understands that memory loss is a serious illness that interferes with normal life.
Alcoholism practically always accompanied by a deformation of the normal functioning of memory. The fact is that alcoholism is a chronic poisoning that leads to brain damage. Memory simply cannot help but suffer from excessive alcohol consumption.
Types of alcoholic amnesia
Experts distinguish 2 types of alcoholic amnesia: lacunar and total.
Lacunar form also breaks down into anterograde and retrograde. The lacunar type of alcoholic amnesia is characterized by the preservation in memory of all events as a whole, but at the same time the person does not remember individual episodes.
- As a result anterograde memories of separate time periods suffer. The drunk person is unable to remember what happened during the feast. However, he remembers the events before that clearly. Very often a person conjectures the course of a particular situation. Anterograde type of alcoholic amnesia is characterized by excessive irritability and fatigue.
- Retrograde form removes from the person's memory events that occurred before the use of alcohol. It is usually impossible to remember what happened 1-2 hours before the feast. Memories of events that happened before were not affected.
At total amnesia a person forgets a lot of information. In some cases, the patient is unable to even give his name, as well as the address, does not recognize the closest people. Of course, this form of alcoholic amnesia lends itself to therapy exclusively in specialized medical institutions.
Causes of alcoholic amnesia
Memory loss after alcohol is a natural phenomenon. The decay products of ethanol enter the brain, thereby causing the degradation of neural connections. The latter are just responsible for the transmission of impulses and the storage of all information entering the brain. The areas of long-term memory that are responsible for memories are especially affected.
Thus, as a result of these processes, many events are simply erased, and the situation that occurs at this time is not imprinted in memory. By the way, it is also not possible to restore them.
There are a number of reasons, thanks to which a person, using alcoholic beverages, can get alcoholic amnesia:
- Drinking an unacceptably high dose of alcohol. The amount of alcohol that the body is able to tolerate normally is always calculated individually. It depends on gender, age, body shape, alcohol sensitivity, etc.
- Strength of alcoholic beverages: the higher the degree of alcohol, the more the chances of memory loss increase.
- Combining alcoholic beverages of various strengths.
- Drinking alcohol on an empty stomach. If you drink alcohol while hungry, then drunkenness will come faster, and possible memory lapses are more likely.
- Drugs, nicotine, medications in combination with alcohol can affect memory.
Manifestations of alcoholic amnesia
How does memory impairment begin to manifest? In the early stages of the development of the disease, alcoholic amnesia can manifest itself in the form of so-called alcoholic palimpsests. Palimpsests- This is a loss of memory, characteristic of people who drink alcohol. Usually this process occurs at night, because, as a rule, it is at this time of day that the peak of alcohol poisoning falls.
The emergence of alcoholic palimpsests- This is a sign of alcohol abuse, preceding the emergence of amnestic forms of alcohol degradation. In other words, palimpsests are one of the first signals that a person suffers from alcoholism.
A person living next to an addict is able to notice that the patient has alcoholic amnesia. Of course, the alcoholic himself will not tell this. This is due to the fact that every normal person hides the loss of memory, because it is embarrassing and unpleasant. In addition, such a person is often made fun of, which is also a negative phenomenon for the patient.
Notice alcoholic palimpsests with a person it is possible for him to forget some meaningful information. For example, in a state of intoxication, an addict was looking for something, tried to do something, put certain things somewhere, etc.
However, in a state of sobriety that has ensued, a person, as a rule, does not remember this, begins to accuse loved ones of shifting his things, for example. However, non-drinking relatives explain to the alcoholic that he did it himself, and the person does not believe. The occurrence of such situations is one of the main symptoms of alcoholic amnesia.
Please note that this disease is diagnosed by the loss of events and phenomena that are significant for a person. It is worth distinguishing them from the alcoholic's justification of his drunken behavior.
As you know, a drunk person is capable of committing the most impartial acts: to fight with someone, offend a loved one, in a word, to commit acts that in a normal state he would not allow himself. Of course, after the onset of sobriety, a person becomes ashamed.
In order to somehow justify himself, he can say to his family: "I was drunk yesterday and I don't remember anything." Some people may take these words as a sign of alcoholic amnesia, but this opinion is erroneous. Thus, his stories that he does not remember committing morally condemned acts is not a symptom of this disease.
Memory recovery
As already mentioned, memory loss after alcohol can significantly interfere with normal life. Of course, any person, being in a state of memory loss, wants to restore the forgotten and remember all the events that happened to him. In this regard, people ask the question: "How can you remember after drinking what happened while drinking alcohol?"
Unfortunately, medical science is not yet able to offer a single effective remedy or pill that can quickly restore memory. A person can only avoid the recurrence of alcoholic amnesia.
There is only one doctor's advice - to drink wisely. Below are more detailed medical advice on avoiding alcoholic palimpsests:
- Drink alcohol in moderation.
- Take activated charcoal after drinking alcohol. The dose is calculated at the rate of 1 tablet per 10 kilograms of weight.
- Drink as much liquid as possible along with alcohol during the meal.
- If you do not want memory lapses, do not consume strong alcoholic drinks. The higher the degree, the more likely amnesia will occur.
- Be sure to eat before drinking alcohol. Also, do not forget to eat while drinking alcohol.
- One type of alcohol should be consumed in one sitting. Mixing drinks will lead to increased intoxication and, as a result, memory loss.
- During the feast, do not sit still. You need to move more, walk, dance to avoid alcoholic amnesia.
The general condition of the body also affects whether you have to recall memories or nothing will happen to your memory as a result of drinking.
Healthy sleep, proper nutrition, adequate rest and minimizing stress not only strengthen the body as a whole. Compliance with the norms of a healthy lifestyle will help you enjoy a feast or get-together with friends without fear of getting alcoholic amnesia.
Clinical treatment
Occasionally, cases of alcoholic amnesia require outpatient treatment. This is necessary in order to prevent the development of this syndrome and its transition to a more severe form. In addition, when drinking alcohol, the brain suffers significantly.
Scientists have found that 100 grams of strong alcohol can destroy up to 8000 cells of this organ.
Thus, the patient may require procedures to restore optimal functioning of memory and the entire nervous system as a whole. For this, there are special preparations, such as vitamins of group B. They can be prescribed in the form of injections or in the form of tablets.
Treatment can last up to several months: the duration of the course of therapy depends on the severity of the damage to the nervous system. Also, the patient is shown drugs designed to improve blood circulation in the brain. These include, for example, nootropics and neuroprotective agents.
The patient also needs a special diet, which consists in introducing a large amount of foods containing B vitamins into the diet. Of course, therapy involves a complete rejection of alcoholic beverages.
If cases of alcoholic amnesia recur on a regular basis, this is a reason to see a doctor.
The fact is that this pathology can eventually become a psychological disease, which is quite difficult to treat. In order not to bring the situation to this, it is necessary not to exceed the permissible dose of alcohol and, in general, adhere to the recommendations of doctors. Only under this condition, after drinking, you will not have to remember what happened, because the memories will not disappear from your head.
The tradition of drinking alcoholic beverages is very ancient, and people in all ages have consumed alcohol because of its effect: relaxing, uplifting. This effect is due to the fact that ethanol has a direct effect on the neurons of the human body, the bulk of which are located in the brain.
Alcohol abuse threatens alcoholism, alcohol dependence, which affects all spheres of human life. One of the signs indicating the onset of this disease is memory loss after alcohol. Let's consider why memory is lost in some cases, and how you can avoid it.
Why memory lapses can occur after drinking
Alcoholism develops imperceptibly, and already at the first stage, when a person does not even suspect that he is becoming addicted, sometimes memory lapses may occur after alcohol. This does not happen with everyone and not always. There are several factors that can trigger alcoholic amnesia.
First of all, the amount of booze matters. Drinking large doses of alcohol, especially hard liquor, can lead to such consequences as the loss of some of the memories.
Everything is very individual: for someone it is enough to just drink a little, and for someone, even after prolonged drinking, memory problems are not observed. The general state of health, age, current diseases, and individual characteristics of the organism matter.
In addition, the occurrence of memory lapses can be influenced by reasons such as drinking alcohol on an empty stomach, mixing drinks of different strength and structure, as well as drinking alcohol with various chemical compounds, for example, drugs.
Neurophysiology: how alcohol affects the brain
Alcohol and memory are directly related, as long-term alcohol abuse leads to a decrease in the cognitive functions of the brain, and the ability to remember information is one of these functions. Memory, intelligence, thinking, perception deteriorate due to the fact that ethanol has a detrimental effect on neurons. Their normal functioning is disrupted, and many simply die.
However, in the process of recent research, scientists have found that it is not only the death of brain neurons. The area of the brain called the hippocampus is most strongly affected by ethyl alcohol.
At the moment, neurophysiologists believe that it is this part of the brain that is responsible for storing information, as well as for translating it from the format of working memory into a long-term format, that is, the formation of memories.
When ethanol molecules hit neurons, causing them to die, the conduction of nerve fibers is disrupted. If this happens to the cells of the hippocampus, then the process of memorizing and distributing information is disrupted. That is, ethanol affects precisely short-term memory, preventing it from passing into the category of memories, erasing it.
In addition, ethanol triggers the production of certain hormones that affect the brain in such a way that the memory process is disrupted. What memories a person will retain about a stormy evening with libations depends on the moment at which the nerve impulse ceased to be transmitted through the damaged fibers.
There are no ways to restore memory after information has ceased to be "written" to the subcortex. Some events do not remember anything at all, others may have vague memories after witnesses tell.
Classification of alcoholic amnesia
The memory loss that occurs with alcohol intoxication is classified by neurophysiologists into three types. Alcoholic palimpsest is fragmentary amnesia, when a person remembers the events that took place in a state of intoxication with "rags", separate fragments.
Total alcoholic amnesia is typical for those who suffer from strong addiction of the third degree. In such cases, the memories are erased completely, almost immediately from the moment of the start of use.
If a person drinks heavily, then very long chunks of life may fall out of his memory. Both of these types of alcoholic amnesia are common in alcoholics who require treatment.
Narcotic alcoholic amnesia can also occur in people who do not suffer from alcoholism, after poisoning with large doses of ethanol.
This memory loss is due to the narcotic effect of ethanol. After drinking a large amount of alcohol, a person falls into a deep sleep, after which he cannot remember what happened the day before.
Possible psychological causes of alcoholic amnesia
Sometimes it is impossible to restore memory after drinking, not for physiological, but for psychological reasons. In some cases, a person behaves in a state of intoxication in an inappropriate way, which then experiences intense shame or feelings of guilt. In such cases, the psyche can turn on a kind of defense mechanism, erasing unpleasant memories.
In such cases, recovering memory from excessive alcohol consumption is possible by talking to those with whom you drank or with a therapist.
Since memory casts out negative memories that affect his psychological state, a person may not be believed that he does not remember anything. However, this is so, just his psyche is trying to avoid a traumatic memory. Such cases are described in the specialized literature, and often have nothing to do with alcohol use.
Recommendations for preserving memory while intoxicated
In many cases, it is impossible to regain memory after alcohol, but you can try to avoid unwanted failures. To do this, you must follow some rules. Drinking alcohol correctly, you can not only preserve memory, but also prevent possible unseemly actions and unworthy behavior in a state of intoxication.
Some time before the party starts, you should drink a small amount of alcohol, and also eat something very fatty. This will start the process of enzyme synthesis and delay the onset of intoxication.
Contrary to popular belief, such measures will not help to avoid intoxication. However, fats significantly slow down absorption, that is, a person will get drunk rather slowly.
A plentiful snack, which by the popular expression "steals a degree", has the same effect. The presence of food in the stomach slows down the absorption of ethanol into the blood. But the intoxication will come anyway, just later.
Such measures help the liver to have time to dispose of ethyl alcohol, which means, to a greater extent, to neutralize its destructive effect on the neurons of the brain. The effect of alcohol on memory with this approach may not appear at all or be quite insignificant.
After drinking a glass of wine at the beginning of the evening, it is allowed to continue the evening with a glass of cognac. This way of drinking alcohol is the least harmful. However, it should be remembered that by consuming alcohol in large quantities and on a regular basis, you will still not be able to avoid problems with memory and health in general.
And the next morning I got up -
Let me know
That he scolded the mistress,
I wanted to intimidate everyone
As if I rode naked
As if he was shouting songs,
And the father said
I have a general!
Vladimir Vysotsky
Amnesia, or memory lapses, is a well-known symptom of an alcoholic illness. Often to the question: "Do you ever remember a lot the day after alcoholization?", Our patients answer: "Naturally!", "Of course!"
From a certain period of alcoholic illness, the poisoned brain begins to malfunction and cannot fully perform the most important functions. For comparison, I can say that similar symptoms, that is, memory loss, can occur in some mental illness and severe traumatic brain injury. Many people know the syndrome of retrograde amnesia, when a person does not remember the events that preceded the concussion or contusion of the brain. And the more severe the pathological effect, the longer the period falls out of memory. From this point of view, any massive alcoholic excess in terms of the degree of destructive effect on the cerebral cortex can be compared, at least, with a mild concussion.
First, individual episodes are "erased" from memory - these are the so-called palimpsests. The person cannot remember what he was doing for a short period of time, usually after large doses of alcohol, sometimes just before bedtime. In the slang of our patients, this is called "sleeping." In the future, the dose of alcohol that causes palimpsests progressively decreases, and the duration of the amnesiac (forgotten) periods increases. Until, finally, memory lapses do not arise - amnesia, when a person forgets what he was doing for a long, sometimes up to several hours, period. Moreover, all this time, the alcoholic can remain active, perform any actions, sometimes even perform rather difficult work, and then everything is simply forgotten, and he learns about his actions from someone else.
Amnesia, especially when combined with uncontrollable behavior, can cause the drinker a lot of trouble and problems. Waking up in the morning after drinking, he begins to painfully remember whether he did anything yesterday in a "drunken disgrace." It’s also good if he wakes up at home or at friends’s home, and not in the hospital, not in the police and not on the street. It is good if there are no traces of beatings, the clothes are not damaged and all valuables are in place (if, of course, they are with him at all). But it also happens in another way: an alcoholic, waking up in the morning, sees a broken, swollen face in the mirror, finds dirty ragged clothes scattered throughout the apartment and notes with bitterness that not a penny is left of the large sum of money he had yesterday. Only some scraps of yesterday's "flights" flicker in his buzzing head, and in order to restore the picture of what happened the day before, he is forced to seek help from eyewitnesses of his drunken adventures - if, of course, they talk to him after that. Having learned many new and far from pleasant details about his behavior, the alcoholic falls into despondency and goes to be treated with the tried and tested method, that is, he gets drunk.
There is another defensive reaction: he categorically does not believe the stories of those around him and accuses them of slander. This is another protective trick of the Green Serpent, which allows the alcoholic to isolate himself from reality for a while and continue to drink. Sometimes this situation, from a mental health point of view, looks quite absurd. The man is told how he broke down the door yesterday in a drunken state, hit his wife, broke the dishes, ran around the porch in his shorts, and so on, and he categorically denies everything, being sure: everything (including a black eye) was thought up by his wife so annoy him. And the more often such episodes occur, the more angrily he reacts to all attempts to call him to a real assessment of the problem.
True, in some cases, the appearance of memory lapses, on the contrary, serves as the last straw that makes the alcoholic think about the fastest solution to the problem. He understands (if even a drop of sanity is still preserved): such options for intoxication can lead to serious consequences. A person in this state often commits very reckless acts, can get into a dangerous situation, get seriously injured and not even remember how it all happened. Even if this does not happen, there is still a feeling of wasted time, since large periods of life simply cease to exist - it seems as if they did not exist.
I remember one of our patients who asked for help after an intimate relationship with a woman whose love he had been seeking for a long time. The long-awaited romantic night was completely erased from his memory, as it was preceded by a candlelit dinner with an abundant variety of alcoholic drinks. Waking up in the morning, the patient remembered practically nothing, although from the affectionate look of his beloved one could guess that the night was a success. Not wanting to "steal from himself", the patient was coded for the maximum period, promising to come back after it was over.
Who has memory lapses and when?
With the traditional development of alcoholic disease, palimpsests can occur already at the first stage of the disease, amnesia - at the second and third stages. But the absence of this symptom in no way indicates the absence of alcohol dependence. So, in a number of our patients (this is 7 - 8%), even in the later stages, memory lapses are absent. Sometimes, after long periods of soberness, as well as when switching to the use of weaker alcoholic beverages, the ability to remember everything the next day after drinking, as it were, returns. This "improvement", of course, instills optimism in the alcoholic, but the character is most often temporary.
On the other hand, memory problems can occur in people without an alcoholic illness, sometimes literally after the first meeting with alcohol. Quite often people come to us without signs of addiction, who complain of inappropriate behavior when drunk, sometimes even after moderate doses of alcohol, with subsequent amnesia. Such a reaction to alcohol often occurs in people who have once suffered craniocerebral trauma, severe infectious diseases, neuroinfections and some other diseases in which the brain was involved in the pathological process. Despite the absence of signs of alcoholism, the prognosis in such cases (if a person does not stop drinking) is very negative, since symptoms of the disease and various complications can arise very quickly.