The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

photo by brain_blogger (new window). Jane does not suffer from the classic alcoholic blackout these days or has not had a blackout for about two years. A blackout is when the person cannot remember events during the time he or she was drunk (en bloc blackout - sometimes pieces of information can be recalled). Jane does, though, suffer from general memory loss or it seems to me that her memory is not good and certainly a lot less good than before. As it is a gradual change it goes unrecognised for a long time until one day it dawns on you that your memory sucks (to use an American term). By then it is usually far too late to do anything about it. Apparently there were times in the past when she had an alcoholic blackout but on rare occasions. These days she always binge drinks in bed so no harm can come of her except falling over when going to the toilet or out buying more drink (considerable harm can happen when falling over of course). What I mean is that she doesn't go out to dr...

Jaundice is the only clear outward symptom of long term alcoholism that I know of, other than looking and behaving drunk. Jaundice causes the skin the go yellow. I can clearly remember a moment when I was working (I won't tell you what area it was, but it was providing advice to people). A mother and daughter came to see me. The daughter's problems where to some extent caused or exacerbated by the mother's controlling influence. The daughter was noticeably yellow. It is quite surprising to see someone so noticeably yellow. She was a long term daily alcoholic and is possibly dead by now. Jane my partner has been yellow too. The skin and the eyes go yellow. It doesn't happen that often for her, though. I can only think of one or two occasions in 9 years. This is because she is a binge drinker and a binge drinker gives the liver time to recover from the effects of processing an extreme quantity of alcohol. Jaundice starts at the face and works down the body. Jaundice is ...