Black Out: New Addition To The Pop Culture

Well, the overconsumption of alcohol to avoid reality is no surprise in this era. Today, blacking out drunk is considered fun, but it severely impacts the functioning of the brain and can cause irreparable damage. Alcohol-induced breakouts are the gaps of memory loss of the events during the phase of intoxication. This alcohol, induced breakouts blocks the process of memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the process of transferring memories from short-term to long-term.

Types Of Blackouts

Majorly there are two kinds of blackouts, and both of them differ on the basis of intensity.

1. Fragmentary or Gray out:

This blackout will have memories of certain fragments, almost like having random spots on the paper. Here the paper is going to the brain, and dots are going to be random memories. This is also known as ‘island memory’.

2. EN-bloc:

This actually justifies the term Blackout. Here a person won’t have any memories of the highly intoxicated phase. During this blackout, your brain doesn’t create memories, and because of no registration of this memory in the account of ‘long-term’, these memories can’t b retrieved. It is all down the drain.

Why do Blackouts Occur?

The bodies of males and females differ physiologically and have different functioning patterns. BAC, the Blood Alcohol concentration, is something that is responsible for Blackouts. Usually, BAC should always be under or on 0.8%. Blackouts usually occur when the levels of Blood Alcohol Concentrations increase to the level of 0.16, which are twice the limits. Blood Alcohol Concentrations are responsible for impulse control, judgements, attention and decision making; if BACs are higher than 0.8%, a person might be on the verge of a blackout.

Research has shown that as males and females are different physiologically, females are at higher risk of blackout. Blackouts are the result of higher BACs, which usually happen after four drinks for a woman and five drinks for men.