Hyperthymesia and alcohol/drug addiction
Sober since October 24, 1997
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Otero County, New Mexico
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Hyperthymesia and alcohol/drug addiction
About a year ago I read an article in Wired magazine about hyperthymesia, where those with it can quite easily remember minute details of past experiences like what date it was when they were doing something just like it was yesterday, starting at an early age, and told myself it sounds like they were talking about me! I looked it up in wikipedia and some other places online and one source said there were only five known cases. Well, there are either six of us now, or it is far more common than thought. Just my opinion, I think it is way more common than is currently thought because people don't go around talking about how well they remember about how bad the scrambled eggs with cinnamon toast was they had at Howard Johnson's on February 18, 2001, and like a lot of things, it is like horses that are neither black nor white, but range from black through white with plenty shades of gray in between with spots as well, about how perfect the memory detail recall is from one hyperthymestic person to the next. One of the hallmarks of hyperthymesia is those with it have just about zero control of when memories come, and spontaneous memories are the BAD ones, like as a little kid accidentally breaking something and getting beat half to death for it. Those memories just pop up un-announced anytime and there is absolutely no control over them! POOF! The moment is messed up for you! And often enough, these highly invasive nasty memories show up right when you are having a good time, three seconds before orgasm, watching the funniest part of the movie you've been dying to see for months, etc. Your hyperthymestic brain has got it figured out how to maximize punishing you the rest of your life for bad things that happened to you that were no fault of your own right exactly when you are having the best time! WHY????? The quickest, fastest, easiest way to shut off these memories popping out of nowhere and calming the bad feelings and frustration that accompany them FOR HOURS AFTERWARD that I ever found was alcohol. That is one heck of a powerful incentive for me to keep right on drinking for the rest of my life! Nicotine is also the best tranquilizer there is and between booze and tobacco the world becomes a livable place. For hyperthymestics, the reason for using alcohol may a bit different than for the other drives of alcoholism if you want to classify alcoholism into a genetic, metabolic, or craving disposition, or can at least in addition to them. Or are the majority of alcoholics hyperthymestics? Do we all have the ability to recall exact dates, like the day of the week, the hour, and who handed our high school diploma to us? I can! Friday, June 14, 1968 starting at 5 PM, and high school principal Donald Jansen handed me mine. I also remember the argument I had with my mom about not being able to go home right away afterward. That was fifty years and almost exactly one month ago. Making the bad memories stop popping up out of nowhere that ruin having a good life become a priority. Hyperthymestics have the regular problems of bad homes, genetic predispositions to alcohol and drug cravings, and all the other reasons why we become alcoholics. Just because someone is a hyperthymestic is not a good enough reason to commit slow suicide, kill people via drunk driving, make everyone around you miserable, leave a trail of abandoned spouses and children, and all the other things drunks do. I know there are benign drunks who live by themselves, have no family, spend only their own money, don't drive, are not on public assistance, and when they die no one is sad except those who for a few seconds wonder "who was this person?" as they haul off the rotting corpse to Potter's Field. But those totally independent hermit drunks are pretty darned rare, and I could have been headed that way until I quit.
My last drink was October 25, 1997, over twenty years ago. So, what did I do? First of all, I had an opportunity handed to me too good to be true to quit pain-free physically and got rid of the biggest problem first and quit all alcohol and nicotine consumption because those two go together synergistically. As far as handling the intrusive memories popping up, they are from actual events and not fantasies, so they can be dealt with as post traumatic stress disorder events and in modern psychology there are highly effective ways of actually fixing them instead of just "picking at the scabs" by talking about them, to use the parlance of "shrinkology".
Psychologists' usual response to the hyperthymestic’s uncontrollable nasty memory popping-up problem is to say ”Hey! Wake up! If you don’t like getting hit by cars, don’t play in the middle of the highway! Just quit dragging up and dwelling on all this crud!" not realizing that THE major problem with hyperthymesia is there is no control on this crud popping out of nowhere and screwing up your day. Brain scans show that people with hyperthymesia have specific parts of their brains more greatly developed that deal with "fight or flight" and are constantly on guard or hyper-vigilant for situations where immediate action to defend themselves or flee may be necessary. This is a normal background function that operates even whe asleep. But in hyperthymesia, according to the theory, apparently the most minor and inconsequential reminders of past events, even ones that only remotely resemble past occurrences, will trigger full-blown living color minute detail nasty stuff memories from sixty years ago, including being able to remember what notes say written on a wall calendar. You may have been stung by a huge tarantula hawk wasp when you were three and were paralyzed and almost unconscious from the intense pain for three or four hours, but the somewhat similar buzzing sound of a house fly that you are not even aware of is all it takes to trigger that memory and put you out of sorts for the rest of the day, and you don’t even know why. That reaction to something from fifty yers ago everybody else would have forgotten except those with hyperthymestic memory problems. The ability to equally recall non-spontaneous nice memories in just as fine detail is not as well explained.
Alcohol dulls the intense negative experiences along with the lingering anger or depression from the constant barrage of memories of negative human interactions, and I can’t un-remember every harsh word and swat I received from nasty sadistic adult strangers as an unprotected small child left on my own in public by naïve parents when I was born with a quiet and shy personality and wasn’t one of those obstreperous kids who tested limits, so I grew up with an intense dislike/fear of being around others, especially available women my own age, and I stayed by myself until I transferred to a big city university. When I got out of higher education, the rest is history until I regained sobriety when I was 47, and regained “sanity” at 62 when I began being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to overcome my fear of being around people in general and women in particular. I had been publically thrashed by two girls in high school because I had said “hello” to them every day at lunch during the first four days of the first week of the new school year, not knowing that it was a major social faux pas to do so if I was “below” their social standing on campus back in the late-1960s. They were rich snobs and I was a science nerd, and very déclassé to talk to them. The attack on Friday with swinging book bags full of books, kicking, and screaming in front of 500 kids and several teachers did some damage to me but no doubt advanced their status in the eyes of the peers. That incident alone kept me drunk and single until 1997. That didn’t need a hyperthymestic brain to remember, though. My mind just reminded of it every time I saw a woman with the potential to be a girlfriend. All my girlfriends were 80 proof.
Making the connection between hyperthymesia and alcoholism is my own, and I now know it is what fueled my reason to use alcohol. I quit drinking before my reasons for drinking were addressed, but years later my reasons were finally taken care of and the quality of my life improved a lot.
Lautca
My last drink was October 25, 1997, over twenty years ago. So, what did I do? First of all, I had an opportunity handed to me too good to be true to quit pain-free physically and got rid of the biggest problem first and quit all alcohol and nicotine consumption because those two go together synergistically. As far as handling the intrusive memories popping up, they are from actual events and not fantasies, so they can be dealt with as post traumatic stress disorder events and in modern psychology there are highly effective ways of actually fixing them instead of just "picking at the scabs" by talking about them, to use the parlance of "shrinkology".
Psychologists' usual response to the hyperthymestic’s uncontrollable nasty memory popping-up problem is to say ”Hey! Wake up! If you don’t like getting hit by cars, don’t play in the middle of the highway! Just quit dragging up and dwelling on all this crud!" not realizing that THE major problem with hyperthymesia is there is no control on this crud popping out of nowhere and screwing up your day. Brain scans show that people with hyperthymesia have specific parts of their brains more greatly developed that deal with "fight or flight" and are constantly on guard or hyper-vigilant for situations where immediate action to defend themselves or flee may be necessary. This is a normal background function that operates even whe asleep. But in hyperthymesia, according to the theory, apparently the most minor and inconsequential reminders of past events, even ones that only remotely resemble past occurrences, will trigger full-blown living color minute detail nasty stuff memories from sixty years ago, including being able to remember what notes say written on a wall calendar. You may have been stung by a huge tarantula hawk wasp when you were three and were paralyzed and almost unconscious from the intense pain for three or four hours, but the somewhat similar buzzing sound of a house fly that you are not even aware of is all it takes to trigger that memory and put you out of sorts for the rest of the day, and you don’t even know why. That reaction to something from fifty yers ago everybody else would have forgotten except those with hyperthymestic memory problems. The ability to equally recall non-spontaneous nice memories in just as fine detail is not as well explained.
Alcohol dulls the intense negative experiences along with the lingering anger or depression from the constant barrage of memories of negative human interactions, and I can’t un-remember every harsh word and swat I received from nasty sadistic adult strangers as an unprotected small child left on my own in public by naïve parents when I was born with a quiet and shy personality and wasn’t one of those obstreperous kids who tested limits, so I grew up with an intense dislike/fear of being around others, especially available women my own age, and I stayed by myself until I transferred to a big city university. When I got out of higher education, the rest is history until I regained sobriety when I was 47, and regained “sanity” at 62 when I began being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to overcome my fear of being around people in general and women in particular. I had been publically thrashed by two girls in high school because I had said “hello” to them every day at lunch during the first four days of the first week of the new school year, not knowing that it was a major social faux pas to do so if I was “below” their social standing on campus back in the late-1960s. They were rich snobs and I was a science nerd, and very déclassé to talk to them. The attack on Friday with swinging book bags full of books, kicking, and screaming in front of 500 kids and several teachers did some damage to me but no doubt advanced their status in the eyes of the peers. That incident alone kept me drunk and single until 1997. That didn’t need a hyperthymestic brain to remember, though. My mind just reminded of it every time I saw a woman with the potential to be a girlfriend. All my girlfriends were 80 proof.
Making the connection between hyperthymesia and alcoholism is my own, and I now know it is what fueled my reason to use alcohol. I quit drinking before my reasons for drinking were addressed, but years later my reasons were finally taken care of and the quality of my life improved a lot.
Lautca
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