Combinations - Enormous Gaps in Memory

[Akewstick]

SWIM woke up yesterday morning expecting it to be tuesday, only to find it was thursday, SWIM spent the next few hours trying to find the 48 hours of memory that were missing. After lots of hard thinking, he managed to retrieve a total of about 10-15 minutes.

SWIM got a knock on his door from some staff from the building he lives in, wanting to know if he was Mr. _____ and if this was his passport and mobile phone. SWIM said yes, and with hands shaking so violently it was basically scribble, attempted to sign on some dotted lines to say he'd recieved his belongings.

The items were found in a bush, about 500m away from where SWIM lives.

SWIM has a cut and a bruise on his head, and various scratches and cuts on his forearms, hands and lower legs.

A few of the images SWIM managed to recount involved lying face-up on a car park, while faces he dosen't have names for looked down at him inquiringly. Another memory of using all of his physical strength to stop his friend from falling down a large flight of concrete stairs. There's one of Louis Theroux talking about UFOs, and another of trying to pour orange juice into an empty bottle of vodka.

SWIM (that he knows of) drank about 25-35cl of jack daniels and a bottle of wine, popped one zopiclone and two sertraline (zoloft) and smoked about half a gram of skunk. However, SWIM woke up to find a litre bottle of vodka with about 4-5 shots left in it (he can't say how much of that he himself drank, but there's only one other person he might have shared it with) and most scarily, the information leaflet from the inside of a box of nytol (Diphenhydramine) with no sign of a box, or any packaging or pills (a box of nytol contains 800mg of diphenydramine).

SWIM had two bags of rubbish by the door waiting to be taken outside that he found had been torn apart and their contents scattered about the room. SWIM is missing a cash card.

He dreads to think how many people saw him in those 48 hours, the things they might remember and think about him that as far as he's concerned relate in no way to him.

SWIM feels like american werewolf in london or Dr Jekyll, like there's another person who occupies his body when he drinks, an evil person intent on fucking SWIM's life up. The most frustrating thing is that about 4 out of 5 times SWIM drinks, this dosen't happen, but every now and then, he'll get tipsy and Drunk SWIM will take over and eat all the pills he can get his hands on, manage to go to bars and shops and get served DXM, alcohol, Diphenydramine, Codeine, even manage to pull off drug deals for weed and pills without letting SWIM remember it.

Does anyone else get this kind of amnesia when they drink? Does anyone else's drunken self go onto auto-pilot to take all the drugs they possibly can regardless of the consequences? How do you deal with it?

This time SWIM didn't get himself into any serious trouble, but he has in the past, and he dosen't want to do so again in the future.

[nanobrain]

oh my. overdosing alcohol and deliriants/dissociatives, not a single positive report to be heard of this combo yet.

while the reptilian autopilot limbic system continues to function, higher cognitive and processing systems are pretty much in shutdown mode, a common occurrence. you are fortunate in not having caused self and others more serious harm on this occasion.

blackouts are serious signs, perhaps this experience will serve as the trigger to start paying abit more attention and love to yourself and your environment?

[Bajeda]

Swim used to have a problem with blackouts from excessive drinking. Luckily he has enough self-control to not allow himself to go and do all sorts of drugs, other than cannabis if he has it at least. Still, it got old waking up to find he had done something or another incredibly stupid that he normally wouldn't, and worse still that he would have to play detective and go around figuring things out. He did this countless, countless times over the course of a year (he never used to blackout before this particular year).

Swim has a good tolerance to alcohol and still drinks, but he doesn't go all-out bonkers anymore and enjoys himself more because of it, and doesn't have anything to feel ashamed of when he wakes up in the morning.

It might be time for SwiAkewstick to revaluate his behvior and what he wants to achieve by it. He may find he has less problems after making small changes in how he goes about recreational drinking. If anything, it makes for much less of a chance that he will overdo it one night and not come back! Please take care and take it easy for a little while so swiy can work on this.