THE night is beautiful; daylight is only two hours away, but no one has any intention of going home. After all, the drinks are flowing, food is abundant, and the music is getting better. And oh! I almost forgot! My group is invited to stay for breakfast. So, the party continues on the roof garden in one of the most exclusive areas in the city.Suddenly, a cacophony of voices rises above the din of the music.

We look over and see a panicked young man gripping a limp young woman under her shoulders, trying to keep her head above the ground. Some confusion ensues as her friends run around and yell for a few seconds, before another person grabs her by the legs and takes her away, with the aforementioned person holding her under the shoulders and fetching her out like a sack of potatoes.

That’s the last I see of her for the evening, but I later learnt that she had tried to drink (And almost finished the job!) a full size bottle of Ciroc Vodka!

Afterwards, some scandalized observers commented, “You must know your limit.” and other such criticisms before the party resumes.

First of all, we know she ‘passed out’, which, according to Wikipedia, the Online encyclopaedia, is an act exclusive of “blacking out”. ‘Blackout’ means having memory loss resulting from the shock of the alcohol. But according to Aaron M. White, Ph.D., who is an assistant research professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina: “If recreational drugs were tools, alcohol would be a sledgehammer. Few cognitive functions or behaviours escape the impact of alcohol.”

Women may have a harder time avoiding blackouts, since their blood alcohol content increases more quickly than men’s. Not only do they tend to have less water in their bodies to disperse the alcohol, but they also have less gastric dehyrogenase, an enzyme that breaks down alcohol.

Anyone with a strong familiarity with booze has either had a blackout themselves, or knows someone who has. But not all blackouts are created equal; there are two types, “en bloc” and “fragmentary.” As their names imply, fragmentary blackouts cause the drinker to not recall moments for small periods of time, whereas en bloc refers to larger periods.

People who experience fragmentary blackouts, sometimes referred to as “brownouts,” can typically recall forgotten events once they’re reminded of them. People who experience en bloc blackouts aren’t so lucky. But both types are believed to be caused by the same thing, namely: a neurophysiological, chemical disruption in the brain’s hippocampus, a region integral to memory formation.

Alcohol interferes with the receptors in the hippocampus that transmit glutamate, a compound that carries signals between neurons. During this interference, alcohol prevents some receptors from working while activating others. This process causes the neurons to create steroids that then prevent neurons from communicating with each other properly, thus disrupting long-term potentiation (LTP), a process believed necessary for learning and memory.

Studies supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant AA–12478 and the Institute for Medical Research at the VA Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina proved that alcohol primarily interferes with the ability to form new long–term memories, leaving intact previously established long–term memories and the ability to keep new information active in memory for brief periods.
As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, so does the magnitude of the memory impairment. Large amounts of alcohol, particularly if consumed rapidly, can produce partial (i.e. fragmentary) or complete (i.e. en bloc) blackouts, which are periods of memory loss for events that transpired while a person was drinking.

Mechanisms underlying alcohol–induced memory impairments include disruption of activity in the hippocampus, a region of the brain that plays a central role in the formation of new autobiographical memories.

Drinking large quantities of alcohol often precedes blackouts, but several other factors also appear to play important roles in causing such episodes of memory loss. Among the factors that preceded blackouts were gulping drinks, and drinking on an empty stomach, each of which leads to a rapid rise in BAC (Blood Alcohol Content).

Most people can avoid alcohol blackouts fairly easily by following a few simple drinking rules to avoid spiking their BAC.

Strategies to prevent passing out and blacking out:

Eat

Studies show the main culprit of a blackout is a fast, dramatic spike in blood alcohol content. This spike usually kicks in at a blood alcohol level of at least 0.15 percent. That’s roughly twice the legal limit for driving. And the trouble really begins when this level is reached quickly.

The stomach has only a few square feet of surface area to use to absorb liquids, but the small intestine has many thousands of square feet for the purpose of absorbing liquids, because it is covered with villi. When you eat a meal, you cause the valve between the stomach and the intestine to close for several hours, and this greatly slows the influx of alcohol into the bloodstream and prevents BAC spikes.

Hydrate

If you drink a lot of water before you take any alcohol, you will not be thirsty. If you are not thirsty, then you will drink more slowly, and not spike your BAC so much.

Pace yourself

Slow down your drinking speed. One way to do this is to alternate non-alcoholic drinks with alcoholic drinks. Another technique is to time your drinks with your watch.

Weaken drinks
Avoid drinking straight shots of booze if you have blackouts. As a general rule, the weaker the drink, the longer it will take to drink it.

Rest
Many people have blackouts if they drink alcohol when they are sleep deprived. Being well rested before you drink will help you to avoid having alcoholic blackouts.

Don’t mix booze and ‘Meds’
Many medications can greatly increase your chance of blackouts if you drink on them. Some can even kill you if you drink on them. Medications which commonly lead to blackouts when mixed with alcohol include narcotic painkillers such as codeine; non-narcotic painkillers like aspirin; and nearly all sleep aids, including antihistamines like Benadryl, and prescription sleep aids like Ambien.

Avoid drinking games
Things like drinking games can spike your BAC very quickly. If you have problems with blackouts, stay away from these.

Binge drinking should not be taken lightly, aside from courting passing out and even more serious blackouts, any time you alter your basic brain function in such a significant way, it leaves you open to long-term damage.

Basic functions in the brain are significantly altered, and this could represent long-term damage.

Sources: www. pubs.niaaa.nih.gov, www.gizmodo.com, www.wikipedia.com
Written By Michelle Gonsalves