How to not get blackout drunk reddit
Malcolm Gladwell: How to Tell if Someone is Blackout Drunk
Timecodes:
the Joe Rogan experience I don't know
too much about the actual is there a
difference between the way different
alcohol affects is does the wine alcohol
actually affect you by volume by by by
the actual percentage of alcohol does it
affect you differently than beer or
differently than whisky or differently
in tequila cuz that's what people always
say oh if I drink tequila I get crazy
like people always have these stories
but is that true if you have you had a
certain percentage of alcohol see we eat
yes equalize the the alcohol
concentration is it all the same in you
yes because for me wine makes me warm
and friendly and it makes me sleepy and
it mean it doesn't make me energetic
whiskey makes me crazy like I think it's
a crazy drug I think when people drink
shots of Jack Daniels they just want to
go whoa they want to get correct they
want to do dumb [ __ ] it makes them want
to do dumb things shots in particular
makes people want to do dumb things
makes people get crazy makes you below
that makes people Irish right Ben are
you saying blobs I mean quarter Irish
get away with it for a little while
only a quarter that's it yeah mostly
Italian well I see you're at the cusp of
these two drinking traditions yes yes I
see but Rogan you're foolin Irish you're
fooling this was Rogan yes yes because
if we would think that you were majority
Irish with that yes yeah and I could be
dark Irish if you looked at my view yeah
I'm well I'm you know I'm a reserved
English and Jamaican Jamaicans not big
drinkers you know in the same kind of
the difference actually fascinatingly of
the many weird alcohol facts if you look
at young people it's like looks like a
college age young people in America and
look at their drinking habits the black
students drink and get drunk markedly
less than white kids really
differences in drinking behavior by race
in at that age
Asian students don't drink much either
drinking is like a cycle it's like a
white thing it's like a crazy white
thing increasingly you know or
problematic drinking I thought that was
fascinating his first name I don't know
they I don't know why that's so is it
its revered in our culture more it's uh
yeah I mean getting [ __ ] up is
celebrated in white culture well this
you know in the alcohol chapter of my
book the I talk about all the strange
things that have happened with drinking
patterns on campus and I was struck in
doing that chapter I was interested in
the connection between drinking and
drunkenness and sexual assault on campus
because all of those the overwhelming
majority if you talked to people who
study sexual assault on campus they will
tell you that you almost never see one
of these cases where both parties aren't
drunk right it's which doesn't explain
them entirely but it's a huge factor in
making sense of what happens and when
you dig into that you see these like
really weird patterns first up when I
was in college I did not know and I went
to college in Canada not a teetotaling
population I did not know a single
person who had ever been drugged
blackout drunk and then now if you talk
to a 20 year old college student in
America they will name friends of theirs
who get blackout drunk on a weekly basis
what is the drinking age in Canada and
what was it when you were in college
what has ecology was 18 yeah I think
that might be a big factor I've been
talking to friends about this about
Europe about how in Europe particularly
in Italy and France you're allowed to
drink wine at a very young age
yeah and the taboo aspect of it
forbidden fruit all that goes away it's
a just it's a I don't think young kids
should be drinking because I think it's
terrible for your brain development but
I think there's a thing in keeping them
from drinking or making it illegal where
it becomes so taboo and so intoxicating
that they can't wait until they can
legally
do it or they try to get a hold of it
before it's legal and it has a certain
excitement to it that just doesn't it
doesn't have in parts of Europe
yeah you've given it up kind of so
there's all kinds of the things that are
new are way less beer and way more hard
liquor so yeah
hard liquor when I was in school in
Canada in the eighties 95% of what we
drank was beer not there wasn't any
whiskey or even or tequila or vodka in
our party such as beer beer kegs cake
parties
yeah really hard to get blackout drunk
on beer I mean blackout to get the
blackout you've got to be here you got
to get to like I forgotten what the
exact number of 10 drinks or something
well it's point you got to blow like
0.18 or something I forgotten with is a
magic number where people said for
everybody because some people they just
get gerbil eyes like there's some dudes
they'll have a couple of drinks and they
get shark eyes you know those those dark
yeah like expressionless eyes like hey
man he's still here
yeah they're just wandering around like
like a like a person with doll eyes
there's nothin there with these shoes
back that is just at what point does
your hippocampus shut down and you
ceased the ability to have the ability
to make memories and that's just that's
a very narrow clinical explanation of so
there may be a whole different set of
manifestations of drunkenness that have
to do with alcohols effect on other
parts of your brain right but blackout
is just about your hippocampus and past
a certain blood alcohol concentration
your hippocampus just goes offline
essentially you just pull the plug on it
and then so nothing that's coming in is
being stored Wow so you can continue to
communicate I could be blackout drunk
right now but does it vary with people
does it the number well so yes it would
it would vary depending I think on
drinking history and yeah but I mean is
a there is it's there's a kind of a
there's a consensus figure where most
people I wish I it's in my book I wish I
could remember I think it's something
like 0.16 or something like that if you
think of the if the the love the level
legal level for drinking for
for driving is 0.008 I think it's
roughly 2x that level and most people at
that level will be at risk we'll have at
least the beginnings of memory
impairment mm-hmm so that feeling when
you get really drunk at a party and the
next morning you can only remember
little bits and pieces of what happened
that night
that's because your your hippocampus was
Papa's at your moment of peak
intoxication your hippocampus was
starting to shut down
it just wasn't taking in it's really
interesting to because some of our most
interesting minds and some of the best
communicators relied on alcohol heavily
Mike and it made that like Hitchens made
it made him a more interesting
communicator when he was drunk when he
would have a drink you know I mean right
like he would be on Bill Maher you could
tell he was lit and and and he was so
eloquent and so articulate but that
beautiful phrasing so remember though
that's an interesting point and a
crucial point about blackout which is
your hippocampus doesn't necessarily
control your your how articulate you are
or how fluid your speeches it's just
about memory so Hitchens could have been
the most articulate person in the world
and just and but the next morning he
would not have remembered a single thing
he said on Bill Maher I mean I'm
assuming if he was blackout no but you
don't know this fascinating stories in
the literature about when people were
discovering blackout in the 50s and they
would there would be these stories like
they would some guy would come in he
would wake up in Las Vegas and he would
say what am i doing in Las Vegas like
and he would go and he would see his
clothes hanging in the closet and he
would say what what's going on and then
he would like go down to the desk and
say what and they saw you checked in
last night and he would look in his wall
and he would see he had a plane ticket
from Cleveland and they would
reconstruct and there's a in fact this
very story was told in the you know one
of the big medical journals in the 50s
the guy reconstructs he's a Salesman
living in like st. Louis who gets really
really drunk and then his hippocampus
shuts down and he continues to function
so he goes gets in his car drives to the
airport buys a plane ticket goes to
Vegas
does he does notice in Vegas does
whatever he does in Vegas and then wakes
up like two days later oh my god like
the campus is suddenly back online
what am i doing in Vegas that is two
days two days so what is like what is he
you can you you like I put I could be
blackout right now and still communicate
you wouldn't know it I don't it's not
like you can tell I can't tell whether
you have a headache can i right no clue
so you don't know what's going I mean
until we come up with that machine that
you were talking about you can't tell
that my hippocampus isn't working except
if you answer if you asked me the same
question this is how you the only way
you can do it you had a party you think
someone's blackout ask them the same
question over and over again and see if
they respond like say why you asked me
so literally I would say wait did you
say you're uh you're a quarter Irish and
then I would you have to wait like say
five seconds and say Joe did you see her
a quarter Irish and in a certain way
you're gonna say Malcolm why stop it if
you don't say that you're blackout drunk
but if you do if you could you be
blackout drunk and still have like a
tiny memory no you may just ask me is
that okay so the hippocampus doesn't
shut down all at once so what it does is
it shuts down slowly so let's imagine
we're both doing shots so after I mean
I'm quite sure you're capacity I'm I
mean you like I'm half your weight am i
but I don't know what you are you're
like 200 pounds I'm 126 okay so we're
gonna deal with alcohol very differently
but let's assume we're doing shots of
tequila there's a point of where things
start to get hazy so you might remember
that I asked you that question or you
might not and then as we keep drinking
in our blood alcohol levels get higher
and higher at a certain point your
hippocampus will completely like the off
switch has been thrown so it goes from
being sluggish and impaired to just
being down like and what brings it back
well your blood alcohol level has to
fall to the point where it can work
again so you fall asleep and over
the course of eight hours of sleep you
know your alcohol is processed by your
liver blood alcohol Falls hippocampus
snaps back into action
wow what a ridiculous drug to be our
most socially acceptable drug yeah
totally and then the Vegas thing where
they give it to you for free Christian
in a place where you can gamble which is
really sneaky yeah that's one of the
weirder laws ever that if a person could
literally lose their house while their
blackout drunk
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