unaware that he had a problem forming new ones. By way of compensation, like many Korsakoff’s sufferers, he would fill in gaps by confabulating plausible but nonetheless crazy stories. “I think I saw you at the ball park,” he might say to someone he had just met. “That hot dog was great, wasn’t it?” The urge to fabricate experiences probably grows out of a need to save face. Many alcoholics do it in the early stages of the syndrome, and while it is an interesting component of memory loss, it is not a necessary one.
