What is an alcoholic blackout?
Enough alcohol will prevent the brain from recording new memories. Think of it as like your computer, which has temporary, short-term, RAM memory that holds your programs and collects new data. You also have a hard drive to save the data collected in RAM. An alcoholic blackout is like having the “Save” command disabled, so that you can still operate the programs, but when you shut down, nothing is saved to memory. Much very important data will be lost. The amnesia may be partial, or fragmentary, so that, upon awakening, one may remember some of what transpired while intoxicated. Or, it may be a total amnesia starting after the drinking began until the time of awakening. Either way, loss of memory from drinking should set off sirens, bells, whistles, and red flags in everyone’s judgment, starting with the problem drinker’s. If I have a blackout, does that mean I have addictive disease, or alcoholism? Not at all. It simply means that your drinking days are over. The disease concept of ad
