Justfor1

I was trying to think about some of the scariest things about being a practicing alcoholic. One of things was blackouts. During college I use to think that it was funny. However, over the years they slowing got worse. The blackouts increased in frequency & perhaps the scariest of all, became longer. I'm not talking about not remembering going to sleep or even a drunken evening. I'm talking about whole days of having no idea where I was or what I was doing. Waking up with city tickets for drinking on the subway or on the street. Looking at my signature for the ticket but not remembering it. Did anyone else notice that blackouts increased? Sadly, while this would "scare me straight", I would continue drinking after a short period.

desertsong

I shudder when I think of the blackouts. Awful stuff. I always drank at home for the most part, so I didn't embarrass myself in public very often but I humiliated myself plenty at home in front of my family. Drunken rages at everyone, waking up in the morning with injuries that I couldn't remember getting ... then waking up in the morning and having everyone be mad at me for things I couldn't remember saying/doing. Mortifying. And they got worse the longer I drank. <shudder>

suffering0605

My black outs progressed real bad. When i started blacking out, it was for a couple hours and the stories werent hoorifying. I usually found out i was just a drunken mess all over the place. When my alcoholism progressed i would black out the entire night, and apparently went nuts each time. Waking up in jail or the hospital and having NO CLUE what i did, i had no memory of anything. Be careful when your black outs get this bad. Maybe you should stop drinking before you wind up like i did.

Justfor1

I've been sober since Oct. so I'm grateful that I don't have to live like that. I just wanted to see if others had similar progression. Waking up in jail & not even know why is very terrifying. I think there is a difference between blacking out & functioning versus passing out going to sleep drunk. Hopefully, this can scare some new people who want to stop drinking. Every part of this disease of alcoholism gets worse. People kept telling me I was going to die because of my addiction yet I continued to live in misery for years. I'm around 7 months sober & I still have trouble sleeping. Dr. says I did serious damage from all the drink/drugs throughout the years.

TheEnd

3-4 day binge drinking black outs never slowed me down, not one bit.

midgetcop

The blackouts for worse for me and became more frequent, even though I was drinking roughly the same amount. I too was mainly an at-home drinker, but there were a few outings that resulted in blackouts, and they were SCARY. I'm not normally religious, but only by the grace of SOME higher power did I not get killed or kill someone else while driving drunk, cuz I had no idea what I was doing.

zxcirce

Yeah....the first time I had to ask "What happened to Wednesday?!" was pretty unnerving.

Dee74

^ +1

Whats more amazing is I pretty soon accepted it as an 'occupational hazard'

D

Justfor1

I am glad that by the time my blackouts got really bad I was living in the big city & had stopped driving due to many DUI's. I was always frightened I had done something bad to the various street people in my neighborhood (drug dealers,gang members ect..) & when I would sober up I would always be looking over my shoulder. Also, I would dread talking to friends when coming off a bender because I sometimes drunk text/called them not making any sense.

Diva76

Hello friends...

Reading all of your post makes me feel so proud of each and every one of you...
I am so very glad that all of you are in a MUCH better place now...

May all of you continue to stay safe and healthy...

Best wishes,


Diva 76

BackToSquareOne

I can remember getting up, looking at the clock, it reads 7AM. Look out the window, getting light out. Lay in bed another hour, getting darker, something's wrong. Another day went by without me, it's night not morning, where did the day go?

NewxYork

The blackouts were worst but the things you did or promises made while drinking were really embarrassing. I remember piecing together a blackouts through friends, phone call history and text messages to found I made ridiculous statements and promises to do stuff.

The injuries, tearing up my room to find a bottle that I misplaced or just plain being to ashamed to ask anyone was really horrible.

gaffo

I'm still getting my mind around the whole concept that blackouts are when you aren't remembering as you go along, as opposed to forgetting. You can't remember what you did during a blackout because your brain wasn't on "record". I'm so glad that doesn't happen anymore!

eJoshua

+1 on waking up with mysterious injuries... I think once I may have almost fractured or broken a bone in my hand once and not remembered how it happened.

eJoshua

+1 on waking up with mysterious injuries... I think once I may have almost fractured or broken a bone in my hand once and not remembered how it happened.

suffering0605

@ Justfor1, my license is suspended due to too many DWIs as well. Luckily i live NYC and dont need to drive. I dont deserve a license anyway. Congrats on yout 7 months, thats awesome!!!!

Justfor1

I got a permit to drive after 3 DUI's & almost 9 years of being suspended. Not sure how many DUI's you have or what NY law is but, today, I can say I deserve to drive because I paid the consequences & want to move on. When I lived in downtown Chicago there was very little need to drive but I now live in far suburbs. There are only a few big cities in the U.S. where it is not important to drive NYC & Chicago being two of them.

1983ritag

It's amazing some of the things I did(things that my friends told me I did) in a blackout. My blackouts kept progressively getting worse. That's one of the biggest reasons I decided to quit. In the end, I would drink till I blacked out almost every time. It was scary and it wasnt fun anymore. Congrats to everyone for choosing a better way to live

GrowingDaily

Wanna hear something sick? I used to look forward to them. I considered them 'adventures'.

And no, I don't say that with a lick of pride or humor. It's pathetic, really.

MysteriousGrl

The blackouts definitely got worse as my drinking progressed. Towards the end, I lost three days and had to look back on call logs, texts and ask friends what had happened. The answers I got were terrifying! I could have been raped, murdered, or worse yet killed someone drink driving. The sad thing is that it didn't stop me from drinking to the point of blackout again. This time I woke up in jail. I tried to take the rap for a 'friend' who was driving and crashed his car. Him and the other passengers legged it and left me there. When the police arrived they found me passed out in the passengers seat naked from the waste down, and apparently I told them I was the driver. They thought I had been raped and had to arrest me because I 'admitted' to driving the car. I couldn't recall any of it when they questioned me the next day. Thankfully the driver turned himself in the next night and told them he had been driving and I was changing into comfy clothes when he lost control and crashed. When the police told me the driver had come in and fessed up, I started to piece it together but still dont remember crashing etc. Very scary! That was the last blackout I had. Don't ever want to experience that again!