Alcohol and Memory Loss

During end-stage alcoholism there is a disease, Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, which causes the alcoholic to lose the ability to remember people, places and things from their past. The alcohol has soaked the brain with toxins to the point where the brain can no longer function.

There is also a more subtle condition involving alcohol consumption and memory loss. This can take place with regularly drinking as few as three drinks a day. This consumption can result in a blackout type of amnesia. However, there are two types of blackouts, the en-bloc and the fragmentary episode.

During an en-bloc episode the person will forget everything they did during the time they are drinking. It’s is a complete memory loss over a particular time interval during intoxication. If a drinker goes on a two-week bender, the amnesia will encompass the whole two-weeks. These memories will not come back or be recalled.

A fragmentary episode is not as serious and only causes a loss of certain events while retaining some of the memory of that event. This helps the drinker remember the good times while forgetting the bad times during a drinking episode. Even when events are remembered, they are most likely not remembered as they actually happened in reality. Their memories are chemically altered. Unlike the en-bloc memory loss, cues or reminders can be used to recall some or most of the memories during the fragmentary episode.

Long-term alcohol use, even when controlled as two or three drinks during an evening, can create a situation whereby the brain is unable to create new memories. Consider that the phrase “living in the moment” being taken to a whole extreme level.

In a report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism there are other factors that have an effect on the memory of the drinker:

1.      How early in life the person started drinking;

2.      Family history of alcoholism;

3.      Gender;

4.      Overall health and constitution;

5.      Social and learning factors such as education.

The Alzheimer’s Association describes the long-term alcohol use amnesia, called Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome as a condition of:

1.      Gaps in long-term memory;

2.      Inability to remember recent events;

3.      Lack of awareness that there are problems with memory;

4.      Confabulation or making up information that has been forgotten.

In the case of confabulation, the person is not exactly lying. He/she believes that the made-up memories are real.

Other accompanying personality traits for a person suffering for any memory loss is being easy to anger, expressing agitation, confusion. Most often all these factors result in a state of depression.

If the alcoholic in your life says to you that they don’t remember an event, saying or doing a specific thing, it is most like the absolute truth. So, when you are called a derogatory name, it will be devastating to you, but for the alcoholic it will be as though it never happened. If you can’t remember something you can’t feel remorse for having said or done whatever that “thing” is. It just doesn’t exist.

It is heartbreaking to realize that you have been living as a part of couple and the other half of that same couple considers you as one step away from being a stranger. It’s OK. You can feel all the hurt that you would naturally feel, but it won’t help you to dwell on those emotions. Grieve. Cherish the memories that he/she does not have. What you do about it is up to you. But, always know what you are walking into, or out of, before making any decision.

Oh… I think I forgot where I was going with this….