MalcolmTucker

Hi everyone, this is a repost since my previous thread was deleted for inadvertently featuring a commercial link.

Basically, is it accepted to be an iron law that when you are blackout drunk, you have no control of your behaviour and are completely unable to self-censor what you say?

I was blackout drunk recently, and when I asked friends about what happened, I was given two independent accounts stating that I was thrown out of the bar for falling down the stairs, but that I was pretty quiet and didn't say anything embarrassing.

This to me seems kind of hard to believe considering what I've read about blackout drunkenness temporarily destroying the superego. If I had no inhibitions whatsoever, I would have said incredibly mortifying things.

Is it possible that the extent to which self-control disappears during a blackout varies from person to person? I am a very introverted and self-conscious guy, so it kind of makes sense that I would have kept my mouth shut, but at the same time, everything I've read on the subject contradicts that.

Basically, I am 50:50 on whether to believe what my friends told me. My real life experience would suggest that not everyone who gets blackout drunk turns into a hyper-communicative honesty-machine, but articles I've read coupled with possible paranoia makes me think otherwise.

So, just from people's experiences of themselves and others, is it normal, or indeed possible, to remain quiet and low key during a total blackout when one has lost all physical coordination?

thanks for reading

CarolD

Thanks for re posting ....Welcome to our recovery community

I was a blackout drunk for years. I rarely drank alone so
Yes....people would often tell me what I had said and done.
I never remembered any of the blackout period...but have no
reason to doubt it was true.

I was so about alcoholism that I thought everyone
blacked out. I got myself into dangerous risky places....
often with unsavory strangers. ...

Blacking out is not why I decided to quit however
they did stop when I gave up drinking.

Alcoholic depression was the spur for my choice to stop.

Here are excerpts from the book that convinced me to quit
Blackouts are explained on #19

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html

BadCompany

Ya know, whether your friends are telling you the truth or not, might not be the biggest problem you are facing here.

MalcolmTucker

It pretty much is. This is the only time I have ever been though a total blackout and it was because I had spent the night having various cocktails and shots given to me when I am normally a meat and potatoes guy when it comes to drinking. Also, this was new year's eve, and I had spent the day drinking before I even went out, which is something I would never normally do, but, well, it was new year's eve so I didn't see unrestrained drinking as necessarily inappropriate. Stupid, I know.

DayWalker

See I don't agree with that at all. I would say I'm a "blackout drinker" probably 95% of the time when I drink, after all that was my goal when I pick up was to get to that stage. But IMO "Black out" means you have no memory or a VERY hazy memory of what you said or did when you were 'blacked out". I don't feel that it means you have absolutley no control over what you say or do. You have very little control thats for sure, but I feel it just means you have very little recall of what you said or did. At least thats how it is for me when I drink.

Steve

MalcolmTucker

I'm not sure about that. I read some article which claimed that mens rea in criminal trials shouldn't be applicable to a person who was in a blackout state because they had no control of their actions. I linked to it in the first version of this thread, but it might have been the one which resulted in the thread's deletion, so I'm hesitant to repost it.

Google 'mens rea alcoholic blackout' to find it.

least

Why would it matter how much or how little self control you had/have during a blackout? The fact remains that getting blackout drunk is dangerous as you don't know what you're doing while you are that drunk. Getting that drunk just opens the door to possibiities of great harm, either to you or to someone else. Why risk it?

suki44883

I don't believe you lose total control when you blackout. You definitely lose inhibitions and rational thought though. I still can't remember a great deal about the night I drove during a blackout and hit a parked car and was arrested. I have little snippets of memory and I remember what happened up to the point I blacked out. I knew what I was doing when I got into my car to drive home from the bar. I almost made it home, too. The parked car I hit was only one block from my house. I probably passed out just before I hit it. I vaguely remember performing (or rather, trying to perform) the field sobriety test. I remember laughing because I failed it so horribly. I vaguely remember being booked into jail. The police said I cried hysterically, but I don't remember that. I probably never will remember the entire thing. That doesn't mean that I didn't know what I was doing at the time.

MalcolmTucker

Least, didn't you just answer your own question? The fact that you don't know what you're doing is precisely why it matters that you're not in control.

Anyway, the main point of this thread was to ask whether being in a blackout, as opposed to merely being very drunk, brings about some kind of change in behaviour. I am totally fine and making sentient conversation even when I am drunk to the point of seeing double. Does the loss of memory retention cause a dramatic shift in behaviour to the degree that I was led to believe?

suki44883

I don't think so. I don't believe that once you reach blackout stage that you suddenly lose control of what you are doing. You've just reached a point where you likely won't remember it. Like I said, I knew I was getting in my car to drive and that I was too drunk to do so safely, but I did it anyway. There are people who may disagree with me and that's fine, but I do not believe that you lose all control of your actions while in a blackout. As I said, you DO lose rational thought and inhibitions. I also don't think that being in a blackout stage absolves anyone of any crimes they may commit or any other damage they may do during that time.

AlwaysGrowing

Malcolm

With my blackouts they were just lost memorys. With that much drinking my 'mood' that day/night was just pushed more in the direction I was heading in ANYWAY.

So while the two (actions) and (memory) might sometimes come together, for me they are different things totally.

I don't dwell in the past much anymore since I usually end up in the ditch my watching the rear view mirror than the road in front of me.

Are you putting this much time/effort/thinking/posting into staying sober today than figure the whole blackout thing out? Not trying to be a jerk here but saying does it really matter? What matters TODAY/NOW ?

AG

MalcolmTucker

It's not really so much an issue of a long-term tendency to do these things. This was an isolated incident, the only time in my life I have completely blacked out.

chrisinaustin

According to your two independent accounts, in your case, that time -- no.

intention

In my experience, no. For me the sign of the damage alcohol had done to my brain was that I blacked out very quickly. In the end it was 2 glasses of wine which was about 30 minutes of drinking time, if I was in company and drinking very slow,

From what I can gather from reports, or lack of reports, back to me, I was just acting like anyone else having a drink. I had a high tolerance so I could drink a lot before my behaviour changed.

Why are you focusing on this particular issue? Isn't the issue more why you blacked out rather than what you did in blackout.

If you have had two reports from friends which are different, perhaps one is not the friend you think they are......or maybe they had blacked out so they were making up the details themselves.

Dee74

Malcolm

Sometimes I blacked out and I was told I acted contrary to my normal self - other times it seems I did not do anything out of the ordinary.

If I'm taking these eyewitness reports as gospel, and I have no reason to doubt them, it would suggest that there are variations, and that these variations are just another manifestation of the unpredictable effect alcohol has upon me.

My life has gotten far less complicated since I quit - and I no longer have to obsess over my blackouts

D

Boleo

As far as I can tell I never did or said anything nasty during a black-out but I did do many foolish things like loose money, keys & cell-phone.

hps

Blackouts cause a change in behaviour, the next day. What a pain trying to figure out whether I did anything unforgivable the previous evening, or whether I was just my normal level of drunkenness, with no one noticing I had blacked out. Other times, I did something unforgivable and then passed out, without blacking out. Other times, I did something unforgivable and didn't pass out or black out. But also, a lot of the time, I wasn't behaving like my normal quiet self when I was extremely drunk.

Funny thing, since I stopped drinking, I haven't blacked out, passed out, or done anything unforgivable...

least

I just don't see how analyzing 'behavior/self control while being blacked out' can be useful. Best to just avoid blacking out altogether by not drinking. No worries that way. I don't need to understand WHY I did what I did while drinking. I just need to stay sober so it doesn't happen again. Just my opinion...

MalcolmTucker

The circumstances under which I got blackout drunk were rare enough as to not be much of a factor. What I actually did is WAY more troubling.

Clutch B

So ... just don't blackout anymore, and then you won't have to worry about it happening again.

Make right what you did wrong, then move on.

No big deal, right?