I’ve drank a lot before. But no matter how bad things got, I’ve never woken up in a strange situation with no memory of the night before. I’ve done REALLY stupid stuff when heavily drunk but I at least remember my actions
Yet in shows, we often see scenes where two characters wake up naked together with one or both of them utterly confused of how they even ended up sleeping together
Is that a show-thing or can people really get so drunk that they lose their memories?
Comments
Yes
Yeah when people talk about blacking out that’s what they mean.
I’ve only ever done it once and it’s when I tried to take 17 shot in 17 minutes on my 17th birthday. Lesson learned.
Yup that’s called getting black-out drunk
Malcolm Gladwell did a fascinating chapter about what happens when someone is black out drunk. The stories he had were quite surprising.
Yeah they blackout
Yes, it’s called blacking out and you literally black out. Old friend of mine has driven his motorcycle home and went to bed. All he remembers is partying at a friend’s house 15 or so miles away, no recollection of driving or being home. I’ve blacked out too, friends house being responsible with keys locked up, I remember drinking, having fun, remember taking shots, laughing, playing games then suddenly throwing up (with others) in a tub with my shirt off, no fucking idea where my shirt was, not a fucking clue.
I did once when I was in high school. Someone told me two weeks later that I had thrown up in my own shoe. Not a great experience.
Yes of course, it’s called being black out drunk.
You’re obviously not Irish
Oh, yeah; I’ve been both blackout-drunk and drugged up with zero-recollection of the prior night. Some I heard were fun, some weren’t, and a couple were deeply embarrassing😄 Live and learn.
I’ve definitely blacked out before with little flashes to no memory of the evening.
No problem at all, I used to lose days, sometimes several in a row that I couldn’t remember before I got sober (4yrs 3m).
yes. happened to me once.
Yep. Yes. Absolutely.
I haven’t yet, but I heard it’s a thing
As someone who is now sober and was a MAJORLY heavy drinker. 100% yes.
I have 6 tattoo’s (3 on each arm) that I got done when i was drunk and woke up not remember getting them. Bad times.
Yep
Yes
Amateur
It happened to me. I have in many years (I’m old) have lost a few hours in 3 separate occasions.
It’s extremely dangerous. I have done reckless things I have no memory of, but have seen evidence in photos or have been told by people I trust.
I have driven vehicles, harassed coworkers, etc.
I am not at all a heavy drinker or a frequent drinker. But I am well aware now that I can easily exceed my limits.
It’s called my teenage years, yes.
Never happened to me but I’ve plenty of friends that have blackouts
You can also get alcohol poisoning and black out..
Yeah, that’s possible, but usually you just WISH you had zero memory of the night before.
Happened to me before, only remember the parts I was still drinking at a friend’s party, I got woken up by my mate who found me naked in a park lol, who knows what happened.
Sure it’s possible.
Yes. That’s called blacking out. You’re waking and talking but basically unconscious. Brown out is when you remember parts the e cut day.
Blacked out drunk. Happened to me twice. You can’t remember because your brain didn’t make any memories
I’m from Wisconsin. Been drinking since ‘81. I’ve been really really drunk hundreds of times. I’ve been so drunk I threw up in my sleeping bag. But I’ve never awoken with no memory of the night before.
Yet it’s a common trope on tv and in movies. Person gets drunk, does something crazy and has absolutely no memory.
There must be something wrong with me.
It happened to me once or twice. I don’t drink anymore.
Yeah only happened once. Work trip for training in Illinois. Usual go out to dinner but then they wanted to go to a bar. Cool and having fun. Went to a second place and getting foggy. Finally they decided to go to another place and I remember going to the car outside but literally zero memory after that.
Next morning had to go to airport and guess I had my alarm clock set thankfully. Got up feeling horrible and was confused- how the hell I get back to my room?? But checked still had my wallet and everything okay. So must’ve gone to third place and somehow made it back to my room. It was the weirdest thing and the onky time I can genuinely say I blacked out with zero memory.
Yep
Yup sometimes they don’t even need to drink that much if their body is used to it
Know some people who will black out after two light drinks due to their prior history of getting repeatedly black out drunk
Yeah I’ve been there. Either not remembering or remembering fragments.
I’ve only been there 4 or 5 times, but yes it is.
One time I left a club (I think I was trying to find my mates I was with, also my phone had died too, if it wasn’t dead I probably wouldn’t of fell asleep, and yeah they were on the roof) and I walked far up the road and somehow fell asleep on the pavement (the place I was at was not the nicest and is known for crimes, let alone on a Saturday night) and two people found me and somehow i told them my mums number etc and my mum came and picked me up, they even commented on my girlfriends instagram about me being on the pavement asleep, and I had to message them to ask what happened, and thank them too because I had no recollection whatsoever, turns out I even sent messages to my girlfriend on my mums phone which I didn’t remember either 😂😂 they were all just random letters and no words haha
Yes. Hundreds of times.
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you may have a couple flashes of what happened, but you can definitely lose many chunks or whole nights for sure!
Recently my husband celebrated finishing a hard class by getting hammered. I drank a bit too but definitely not as much! Then we went to the bedroom had a little fun and went to bed, then he vomited in our bathroom sink and went to bed again 🤣 he woke up the next morning found his mess and had no memory of it so he made a comment "did I really vomit in the sink?" And I’m like "yep! But hey you didn’t vomit on me! I’m glad I ended the s3x when I did" and he’s like "WE HAD S3X TOO AND I DONT REMEMBER IT!?" And I said "well we tried… and you seemed to enjoy it… not gonna lie I prefer sober you." He got a good laugh about that and then we had a fun conversation about how much harder that much drinking is on the body as you get older lol
Closest I’ve ever come to that drunk was the night I chipped my tooth, I do remember random stuff like the tooth chipping but I am also sure I lost a good portion of the night! Luckily, no surprises in the morning other than the fact that I also missed the toilet unfortunately 🤣
I usually didint remember things the closer I was to the end of my night but sometimes it was the whole night. Don’t miss those days. One time I left the strip club I was at with my roommate before him and apparently didn’t get back till several hours after him with my car covered in an inch of mud. No idea.
I see OP has never been to Scotland 😆🏴
As someone who has been blank out drunk before, yep it’s absolutely real.
Yes-Personal Experience
One time while visiting a friend in Osan, I got so drunk that I lost my memory just after getting a street vendor burger…
Here is what happened, recounted from my friends perspective…
I proceeded to eat the burger, buy 15 more because they were the best thing I’d ever eaten, I then walked around giving out burgers… which ended up apparently earning me a few more drinks (not great to add on, but how was I to know?!?). Then I decided that it was time to go back to my friend’s place. I walked around for at least an hour, knocking on random doors, finally my friend’s older (probably 60-70) neighbor saw me and took me in… my other friend who wasn’t nearly as drunk as me returned to the bar district…
I woke up the next morning on a couch I wasn’t familiar with… and an old Korean woman cooking something in the kitchen…
I was slowly coming to, but, I was wearing pants (good) and my shoes were neatly next to the door (not abnormal, but I don’t remember doing that). I also was covered with a big blanket…
Now, I was pretty concerned I had broken into someone’s house and passed out on the couch… it isn’t something I regularly do… but… I wouldn’t put it past me. So I attempted to shuffle over to the door as quick as I could to grab my shoes and beat feet out of there.
I stumble, trip, fall, smash my face into the wall (oh yeah, I’m still pretty drunk) and try to grab my shoes. The old woman comes rushing over with a concerned look on her face, she doesn’t speak much English, but she asks if I’m okay… my fears are disappearing, because she obviously knew I was there. The old man comes out from another room, and explains what happened… he was just taking me in because he didn’t want me to get lost, and that my friend’s apartment is across the street.
Anyway, I had a great breakfast, a bad headache, and my face hurt… all in all, would not recommend getting black out drunk.
I’ve blacked out many times, had to check what day it was, should have been in hospital with the amount I drank according to my "recovery advisor"(don’t really know what yo call them or their title but that’s pretty much their role). I’d often drink 15+ strong pints and trays full of shots. A bottle of whiskey was "a quiet night in", only drinking to explicitly pass out on multiple occasions. Waking up drunk even days later.
Basically passive sui*ideal (censored because not sure on sub rules for that word) and alcohol was both a cope and possible method.
And I’ve never had 0* memory as per your title.
Might only be maybe 10 minutes of scattered memories from the night and wouldn’t remember the times closer to actually sleeping/passing out. So your example waking up in bed with someone was very possible to have no recollection, but I’d remember times from a few hours before that, maybe trying to hold my sick in the cab, but if I succeed or not I couldn’t tell ya 😅. A faint memory of walking to the bar but not of getting back to the table and drinking it. Couldn’t remember how I got injuries but could guess where they happened. That kind of thing.
Yes. It happened to me one time. It was in high school, I had gotten drunk before mind you. And everytime I have since, I always at least vaguely remember the previous night.
But I’ll never forget that black-out night. Its like it set something in my subconscious to stop drinking at a point just when I’m full on drunk.
My buddy stole a box of vodka from his work. Had a few us over to drink & play cards. One moment I was drinking during a game, the next I was being dragged off the street to the couch by a couple friends. My buddies were weirded out by me for months after that. They said I went bonkers and started spewing bs and getting easily angry. Then ran outside to yell and fell off the street curb. I recalled none of that. Only to the point we were playing cards.
Yes. Rohypnol can bring the same.
Tonight i learned it’s in the benzo fam class. I was checking spelling and there it was, go figure
Recovering alcoholic here.
Yes. I’ve lost so so so many nights to blackouts. Gotten in fights, said awful awful shit, and damaged property. Then I had to go back and follow my trail of fuck ups.
Now that I’m sober, one of the hardest things is the shame that I’ve carried for years. Not knowing who has seen me at my worst. I’d really work on moderation if you’re blacking out.
Yes. It has happened to me. I literally don’t remember anything past a certain point. There’s videos of me that I don’t remember and texts that I don’t remember sending
Yes, ish. Have memory of the start of the night. At a point the blackout starts and memory dies.
>I’ve drank a lot before.
Over a period of time? Or quickly? The speculation is that it is a sudden spike in blood alcohol which causes the black out.
Your "a lot" may not be a lot. Or it maybe is.
An example. At a work do with a free bar, I started with a few pints. Then hit the spirits. I remember about the first 8 shots. So about the first 60 -> 90 minutes of the night.
I was told that i drank all the Sambuka the bar had, but i don’t remember that. A bottle and a half. Before I moved onto other spirits.
I don’t drink anymore.
I woke up in the back of a car 250 km from my home
Yes. It gets worse the longer you drink. Once you build a tolerance, you can drink heavily and not really realize that your drunk or it’s not as euphoric as before. For me, this led to more intake. By the time body body caught up to the liquor intake I would be beyond the point of no return. Have woke up in jail and detox multiple times. As a recovering alcoholic any extended and overuse of alcohol will eventually catch up to you.
Night before? If you are really out of control you can lose memory of a whole week or more
Yes
Once you’ve blacked out I think your memories are based on what you do actually remember and what people tell you.
Yes, can confirm, has happened to me!
Yes, it’s time travel. Drink one night and then end up in the future
What are you? A cop?
A friend of mine got so drunk he started yelling about things that got a welfare check called on him and he ended up in the hospital with a clinically significant level of alcohol poisoning. He remembers nothing between taking a drink and waking up in the hospital. He said that not knowing wtf happened was terrifying and he refuses to touch alcohol after that. So yes it happens and it’s dangerous.
Absolutely. When I was younger it happened a few times. Waking up with no idea how I got to where I was, heard stories from friends I was with about some shit I had done. Fortunately I wasn’t a violent or angry drunk when it happened. Just a smaller guy keeping up with his heavier friends and getting too drunk too fast. It’s been decades ago by now. Definitely happens, blackout drunk is real.
Yes. It’s happened to me.
How would anyone know?
Yes it’s possible. You have to drink a lot to get to that point and it’s really not good for you. But it can happen. More frequently your memory will be very spotty—it’s uncommon for it to just be blank, but it’s certainly not impossible
It’s called Tuesday
I used to take anxiety pills and drink. I had a closing bartending shift that I didn’t remember at all. I woke up the next morning freaking out that I didn’t remember closing the bar.
I showed up to work later that day braced for impact, thinking I surely was getting fired because I didn’t close the bar.
I did. I closed fine, my money was right and all the liquor was accounted for.
I stopped drinking shortly after that.
I wish I could reply skeptically to your premise.
Yes, and you‘re still 100% resposible for the crap you do.
When I tended bar I would ask a simple question like are you from “Brockton” or are you from whatever other town. If they kept answering like you never asked the question I knew they were blackout drunk. If they were lucid enough they would ask why I kept asking the same question again. Easy carefree test. The brain is a simple machine when you drink.
Yes it’s black out- what I never understood is how those characters aren’t disgusting looking and puked all over themselves after passing out
Yes, it’s when your blood alcohol level rises too fast. If you take shots or drink really strong stuff and you haven’t eaten or drank much water, your blood alcohol will rise so fast that you are only making short term memories and can’t make long term memories so you won’t remember. You can tell if someone is blackout drunk if you ask them about something that happened 15 minutes ago and they don’t remember. They will still remember past stuff and who they are and sometimes be able to function though.
Yup I have done it. Jagger will steal my memory.
Yes they can I’m recovering and was a black out drunk
I binged my Vodka. I can’t believe the things I would say and not recall that I’d never say
Then you deal with they "say drunks tell the truth!"
Black out is not the same as drunk.
Stay on top of that
Yes. I have a former colleague who blacks out more than half the time we get drunk. Sometimes, we don’t tell him what he did the night before to protect his sanity.
Black out drunk is a possibility. So is being drugged.
I’ve been blackout drunk, but I have severe doubts that I would’ve been able to perform in that condition, all ethical concerns aside.
Only time I’ve been drunk I got to the point where I vomited about 15 times and then passed out, I don’t recall vomiting past the first 5 times.
Hence ive only been drunk once.
absolutely a thing.
but if someone "blacks out" everytime and never remembers anything they do, that’s sus.