|
Kim (38) works for a foreign pharmaceuticals company. When he started experiencing blackouts after drinking, he at first joked that a decade in the marketing team made him thirsty. But the blackouts became more frequent, and he got into the habit of driving under the influence of alcohol despite his friends' protests. He would drive drunk and remember nothing afterwards. "Every morning when I woke up, I¡¯d feel shocked and worried that I hit somebody while driving.¡± He was once picked up by police lying right in the middle of the road in Gangnam and another time found bruises in his arms and legs the next morning, but he had no idea how he got them. Two months ago, Kim started treatment for alcohol dependency.
Many heavy drinkers enjoy talking about their ¡°heroic¡± exploits while drunk, blackouts included. They consider such incidents nothing to be concerned about and just laugh about them. However, blackouts are a signal from your body that serious damage is being done to your brain. They indicate that you are a patient with an advanced alcohol problem and may be gearing up for alcoholic dementia. "When you drink, alcohol spreads throughout your body via the blood stream, and the brain, where much of the blood supply is concentrated, suffers the biggest damage," says Prof. Namkoong Kee of Severance Hospital's Department of Psychiatry. "It recovers at first, but repeated blackouts can do permanent damage to the brain, just as springs get less elastic over time.¡± Your short term memory still works while you suffer a blackout, and you can drive and even have sex under the condition. But the memories are not stored in your long-term memory. It is like working hard on a report on the computer but forgetting to click ¡°save.¡±
Repeated blackouts bring about structural changes to the brain. With full-blown alcoholic dementia, the brain shrinks and the cerebral ventricle, an empty space in the middle of the brain, gets larger. Blackouts take place more frequently in proportion to the amount of alcohol you drink and how quickly you do it. Drinking a bottle of soju or traditional Korean distilled liquor in 30 minutes is more dangerous than drinking two over four hours. Blackouts strike when blood alcohol content reaches around 0.1-0.2 percent (one or two bottles of soju). A study of 100 alcohol dependency patients in the U.S. found that 53 of 64 who experienced blackouts, or 83 percent of the total, had serious alcohol addiction. Blackouts are caused when you drink frequently, when your stomach is empty or when you're tired.
Alcoholic dementia makes up some 10 percent of total dementia patients. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, it starts from the frontal lobe, which controls emotions. This is why alcohol dementia patients get angry easily, often become violent and can¡¯t control their emotions. With Alzheimer's disease, by contrast, memory loss comes first. "If you continue to experience blackouts at intervals of several days, you need to see a doctor who can treat alcohol problems," says Shin Jae-jeong, the director of Dasarang Hospital. "If they don't take it seriously, even those in their 30s can have dementia.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
