Do you really like being in a blackout?
 

If you think about it it's not remember-able.

Is it better than sleeping because you don't even dream?

It is likable because it's as if you don't exist for a moment in time?

I'm trying to see why a lot of us here like to go there and it's hard to come up with reasons.

I dunno about anyone else but I never liked them Gravel.

Did you?

D

The funny thing about blackouts is that most people assume that because they can't remember what happened that they were not conscious at the time. I think this is a fallacy.

You are aware of your actions during a blackout, you just can't remember them later. It is not like sleepwalking.

Does this make sense? I think it is a very misunderstood aspect of blackouts.....even the term is a little off....you aren't actually "in" a blackout, its just that later your memory of that time period is blacked out and you cannot recall it.

My understanding is that memories are a higher brain function, and blackouts occur when you are so impaired that you simply don't store any long term memories.

So you are walking talking, basically being you, but you will never remember it.

I think it's creepy as hell.

Woke up in another state one time, and had no recollection of the trip.

That's also my understanding. I believe you and VC are correct. It's not that you can't remember, it's that your brain didn't record the memory the way it should have, so there is no memory for you to recall.

I don't mean to split hairs, but I'm not sure "a lot of us like to go there". Personally, I never liked the blackouts. I certainly didn't drink with the intention of blacking out. Not remembering what I did for most of an evening/night is one of the reasons I decided to quit.

Right.....but at the time you are conscious and aware......like a singer can be singing a song and be fully aware of that fact even if the song is not being taped or recorded. They still were the one singing.

It is hard for us to comprehend, at least for me it is, that i can have no memory of something even though I was in fact actively and consciously participating in it....its kind of fascinating.

Agreed....I think its the creepiest feeling in the world......big reason I stopped. My mind has a tendency to "fill in the blanks" the next day with the most awful scenarios of what "may have happened" absolutely terrifying.

One thing that is the scariest thing I can imagine would be committing a crime, being legally responsible and serving time for something that you absolutely cannot remember.

And yet the insanity is that I definitely put myself in that position. Who knows what might happen when you are that inebriated.

I never had a blackout but just the sounds of it makes me shiver in fear

I never wanted to blackout. It was just a symptom of my ongoing descent into hell

No


No


I don't think anyone liked to go there. I had many and I can tell you I never got used to them. I never liked them nor went searching for them. In the end it was one of the reason I isolated so much. When I stayed home alone there was less chance for me to hurt myself or anyone else. It also was likely that I would wake up in my own home/bed.

The plain fact was that I drank and when I did I had no control over the amount so a blackout was a symptom of that. If I could have controlled my drinking so the blackout did not happen, I would have. I couldn't.

If you're drinking that much to black yourself out, there is a piece in us that no longer cares what happens next. But fortunately, that type of thinking can be turned around, especially the more you rid yourself of the alcohol.

It was not that I did not care. I wish it was that easy. It was way more than that. Once I had one drink all of the thinking that should have told me that I had enough, that I may have a black out, that I was already drunk were not there.

Either my switch is broken or it was never there. I am an alcoholic. The craving for more alcohol was the mission. It was not that I pushed the thoughts aside, they were not there to begin with. It was only after many years did I at least remove myself from the equation, isolation, was my way of getting around the blackout remorse or the pain of trying to remember. I was home, alone, so it did not matter if I blacked out. I never went looking for it though.

I drank for 26 years. I reached out to AA for help and I am now six months sober.

I didn't like *to go there* I just didn't know how to stop from getting there.

Ditto for me! The only way for me to not go there is by not having that first glass of wine. Nothing good comes out of it... It is all downhill after that!

I only recently started having blackouts and they scare the hell out of me. First of all, the fact that I started having blackouts drinking the same amount that I always did without blacking out in the past makes me fear alcohol has damaged my brain. Plus it's scary to have someone tell you things you did when you were completely alert, coherent, making sense, and not even necessarily appearing drunk, that you have ZERO memory of.

I did some research into alcoholic blackouts when I started having them and there was an analogy that it's like the video camera is on and running (the video camera being our brain) but there is no tape (or SD card) in it. This study researched how it was possible to have a coherent conversation if there was no memory and they found the short term memory would last something like 1 to 2 minutes, which allowed the person to communicate but the "data" was immediately discarded.

For me blackouts are scary and horrible and definitely not intended.

I never drank to purposely cause a blackout. It always came without warning and started to become more frequent with less alcohol consumption. No, I didn't like it at all.

When my daughter was doing IOP for opiates I attended family day every Saturday and learned quite a bit. The speakers were phenomenal. I know that it was stated that blackouts are short term memory loss. You know what you're doing while you're doing it you just don't retain the memory. This explains why sometimes later we can recall portions of the blackout. For instance, I knew when I got up in the morning if I had a blackout because my husband wasn't speaking to me. Then I'd tiptoe around for a while and then ask what I did. He'd give me a recant of the evening and things that I said and some of it would enter back into my brain. It was odd, like I was recalling portions of a movie but I had fallen asleep at different points.

I remember that feeling of dread all too well, wondering and trying to make sense of the evening and my last coherent moment. The worst was when my BF stopped engaging and would refuse to tell me what I said/did...if he even talked to me at all that day. It was terrible. I especially don't miss that.