A couple of days ago I spent an hour on the treadmill walking at a rate of 5km per hour. Toward the end of my session, I became increasingly fatigued and once I finished I was not feeling well. I came down with flu-like symptoms that were intense enough to prompt me to take two paracetamol tablets. My condition has gradually improved but I still feel far from normal.
Perhaps the events of a couple of day before my treadmill overexertion are relevant. I imbibed too much red wine one evening and blacked out toward the end of my drinking session. By blacked out I mean I don't remember doing what I did until told by others. What I did was quite mundane. For example, vegetarian pizza was ordered but I have no recollection of eating it. This was my only serious drinking session since New Year's Eve where I had a similar black out. It seems that once I consume more that one bottle of wine I'll have a blackout.
This never used to be the case so something is going on metabolically. Here is what I asked Bard:
Why do people who drink too much alcohol sometimes forget what they did during their intoxication, even though they are awake and acting more or less normally.
Alcohol affects the brain in a number of ways, including disrupting the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is important for memory formation. When a person drinks too much alcohol, the hippocampus can become impaired, making it difficult to form new memories. This is what causes alcohol-induced blackouts.
In a blackout, a person may be awake and acting more or less normally, but they will not form memories of the events that happened during the blackout. This is because the hippocampus is not able to store new memories while the blood alcohol level is high.
The amount of alcohol that it takes to cause a blackout varies from person to person. Some people may experience blackouts after drinking only a few drinks, while others may be able to drink more without experiencing a blackout. There are a number of factors that can affect a person's risk of experiencing a blackout, including their age, weight, gender, and the speed at which they drink.
The day following my blackout I felt quite vacuous, not physically ill but just kind of psychologically blank. This feeling hasn't really left me and my body is still sore from my back and leg injuries. Though these injuries are gradually fading, I still feel vaguely "fluey". A change has come over me that's hard to quantify. It's just a feeling that all is not as it once was.
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