Alcoholic Blackouts
 

Hi , I am an alcoholic have been for many years, I was always in denial because I did not drink everyday. I was a huge binge drinker, I stopped drinking for 90 days a while ago, and I started back , I really do not know why. My last binge I had a full blackout. I only had one other one before it was many years ago. I have had partial blackouts before, but this was a full blown blackout, I can not recall three total hours, I can not remember driving home or paying my tab. The feeling of dread I have is overwhelming, I always have had the sense not to drive drunk and walk home , the bar I drank at was 1/2 Mike from my House, my wife showed me the burnt pizza in the oven , I can not remember cooking. My question is , should have go back to bar and inquire about my behaviour or should I just leave it alone. I think I paid my tab because I had 200 dollars when went there and woke up with 60.

just get sober don't go back it will get worts don't drink period.

its simple you don't know but it will get worst it will take everything you love and then you will want to keep going. its a progressive disease.

Hi and welcome Bunchie :)

To be honest I think you're better off putting your efforts into staying sober than trying to work out what happened that night.

I understand how it might drive you made, but my advice is draw a line under it and move on in your recovery :)

D

Thank you,
My brother offered same advice, fearing that the barstaff would tell me I was fine, who knows maybe I was shutoff and walked to next bar. I just want to apologize for being so irresponsible. I usually am a gentleman no matter how much I drink , but that last night ( 3 nights ago) has me terrified I have never blacked out like that before , it really is frightening.

The worst thing I ever did was get used to that kind of blackout. Use the fear for change, bunchie.

D

I'd 'leave it' and make a goal to never do it again. It'd be different if you skipped out on the tab or something. I know a lot of bar owners/bartenders and they're normally so preocupied that they won't even remember you..Unless you did some crazy stuff! LOL I've been there,sooo. :lmao

Thank you , Don't remember, with a name like that you must have some empathy for me. I always tip well and act like a gentleman but this episode scares me, my wife is really upset. How did you conquer your demons?

The only way to begin to conquer demons is to get and stay sober. I used to blackout quite often, and I had awful, awful pains about what I might have done. I was terrified to go back to my local bar, because what if I did x,y, and z?

Only through sobriety, and taking the time to recover, and process, and learn, and reflect, was I able to address so many of my darker issues. It can happen, you just have to start by taking alcohol off the table.

Concur with everyone else.

This could be the thing that spurs you to decisive action and to stop drinking, totally. I got wayyyy past this kind of thing and it took a lot more [loss, pain, everything] to finally stop and get into recovery.

Hope you read around the threads, look for what is familiar to you (vs different), perhaps look at the Newcomers Daily section for Class of July 2018 (others considering or quitting this month)....and choose some kind of IRL action plan to face the drinking problems you have now, which are almost 100% going to get worse if you keep going.

Hope to see you around here.

Yeh, blackouts can and will get progressively worse.

I had blackouts for years and it just gets more embarrassing and worse behavior as time goes on. Amazing how low I went when I drank. It's probably a blessing in a way that I don't remember a lot of it.

I wouldn't go back to that bar. No need to if you are going to stop drinking.

Are you ready to quit? Or do you want to keep making bigger and bigger mistakes? I hope you'll stick around and use this as a learning experience of what not to do.

I loved your post, and got to thinking a bit about the big book where it says: if anyone can do the right about face and drink like a gentleman we take our hats off to him, or something like that.

I don't even know what a gentleman is or a lady, but here's what the urban dictionary, that reliable source, says, and I guess it applies as much to me as a chap:

"The True Gentleman (or Lady) is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe". - John Walter Wayland

It's only in recovery that I care about blackouts. They were a way of life for me. I fear that something wiped from my memory by alcohol will come back to haunt me. I once woke up in another country with no paperwork, only vaguely knowing I'd arrived there via Croatia. I must have joined a party and it went from there but who were they? Chilling stuff. I drank for another 10 years after that...

I didn't have a this gift of seeing my problem at an early stage. Even if I had that clarity, I would not have had sufficient cause to put in the effort to stop. I underestimated the drink, even when I got here, I was still telling myself I was not that sick.

Sorry about the essay. I'm still working this out myself. I really wish you and your family the best :hug:

Hey Bunchie, Yup - blackouts are frightening, dangerous and happen more often as you go on. I blackout every time now, if I drink. It's such and awful thing to go through and I honestly think the only way to change it is to stop drinking.

Be thankful you, and everyone else is unhurt and take it as a warning sign of the potential disasters to come. I wish you all the best with your sobriety. Gabe x

Thank you , Gabe day 6 sober , the weekends are the killer for me, but just because I did not drink during week , I still had the alcoholic behaviour, the negative attitude, miserable, irritated all the time. I sobered up once for 80 days, I can't believe I relapsed. I was beginning to see the light and I went to daughters confirmation party and started right up again. It set me back big time, a month or so later biggest blackout I ever had. Good luck to you
Bunchie

The blackouts definitely get worse. I found that mine were getting worse and would require less alcohol (I mean, it could be that I was in fact drinking MORE alcohol and just not remembering, but I have people to back up that on some of my blackout nights I didn't drink that much and they didn't even realize I was drunk)

As for the bar, a few months ago myself, my husband and my friend could not remember if we'd paid the guy at our local bar, but it turned out we'd paid and left a crazy big tip. Usually you worry that you've forgotten to pay when drunk, when in fact you've probably been your most generous, haha.

Thank you, that has always been my style to over tip, thank you for your reply it helps.

In February of this year I passed out behind the wheel and hit a telephone pole at 50 mph. You don't want that feeling of dread.

Not a day goes by that I'm not deeply grateful I didn't hurt someone.

In 3 weeks I'll be convicted of a multiple offense OWI (this is my 3rd, spaced over 22 years.) I will likely receive 9 months in jail with work release privileges.

The costs associated will land between $10k and $15k. At this point, I've had to sell my home and move closer to my place of employment. Just as I read your post I was grappling with the fear that the judge will not approve or will significantly delay transferring my sentence to the county in which I work. If he does delay significantly I could very likely lose my career.

Damn near every moment of my waking life for the last 5 months has been dealing with, grappling with, etc. this incident. It is the 600 pound gorilla that sits next to me, every day.

Regardless of the costs and jail and anxiety and all that comes with it... I still acknowledge how incredibly fortunate I am for not doing anyone any harm.

They say you can't scare an alcoholic into sobriety. I believe that. It took this incident to get my attention. But trust me, it's a mountain of **** you do not want to deal with.

It's not too late. Quit screwing with it. Sobriety is pretty awesome. Make it a priority. Based on what you describe you check all the boxes. Just sayin'.

Wish you well. You won't regret anything about being sober. That's a guarantee.

B

Thank you , Buckley 3,
I hope the judge has some compassion for you , I too am so relieved I caused no harm to anyone, but I have the feeling of dread still with me from that day, and I hope I always do, it's helping me stay sober.

Hi bunchie

Blackouts are very scary. Definitely do not go back to the bar to ask about that night that is pointless. Instead of beating yourself up just think about how totally irresponsible the bar staff were to serve you so much alcohol that you blacked out. Serving someone intoxicated is illegal and they failed in their duty of care to you.

I understand being a binge drinker and not drinking everyday blurring the boundaries of whether someone is an alcoholic or not.

All I do know is binge drinking is the most dangerous form of alcohol abuse and I hope you and I avoid this in the future.

Don't dwell on what might have happened concentrate on the her and now. Take care.

I never reached physical dependency but my blackouts were pretty "advanced". I've been asked "have you ever been roofied"? And it got me thinking ummm no but I drank myself to pretty much that same level of amnesia and dissociation on a regular basis. It's no way to live. Quit while you're ahead.