I want you to help me understand being blackout drunk.  I didn't start drinking until about 6 years ago when I was 39.   So, I started drinking at a mature age and haven't had a ton of experience getting wasted.  So far, I have never had a hangover.  From what I was I have heard people can have extraordinary tales of long terms of being blackout drunk while appearing to others as completely functional.  Have you experienced this yourself or seen another individual like this?  Completely functional, but not writing any memories while drunk for an extend period of time?

So many times. Part of the reason I sobered up.

No matter how cool the story is the next day, it’s a shitty feeling. I’ve heard insane stories about me when blacked out drunk and don’t remember a fucking second of it.

There have been times where I’d black out and come back minutes later and just be walking around somewhere else and those are cool. You gotta catch that shit with some food though to stop it.

Let's see, I'll say this, I stopped drinking in my early 20's. I never really liked drinking and basically either I didn't drink at all or I got obliterated. I worked for a band for seven years and alcohol was free at the venues. There are stories about me that have been told as recently as a year ago. So, yeah...been there and haven't done it in almost 25 years.

Dec 11, 2019 20:21:27 GMT KING KID said:

So many times. Part of the reason I sobered up.

No matter how cool the story is the next day, it’s a shitty feeling. I’ve heard insane stories about me when blacked out drunk and don’t remember a fucking second of it.

There have been times where I’d black out and come back minutes later and just be walking around somewhere else and those are cool. You gotta catch that shit with some food though to stop it.

More or less this, minus the sobering up part (although, to be fair, haven't been blackout since that 18-22 age range). Was close to blackout in April though at the Pirates home opener.

Definitely prefer weed now.

Blacked out so many times in me teens and 20s. The perception of blackouts, I think, is a little skewed, like within that blackout you're capable of doing stuff out of character, but that was never the case with me. I'd just be my typical drunk stuff (so I've been told), which was only a slightly uninhibited version of my normal self, which was good because I was mostly too inhibited in everyday life. My blackouts only ever lasted a couple hours. I'd remember things clearly before and after, but there'd be portion in the middle that would be fuzzy or sometimes completely erased. Found it more peculiar than scary. After a couple of times of asking what happened during the missing period and getting rather monotonous answers, that's what you assume was always the case during your blackout, and it remained that way for me always. Maybe, I was lucky. Haven't blacked out in a long time. Don't drink all that much anymore.

Once, I witnessed a friend's blackout while I was sober, which was a trip. I had gone to his apartment to watch boxing or UFC and he had been drinking all day. So, I get there, I'm taking an inventory of what he's got food and drinkwise at the apartment, he doesn't have shit, so we walk 8 or 9 blocks to the Duane Reade to get provisions. On the way there, he's telling me a story about a Mets game from that day or the day before. Highly detailed. I buy his stuff and on the walk back to his apartment he tells me the exact same story about the Mets game. Exact. Like every adjective, every detail is the same. I thought he was fucking with me. I told him he had just told me that, and he was like, "Goddamn, really?" This kind of snapped him out of his blackout, apparently, because he remembered everything after that. The cherry on top was the next day he went to the same Duane Reade and bought a near identical set of items, our shopping have taken place during the blackout, thus completely forgotten about.

Every time we go to that Duane Reade, it gets brought up. But that's most blackouts, I think. There are horror stories, obviously, but I think for the most part it's just a brief period between a long drunken state the same as everything before and after it, which tends to be rather harmless, generally speaking.

Dec 11, 2019 21:05:57 GMT Kilgore said:

Blacked out so many times in me teens and 20s. The perception of blackouts, I think, is a little skewed, like within that blackout you're capable of doing stuff out of character, but that was never the case with me. I'd just be my typical drunk stuff (so I've been told), which was only a slightly uninhibited version of my normal self, which was good because I was mostly too inhibited in everyday life. My blackouts only ever lasted a couple hours. I'd remember things clearly before and after, but there'd be portion in the middle that would be fuzzy or sometimes completely erased. Found it more peculiar than scary. After a couple of times of asking what happened during the missing period and getting rather monotonous answers, that's what you assume was always the case during your blackout, and it remained that way for me always. Maybe, I was lucky. Haven't blacked out in a long time. Don't drink all that much anymore.

Kilgore saved me a lot of effort because this is exactly my experience with blackouts.

My blackout period only lasted a couple of years: my first two years at university. At the time I was so shy and socially underdeveloped that I basically needed alcohol to cope in social situations, so I would pre-drink excessively before the night even started. Every week. Looking back, it was a pretty pathetic practice, but lots of students did it so it seemed normal. When the blackouts started happening it didn't bother me at all, particularly as I never got hangovers (and still don't), but as I grew more mature I realised that not remembering the night before is actually shit. So at that point I stopped drinking excessively, and a year later I was only drinking on rare occasions, a habit that has continued to this day.

The vast majority of the time I have enough self control to stop drinking before I reach a danger zone, but on a handful of occasions between my early 20s and the present day, I have been blackout drunk. The most recent being my 30th birthday earlier this year. My colleagues supplied me with beer at a speed I wasn't used to, and I went from sober to drunk while skipping the tipsy point at which I would normally stop. That was my first night out with my work colleagues too. Fortunately I didn't do anything ridiculous (I never do) so nothing came of it besides some light jokes.

So, would you all say that darn near anything is possible while being black out drunk? Like you could buy airfare and end up in Vegas?

Dec 11, 2019 21:52:20 GMT theend said:

So, would you all say that darn near anything is possible while being black out drunk? Like you could buy airfare and end up in Vegas?

I guess, if the airline sold them a ticket and let them get on the plane that drunk.  

I think the worse things I did was run through a glass door after drinking a bunch of tequila, not getting cut at all and proclaiming myself a superhero.

Members of three bands all thought it was a great idea to jump into a pool with all our clothes on, this way we could save time by bathing and doing laundry, at the same time.  All great ideas at the time...I'm sure.

So yeah...I don't drink at all.

From my experience, it's like sleepwalking except you barely recall being asleep. It was like I caught myself dozing off, only to open my eyes somewhere else. It barely felt like seconds had passed when it had been hours and instantly I had that need to figure out when the time went. When I was told a couple of things, I started to recall them but as a dream and only as an emotional response. I don't think I would have been capable of ordering airplane tickets unless my friends decided to pull a Weekend at Bernies on me. Things could be different now with smart phones and everything else, this was 10+ years ago.

Yeah anything can happen while you're blacked out. Majority of the time, I wake up in a bed the next morning. Whether it be my own, a hotel room or a friends house.

Worst thing I ever did was get kicked out of a strip club when black out drunk because I was smacking strippers in their asses. I don't remember a damn thing, but I was proud of myself when I heard that I was doing that.

But being black out drunk has led me to some awesome moments too like making out with some bad bitches. Unfortunately, when you get to that level of drunk, there's no way you're getting a boner and stoning these bitches so it sort of ends at that level.

BUT last time I got black out drunk, I was so disappointed in myself the next day because I felt I was too old for that shit. I didn't do nothing too crazy, but I was kind of laying in bed the next day just saying that I'm done partying to that level for no occassion.

I used to have a drinking issue, I went to AA for 3 months. I would get blackout drunk all the time. I was in the drunk tank 50 times (they told me when I hit 50 in the town I grew up in).

If someone spoke to me about something I didn't remember, I would say something like "I couldn't have done that, I was in blackout city"

Whether or not I was blackout drunk didn't affect my behaviour, the level of drunk I was accomplished that on it's own. There was a period of my life after I had come out of a long term relationship where I probably don't remember the majority of several months (it was summer break during university). I would wake up in such a variety of locations and who know what amount of clothes I had or if I was waking up with some random woman. Maybe I woke up in a park, bed, couch, whatever. I had a habit in this time to get naked and helicopter my dick around, apparently I thought it was funny.

The thing that made me decide to be sober for awhile and change my life was when I was wanted to be a witness for a fairly serious criminal proceeding, and I had to tell the lawyers I had no recollection of whatever they were talking about. Good times.

Dec 11, 2019 21:52:20 GMT theend said:

So, would you all say that darn near anything is possible while being black out drunk? Like you could buy airfare and end up in Vegas?

It's rarely that sensational. It's more like:

"You threw up at a diner last night, you don't remember that?"

"We went to a diner?"

I definitely got blackout drunk from time to time in my early-mid 20s but I have no interesting stories of my own to share. Kilgore's example of not knowing you went to a diner the night before pretty much nails the extent of my boring blackout experiences. I've also been the (somewhat) sober guy listening to the story repeaters, and had many friends like Kid & Nazzer who would tell tales of waking up wearing strange clothes in unfamiliar beds.

Dec 12, 2019 1:09:29 GMT nazzer said:

I had a habit in this time to get naked and helicopter my dick around, apparently I thought it was funny.

So, would it be possible for someone to totally consent to someone while blackout drunk and the person they were with not able to perceive them as blackout drunk?

Dec 12, 2019 14:21:45 GMT theend said:

So, would it be possible for someone to totally consent to someone while blackout drunk and the person they were with not able to perceive them as blackout drunk?

Apparently if the girl is blackout drunk and you have sex with her, you just raped her which is fucking bullshit IMO because how am I supposed to know shes black out drunk while shes grabbing at my dick through my pants? Know what I mean?

Dec 12, 2019 14:21:45 GMT theend said:

So, would it be possible for someone to totally consent to someone while blackout drunk and the person they were with not able to perceive them as blackout drunk?

There's more difference in behaviour between 'drunk' and 'blackout drunk' it's just the blackout person isn't forming memories.

I think you're asking about consent to do with sex? Consent shouldn't be considered given when drunk no matter what if you want to play it safe.

Dec 12, 2019 15:12:30 GMT KING KID said:

Dec 12, 2019 14:21:45 GMT theend said:

So, would it be possible for someone to totally consent to someone while blackout drunk and the person they were with not able to perceive them as blackout drunk?

Apparently if the girl is blackout drunk and you have sex with her, you just raped her which is fucking bullshit IMO because how am I supposed to know shes black out drunk while shes grabbing at my dick through my pants? Know what I mean?

I do and I don't. And that is why I am asking.  It sounds like someone can appear willing and consensual while blackout drunk and just not writing memories and someone on the other side may not be able to perceive it.  Like the person selling the person airline tickets would not know the person was in a blackout.  Or the person in the diner would not know the guy order the 2 egg special is about to hurl.  If this is the case, it is a fascinating legal mess.

Amazon, doesn't know when we were drinking...

Dec 12, 2019 15:12:54 GMT nazzer said:

Dec 12, 2019 14:21:45 GMT theend said:

So, would it be possible for someone to totally consent to someone while blackout drunk and the person they were with not able to perceive them as blackout drunk?

There's more difference in behaviour between 'drunk' and 'blackout drunk' it's just the blackout person isn't forming memories.

I think you're asking about consent to do with sex? Consent shouldn't be considered given when drunk no matter what if you want to play it safe.

But, if a person is in a blackout, do they know enough to give consent or not give consent?  Is that level of rational there?  

I don't think being blackout drunk is considered consensual according to law.

Dec 12, 2019 15:42:09 GMT theend said:

Dec 12, 2019 15:12:54 GMT nazzer said:

There's more difference in behaviour between 'drunk' and 'blackout drunk' it's just the blackout person isn't forming memories.

I think you're asking about consent to do with sex? Consent shouldn't be considered given when drunk no matter what if you want to play it safe.

But, if a person is in a blackout, do they know enough to give consent or not give consent?  Is that level of rational there?  

You could argue points on each side. Again, your questions answer is no different for any level of drunkenness.

I think you are making decisions and some level of critical thought process. It's not like you suddenly lose the ability to act. But, you are definitely more open to coercion and 8t is known drunk people make more risky decisions than when sober. The answer may be specific situation dependant. If one person is drunk and another is not, then maybe non consensual because there could appear to be coercion.

I think kid made examples of drunk women groping men leading to sex. I've read situations about women saying it was non consensual when it started with a very drunk woman groping a man.

I think consent can be given while drunk. But I also think q drunk person may forget they have consent after the fact. In our hyper sensitive society it is probably better to not have someone in that situation. Maybe wait until you are in a situation where consent is given enthusiastically, obviously, and happily in a state where the two people can clearly Express their desires in how they wish to get jiggy with each other, rather than having probably bad drunk sex with a stranger who won't remember it.

It's very easy to tell if someone is blackout drunk. Not even blackout drunk. A very drunk person is very different from a sober person and the signs are clear. So I don't know where all this consent talk is coming from, nor
where these talking points about not being about to recognise blackout drunkenness are coming from.

I can tell when a chick is black out drunk. Their eyes do some funny shit. The legs move differently. They sip on their drink when there nothing in the cup.

BUT....


You grab my crotch and it's on like donkey kong.

Dec 12, 2019 17:11:00 GMT Emperor said:

It's very easy to tell if someone is blackout drunk. Not even blackout drunk. A very drunk person is very different from a sober person and the signs are clear. So I don't know where all this consent talk is coming from, nor
where these talking points about not being about to recognise blackout drunkenness are coming from.

Go about 9 minutes in 


www.facebook.com/watch/?v=512156566048672

I have been blackout drunk more times than I care to count. The last time was 6 years ago in Jamaica. I don't remember ever going streaking or swinging my dick around, but I do know I woke up naked in guys' beds with having no recollection of the events leading up to that. That being said, the few times it happened it was with guys I would have slept with had I been in charge of all my faculties and I never ended up in that situation when I was married (other than with my husband at the time), so it begs the question: is it like hypnosis where you don't remember the events, but you wouldn't technically do anything you wouldn't actually do if your inhibitions were in place?

My drunk stories were legen...wait for it...dary. Thank Christ they didn't have video capabilities on cameras at that time. There's a VHS tape kicking around of me falling off a parade float on National TV absolutely smashed, but who owns a VCR anymore?!

At any rate, I stopped getting to that point often because 1) my daughter 2) responsibilities 3) I get 5 star hangovers and the older I get, the longer they last 4) I don't like losing control like that anymore.

Being blackout drunk just means you are drunk and your memory loop stops encoding long term memories. There is a drug they can inject that mimics it exactly. Sat through a lecture panel on disrupting this loop. Wild stuff. Disrupting the memory does not change behavior or speech, so telling whether a drunk person has or has no blacked out is not that easy. You can tell how drunk they are, and how impaired they are, but not when exactly their memory goes as there is a lot of variability to how high of a BAC level people can have before they blackout.

As for consent, encoding memories does not matter legally. Consent stops when someone is drunk. Whether they can remember or not does not matter legally.

Dec 15, 2019 13:09:26 GMT c said:

Being blackout drunk just means you are drunk and your memory loop stops encoding long term memories. There is a drug they can inject that mimics it exactly. Sat through a lecture panel on disrupting this loop. Wild stuff. Disrupting the memory does not change behavior or speech, so telling whether a drunk person has or has no blacked out is not that easy. You can tell how drunk they are, and how impaired they are, but not when exactly their memory goes as there is a lot of variability to how high of a BAC level people can have before they blackout.

As for consent, encoding memories does not matter legally. Consent stops when someone is drunk. Whether they can remember or not does not matter legally.

c, I was reading how there is no such thing as accurate memory as the system the brain uses to store information is imprecise.
Two people can 100% be telling the truth and have different recollections, frightening how much variability there is and how this is not accounted for.

Loftus is the best at talking about this. Had a longer reply, but everything I know on this topic was from spending a day with her at a conference. Basically the brain is lazy and stores perception of events rather than sensations and each time you remember something, you replace the old memory with the current perception of the memory. So if you cannot remember the color of a car, the brain does not leave out the color of a car in your memory, it just inputs the most likely color as in most cases the color of a car your brain considers trivial information not worth spending space on remembering in detail. Some links to Loftus's stuff. Very interesting reads if you are into memory.

www.npr.org/transcripts/557424726
www.simplypsychology.org/loftus-palmer.html

During the conference someone did talk about the human trials of propranolol memory blocking to treat PTSD. Basically they would weaken memory with propranolol and other drugs then do intense recall of the traumatic events to re-encode the memory while removing much of the emotional impact of it and making it fade somewhat. People were absolutely horrified by this.

Memory is fascinating and vulnerable as can be. Unless you are Mary Lou henner. I don't why we trust memory so much.

Interesting angle for anyone first digging in on memory
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory