Am I still me if I can't remember being me?

[Anamsolas]

Yes. It happened all the time.

After a certain number of drinks, my brain would lose the ability to record what was happening. It was as if I entered some kind of automatic mode, where someone else took control.

At first, it scared me.

Then, somehow, giving up control became normal.

Normal to wake up with entire pieces of the night missing.

Normal to give away pieces of my own biography.

My memories.

My decisions.

My conversations.

Things I did, things I said, things I felt.

And then I would wake up having to reconstruct my own life from external evidence: what other people told me, the messages and photos on my phone, or simply the consequences of decisions I couldn’t remember making.

Sometimes, other people knew more about my night than I did.

And technically, I know that person was still me.

But I keep coming back to this question:

If I was there, making choices, but I can’t remember any of it… how much of that person feels like me?

Maybe what I’m trying to get back isn’t just sobriety.

It’s continuity. Presence.

It’s returning to my own body and fully inhabiting it again.

To be the person living my life, and the person who remembers having lived it.

[Promilla1987]

Hey there!
Thank you for sharing your story and reaching out here!
My blackouts got out of hand the last year. Ive been drinking for 10 years but I could always remember what happened. Well that changed and it scared the sh*t out of me. I sometimes didnt know if i went out for cigarettes or more alcohol. I couldnt remember of chats, phone calls or anything. Everything after the first bottle of wine went away and i couldnt recall it the next day even if i try.
So, its a very dangerous situation we put ourselves in. The only way to avoid it is to stop drinking bc i think your problem is also like mine and many others: you cant just stop after the first or second glass.
Wish you all the best and lets take it day by day!

[SinceIAwoke]

Blackouts are a common effect of drinking, and as your years of consumption progress, they can come with only one drink. A blackout is a failure to create memories. I blacked out every time I drank for the last 15 or so years of my drinking. I would someone’s wake up and not know if the thoughts in my head were a dream of a partial recall of a blackout.

Since I stopped drinking, my blackouts have stopped.

[Brock]

I was blacked out the majority of the last year of my drinking. I was also combining copious amounts of Xanax and Klonopin with my liquor which really complicated things. It was a scary time and I made lots of terrible decisions I had no recollection of. Occasionally I’d come too and be covered in bruises and cuts I assume we’re from falling over and bumping into things. Being asleep or unconscious became comfortable during that time of my life and liquor + benzo overdoses became quite frequent. That’s when I sought help.

While you are the same person drunk or sober the decisions we make in those mindsets are very very different. Normally I’m a law abiding citizen and have never gone to jail for anything while sober. No criminal history outside of minor traffic infractions. But I’ve been to jail many, many time while under the influence of alcohol.

[erntedank]

As alcohol shuts down your prefrontal cortex, the drunk person who made the decision is not the same person dealing with the consequences. Simple biochemistry.

[Ray_M_C_Laren]

To stop blackouts dont drink

[EFountains]

I don’t see memory loss or blackouts as something trivial or anecdotal — at least, they weren’t for me. They were serious.

In fact, one of the hardest things for me to live with is the feeling that I probably owe apologies to people, but I don’t even remember who they are or what I may have done. That is one of the scars alcohol can leave behind.

As Ray said, the best solution is simply not to drink. Having blackouts is taking a risk. It is playing with fire and standing at the edge of an abyss. In my case, things were getting progressively worse.

The frightening thing is that, for a while, I actually became used to blackouts. I began to treat them as something normal, almost as an anecdote. But there is nothing normal about waking up in the middle of your living room and having no idea why you aren’t in bed. There is nothing normal about waking up still wearing yesterday’s clothes because you never changed into your pajamas, and having absolutely no memory of what happened.

And then comes the worst question: What if I did something much worse than that and simply don’t remember it?

Again, I can only speak for myself, but I also feel that years of drinking affected my memory. I noticed a significant decline. It sometimes felt almost as if my brain had become trained to forget: the more periods of memory loss I experienced, the more forgetful I seemed to become in general.

I sincerely hope this isn’t happening to you. I’m only sharing my own experience, and I hope there is something in it that may help you.

I wish you all the best. Stay strong. It is possible to stop drinking.