Alcohol Explained

by William Porter

The generally accepted theory on alcohol and memory is that alcohol can prevent memories from passing from the short-term memory into the long-term memory, and that this is caused not by the degree of drunkenness on any particular occasion, but the accumulation of drinking over time. So we do not have to be blind drunk to suffer from the interference with our memory, we just need to maintain a certain level of intoxication over a certain time period. However, as with sleep, the actual science behind it is of less interest than the effect when seeking out a logical explanation for the alcohol-induced blackout phenomenon. All we really need to know from this perspective is that the effect of drinking is such that we can suffer complete memory loss on occasions when we are, in fact, very far from fully intoxicated. This is the first of the three points we have to bear in mind.

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