Does Alcohol Just Effect Me Differently Now Or Is Something Else Going On?

by Mark
(Tigard, Oregon)

I was drinking heavily for about 10 years before scary things started happening which made me cut back significantly, but I'm looking for some insight or answers regarding my experience. Here are the things that happened to me, even while drinking less than I had in the past.

1) Blackouts - Despite my heavy drinking, I never knew what a "blackout" was, because I had never had one before, so I thought it was just when you passed out from drinking, so to have someone tell me went to someones house for several hours when I thought I walked home from the bar and went to bed was pretty new to me.

2) Confusion - There were times when I left the bar and walked home, and could not find my apartment, which is bizarre because I have made that walk a hundred times and it is not hard to find my apartment. The scary part is I didn't feel drunk and I was fully aware of where I was, but I just kept getting turned around and walking the wrong direction and could not find my apartment.

One time, I ended up at a friends house and asked her to help me find my place because I was lost. She thought I was joking because without a whole lot of effort you can practically see my door from her apartment across the courtyard. It was really scary because I didn't really feel that drunk, I felt like I was losing my mind or going senile. I mean obviously, I walked all the way home from the bar several blocks away without any problems so why couldn't I find my apartment?

3) Sometimes getting very drunk with far less consumption - One example was when my girlfriend came over to my place in the afternoon and I was so drunk she was really mad and just told me off and left.

This would be understandable if I had been sitting around slamming drinks all day and I could understand why she would be mad, the only problem is, I wasn't drinking all day, I only had three drinks over a couple hours before she got there. After she left I was standing there thinking "what the hell happened, I only had a few drinks".

I have had my liver checked since then and according to the doctor, my liver is fine so I don't think it's related to liver damage, but who knows. Can anyone tell me why these things would start happening when I never had any problems before, other than the obvious hangovers if I drank too much the night before? Thank you.

Alcoholism-and-Drug-Addiction-Help.com Answer

You should probably familiarize yourself with the most common effects of consistent alcohol abuse ... and then perhaps get a further battery of tests done to ensure there is no physical explanation. Are you taking any prescribed meds ... often they interfere with alcohol and the side effects can be horrendous.

But it could just be a case of you now paying the price of many years of consistent alcohol abuse. All that alcohol does eventually alter your brain chemistry and your body struggles to process the alcohol as effectively as it used to before ... and the consequences thereof are not nice to say the least.

So you need to be careful you don't end up causing irreversible damage. Best you take a break from all alcohol for a while and see how that goes. And if that's something you struggle with, you probably have a drinking problem more serious than you realize.

Ten years of heaving drinking is going to come with consequences. Hopefully if you make changes now, the long-term effects won't be too damaging. But if you go back to drinking the way you were, the effects you're now experiencing are only likely to get worse and worse.

All the Best

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