Does anybody else have memory problems due to drug use?
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Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 2
Does anybody else have memory problems due to drug use?
Well I say drug use, but alcohol and eating disorders can pickle your brains surely as any psychoactive. I don't drink but I have been eating disordered for 19 years, and beset by drug use for 4 years and I...don't remember things.
Even after waiting out half lives, withdrawal symptoms, lifestyle adjustments, it's as though the fog just won't clear. Memory is a compost, but mine appears to be the compost of composts: for I can't intuitively distinguish between dream, fear, and what actually happened. If I don't write things down, I will never know the difference.
And I haven't written many things down. There are holes in my life.
It's really, really hard to explain this to people, especially if they ask about some element of youth or childhood that is supposed to be formative. It feels as though I am lying, appropriating somebody else's life, or a composite of others' lives. It means I find the notion of sincerity really hard to grasp.
Lucky I'm not presently looking for a job, or else I'd have a very hard time with my CV
*sigh*
It's Wonderland, it's Edgar Allen Poe's dream within a dream, it's Chuang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly and then unsure on waking if he WAS Chuang Tzu waking, or if he was the butterfly now dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. It's the Matrix, it's Gregor Samsa waking and finding himself inexplicably transformed into a giant bug.
Am I just super weird, or does anyone else have this problem? And how do you deal with it?
Even after waiting out half lives, withdrawal symptoms, lifestyle adjustments, it's as though the fog just won't clear. Memory is a compost, but mine appears to be the compost of composts: for I can't intuitively distinguish between dream, fear, and what actually happened. If I don't write things down, I will never know the difference.
And I haven't written many things down. There are holes in my life.
It's really, really hard to explain this to people, especially if they ask about some element of youth or childhood that is supposed to be formative. It feels as though I am lying, appropriating somebody else's life, or a composite of others' lives. It means I find the notion of sincerity really hard to grasp.
Lucky I'm not presently looking for a job, or else I'd have a very hard time with my CV
*sigh*
It's Wonderland, it's Edgar Allen Poe's dream within a dream, it's Chuang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly and then unsure on waking if he WAS Chuang Tzu waking, or if he was the butterfly now dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. It's the Matrix, it's Gregor Samsa waking and finding himself inexplicably transformed into a giant bug.
Am I just super weird, or does anyone else have this problem? And how do you deal with it?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 2
Dreadful manners on my part...yes, hello everybody :-p And thank you for the welcome sapling and weasel 
May I ask: when you say it takes time, do you mean this problem does completely go away? After how long? The longest sober period I had was just over 3 months, and my memory was as bad as ever. Maddening! Sometimes I relapse because drugs at least give a tangible reason for being absent minded...
May I ask: when you say it takes time, do you mean this problem does completely go away? After how long? The longest sober period I had was just over 3 months, and my memory was as bad as ever. Maddening! Sometimes I relapse because drugs at least give a tangible reason for being absent minded...
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Between Meetings
Posts: 8,997
I can't say I ever had a perfect memory...But at 10 months mine gets better every day. My first two months were pretty foggy...The first one forget it. I did forget it. I'm sure it's different for everyone...But it does come back to you.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,445
I think most of us have memory problems for a while rhizome.
I was an alcoholic and pot user - I had other issues as well (I suffered some ministrokes in detox) so it was well over a year before my memory really came back.
You have every reason to expect your timeframe will be shorter than that
Welcome to SR
D
I was an alcoholic and pot user - I had other issues as well (I suffered some ministrokes in detox) so it was well over a year before my memory really came back.
You have every reason to expect your timeframe will be shorter than that
Welcome to SR
D
I'm here to learn!
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: I'm on it!
Posts: 2,038
My memory finally just started improving a few months ago, and I'm at 13 months. It sure can take time. Some people seem to see an improvement almost immediately. For me it took a little longer. I expect that my memory will never quite return to the levels it was at originally though.
It's all good though. I'm sober, alive and relatively happy and that's all that matters.
It's all good though. I'm sober, alive and relatively happy and that's all that matters.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
welp, the memories of my past were pretty boggled up when i 1st got into recovery. there were a lot of things i really didnt know if they were real events or not. over time, i started my past clearer and still have memories from my past pop up, and thats 7 years after my last drunk.
as for my memory today, its scattered. hell, i can have a hard time remembering what i did this morning, but i know i did it sober!
as for my memory today, its scattered. hell, i can have a hard time remembering what i did this morning, but i know i did it sober!
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