Getting drunk.

Now that I can feel my own feet on the ground, I have decided to read up on something which truly amused me while I was recovering from a horrible hangover.

On Saturday night, I went clubbing with my friends to celebrate my birthday. As usual, the birthday girl/boy is sure to get drunk and totally wasted. Before my mind goes completely blank that night, the last thing I remember was hugging my 2 best friends, Yi Ting and Peh Ge. The next thing I know, I was lying on my bed, still in my party dress, someone tied my hair up, my make up smeared and I smell awful. The whole room reeks of liquor and cigarette.

The first thing that came to my mind when I woke up was ‘what the hell happened?’. I realised I was sleeping next to a roll of tissue. I started wondering ‘did I puke?’. Checked my phone and there was a message from my boyfriend saying my house key is with him, and a message on facebook from Yi Ting checking to see if I’m okay.

Wow I must have been dead drunk.

Yi Ting told me my shoes are on the shoe rack outside the house, that I puked twice in the club, where the 2nd time after I puked I could not even walk properly someone had to come and carry me back to our seat. Our car was the first car to leave(thanks to me. So sorry guys..) and I puked outside my house and in the waste paper basket when I got home. Apparently I kept saying "I’m sorry I’m sorry", "I want to stay sober", "please sober me", "i don’t wanna get drunk", "stop it this is painful" and finally "I wanna go home".
I thought I just K.O-ed without actually doing anything else since I could not remember anything. I thought not being able to recall a thing means I was unconscious throughout. But I was wrong. I managed to talk, to walk(a little), to puke, etc. I wasn’t just sleeping. So how is it possible for someone to be able to talk and walk but not remember a single thing the day after? What state of consciousness is this?

I practically slept the entire day yesterday. Woke up spontaneously around 9am+, checked my messages and immediately fell asleep again. Woke up again at 11am+ with a horrible headache and stomach cramp. According to my mom, she tried waking me up that morning cause she wanted to borrow my socks. She pushed and nudged me and I did not respond at all. I didn’t even know that happened. Had only a cup of plain water + 1 single piece of toast for lunch. Couldn’t walk in a straight line. Went home and sleep again. Woke up again at 7 and went out for dinner. Head still throbbing, my whole body feels numb. There was a needle-and-pin sensation in my arms and legs. Both my baby toes hurt. The skin on my left baby toe is torn. Someone must've stepped on me. LOL. My stomach felt quesy. I constantly feel like I’m going to puke but nothing comes out.

It was my mom’s birthday, so I sat around and celebrated with the rest of the family while trying my best not to move myself too much. At 10pm+ I was feeling tired as hell, my limbs felt worn out but I couldn’t fall asleep due to the horrible headache and dizziness I was feeling. Woke up around 10am+ this morning. Still feeling a little light-headed but overall I guess I could say I’ve recovered from the ordeal.

Which leads me to moments ago where I turned on my laptop and did some research on being drunk, passing out and not remembering a single thing.


This site basically explains everything:

What are alcohol blackouts?
Alcohol blackouts are periods of lost memory during times of alcohol intoxication. Although the terms blacking out and passing out are often interchanged and confused, passing out actually refers to a loss of consciousness, while people who later blackout on memories were fully conscious and often carried out complex events during the time of their memory blackout.
You can't blackout on memories formed while unconscious…there aren’t any to miss!
No one would know to look at an intoxicated person during a time of memory blackout that he or she was in fact in a memory blackout.

Fragmentary and Complete Blackouts

There are 2 types of alcohol induced blackouts – fragmentary and total. People who have experienced a fragmentary blackout may not recall the events of a period of intoxication until they are reminded or cued about them.
People who have experienced a total blackout will not remember, even with memory cues, any of the events that occurred during the period of the memory blackout.
Blackouts can last for hours or even days. Memory blackouts do not affect memories formed prior to the onset of drunkenness.

Why Does Alcohol Cause Blackouts?

Alcohol is a systematic drug that affects nearly all systems of the brain. The hippocampus, a primary area of memory formation and retrieval, is no exception.
What seems to happen is that alcohol disrupts the brain's ability to consolidate short term memories and process them into long term memories.
We have 3 types of memory.

1. Process or immediate memory
2. Short term memory
3. Long term memory

Process memory lasts only a few seconds, and allows us to perform daily tasks with ease.
Short term memories are slightly more significant, and are stored in the brain for a few minutes.

Short term memories that are very significant, and that are "practiced or thought about quite a lot" are moved into long term storage.
Alcohol seems to block the brain's ability to take salient short term memories and move them into long term storage.
What this means is that since short term memory storage is unaffected, an intoxicated person can maintain a conversation as per normal (Where the flow of the conversation rarely demands that you recall facts for more than a few minutes) but if asked to recall events of an hour before, or the night before, the intoxicated person would have much more trouble.

What Influences the Occurrence of Blackouts?

Blackouts, like memory in general, are a very poorly understood phenomenon. Research indicates that genetic variables influence the experience (Some people who drink at alcoholic levels never seem to experience blackouts) and the speed of onset of intoxication also seems to influence the occurrence.
The faster you drink, and the faster your blood alcohol level rises, the more likely you are to experience a blackout.

So basically, I blacked out due to alcohol intoxification. I’ve never gotten drunk before. I have never puked so much and lose my memory before. All the while I actually pride myself for having an above average alcohol tolerance. Because everytime I go clubbing I only get high and I’m taking care of someone else. This time, people took care of me. I died and came back a zombie. Hahaha.

Honestly, getting drunk is no fun at all. I could understand that partying and getting high is fun but being unable to remember what you said or did feels horrible. It’s like you were there but you missed all the fun and had to wake up with the most awful headache and stomach cramp.

No clubbing and alcohol for at least a month. Traumatic. I don’t wanna get drunk, ever again. Tipsy’s the limit.

Nonetheless, it was a good experience(now I know how getting drunk feels like.) and thank you to all who came! <3