Mental Health Repairing memory from alcohol abuse

[Seattle_Stranger]

Hey all,

Pretty short and simple, I'm looking for recommendations based on personal experience (not just copy+pasted from a website, I know how to Google ) on specific vitamins, supplements, herbs, or whatever else to help improve/repair my memory from years of alcohol overuse. My use has had its peaks and valleys, currently I'm trying to avoid hard alcohol but still consume 1-2 bottles of white wine a night. At my worst I was consuming majority of a bottle of cheap whiskey a night, but that was a few years ago.

Needless to say, my memory has suffered. The rest of my body seems to be ok for the most part, but my short term memory is just fucked. I usually take a handful of selected vitamins daily (B complex, magnesium, D, fish oil, and a multi), I dabble in all sorts of nootropics (they seem to help greatly), I take l-theanine and taurine daily, I drink a lot of water, I have a very good diet and rarely eat unhealthy foods, I try to avoid sugar, and I exercise somewhat regularly, including cardio (via jogging). I'd like to target some specific things to help improve memory.

What has helped you?

Thanks!

 

[bukweat]

Try cutting out the 1-2 bottles of wine nightly. If your diet is adequate vitamins and supplements are a waste. That's my personal experience.

 

[Seattle_Stranger]

Try cutting out the 1-2 bottles of wine nightly. If your diet is adequate vitamins and supplements are a waste. That's my personal experience.

Thanks for the advice, but as I'm sure you understand, having built up such a habit, it's not quite as easy as just "cutting out" the wine. I'm doing what I can to drink less, with some degree of success. I will get there, but regardless if I'm drinking or not, I'm hoping there are things that might help me put the pieces back together in the long run. No, I'm not looking for a silver bullet. I will stop drinking, I'm just looking to get the repair process started ASAP.

 

[Jmr828]

I have struggled with this as well. I found no matter how hard I tried to cut back it wasnt possible. Monday I got the vivatrol injection. I did a great deal of research prior to getting it. It has been proven to help people go from 10 drinks a night to 2 drinks a night. I have not slipped yet, my goal is to become completely sober. If and when I do. I am feeling the pull today. I will let you know how it worked out for me. Prior to life happening I worked in healthcare. With the elderly. I had a sweet little 98 year old woman who was desperate to keep her "marbles". We did mind exercises daily. For example she was one of 15 kids growing up. I would have her name them and try to do so in order they were born. Kindergarten- college teachers, think back christmas of each year, where where you, who were you with and see how far back you can go. Seems kinda silly, but it helped. Best of luck!

 

[shocktreatment]

Well, my personal experience is extensive, 30 some years ago, I suffered a TBI, and since then, I've been a chronic binge drinker, not often, but insane. 750 ml or more of 80 proof per day, for days, until I'm unable...
As far as regaining cognitive/memory functionality while still boozing daily, supplements do not inspire much confidence but there are a few.
That said, protecting yourself and mitigating systemic alcohol injury is critical. Protecting your body's natural functionality from ethanol and its metabolites is protecting your brain.
I take a multi vitamin, and as booze generates ROS like crazy, R alpha lipoic acid. Before a spree, I'll pre-load NAC, vitamin C and especially thiamine. The importance of supplemental B1 for chronic drinkers can not be overstated. Thiamine deficiency is the root cause of the 2 most common brain disorders for we boozeheads, Wernicke's encephalopathy and Korsakoff's syndrome. These maladies are insidious, deficits occur well before a diagnosis is apparent. As malabsorption is endemic among us, try for the most bioavailable forms when buying vitamins.
I also take steps against glycation end products with taurine, benfotiamine and carnosine/beta-alanine.
Medium chain triglyceride oils protect against fatty infiltration of the liver.
Silymarin is a good investment.
Check into dihydromyricetin, I use it, but it's not for everyone.
Think about an anti inflammation strategy that doesn't include NSAIDs (bleeding risk).
I don't take any supplements, other than thiamine, concurrent with boozing.
Specific to cognition and memory
Acetyl L Carnitine, Centrophenoxine, cycling Noopept and Pramiracetam (2 weeks on, 1 off) seem to work for me.
The TRRAP strategy is also productive for me:
Translate into your own words when learning something new.
Repeat immediately. I repeat to myself, new stuff, names, etc like a half dozen times.
Relate new events to familiar ones
A picture. Picturing helps form and encode new memories.
Practice. Practice newly learned stuff, pretend you are teaching it to someone else.
What must be said: if you find yourself in acute withdrawal, get to a hospital. People commonly die from acute alcohol withdrawal.
As with anything internet, limit your trust, do some research. Use reputable research and academic sites.
Please let me know what you think. Good luck--

 

[sadasaulna]

Thanks for the advice, but as I'm sure you understand, having built up such a habit, it's not quite as easy as just "cutting out" the wine. I'm doing what I can to drink less, with some degree of success. I will get there, but regardless if I'm drinking or not, I'm hoping there are things that might help me put the pieces back together in the long run. No, I'm not looking for a silver bullet. I will stop drinking, I'm just looking to get the repair process started ASAP.

Of course its not easy but it the partly the answer to your memory problems. I drank every day for 15 years, and yet stopping was a matter of a week for the worst of it... but with these caveats...

As the first week is hard you'll need either massive resolve or to be around other people not drinking - rehab ideally, AA if you can't do rehab. But you need something. Take Librium for the first week, not only will it help stop seizures it will make the whole process much, much easier. You may get nightmares for the first 3-4 weeks, and I'm not talking just any nightmares, i'm talking about the mother of all nightmares. They suck balls but you'll live to tell the tale.

The first few months I recommend AA, I am by no means an AA fanboi, but the being around other sober people is a massive help in those early months. They'll tell you to be in AA for life, that is totally up to you, don't drink too much of the Kool Aid.

After that it is relatively plain sailing, yet you will get (spaced further apart hopefully) cravings. I had my first cravings in a LONG time just last week, and after over 2 years sober I was surprised at the power. But they don't last. The massive changes you notice will be those in your relationships with family and friends.

I've said on this forum before (and I'm not joking) that quitting 8 years of SSRIs is significantly harder than 15 years of booze. You can quit the booze, I promise you, anyone can.

Now as to why I say partly - bottom line is you have done some irreversible damage - nowadays my mental performance simply isn't up to the same grade. Acceptance of that is hard but freeing.

 

[sadasaulna]

And if you do go AA, I recommend going every day for the first month at the least. Sounds extreme doesn't it, but I promise you that as your habit of so long has been drinking, when you're not drinking you'll find yourself at a total loose end for what to do with all that free time - and you'll want to fill it with drinking - so go every day until you've got a handle on it, then you'll be able to fill your free time with things you actually enjoy. Even things like driving at night are still a wonder for me because for 15 years driving at night was off the cards because I'd always be wasted.

 

[swisscurrie]

Cerebrolysin is proven to increase IQ and memory more effectively than any other substance on earth. Its worth a try

 

[built4speed]

Oh the demon drink!! I have used,abused and been dependent on many legal and illegal substances over the past 32 years but nothing can compare to the depths of misery and despair and utter self loathing that alcohol dragged me down to. Im 2 yrs sober which is a total miracle considering the magnitude of my addiction - but I have destroyed so much of the person I used to be and the damage I have done to myself is heartbreaking.. the past 2 hyrs of sobriety have taught me that Alcohol abuse causes irreversible BRAIN DAMAGE. There is nothing you can put into your body that can repair what alcohol has already destroyed - you need to be clear about this because if you continue to drink alcohol you will continue to destroy more and more parts of your brain. Trust me on this. I dont mean to be cruel or harsh, I promise you but if you are concerned at this point about your memory etc continuing to drink is just adding fuel to the fire. I wish that someone had gotten tough with me YEARS ago..... I was naive/arrogant enough to think that once I got sober, I could just adopt a healthy lifestyle, load up on vitamins and pills and all the shit on the internet that promises to restore normal cognitive function and hey-presto I would be fixed. Wrong. As someone has already said all you can do now is damage limitation and protect yourself against further damage and work towards geting your head straight again so that you can think clearly enough to memorise things. Even at your worst/lowest times your consumption of alcohol doesnt come close to what mine was so you wont have the extreme cognitive damage that I do thankfully, so thats something to be thankful for.
I drank 24 hrs a day, no stop or start times, all through the day and night, always a glass in my hand, never taking breaks in between drinks. Only times I wasnt sipping was when I was asleep and I never slept more than a few hours in total over a 24hr period. A normal day for me would be 3-4 litres of 40% proof vodka plus 5-6 bottles of red wine and whatever dregs I could find around the house in my numerous hiding places. I did that almost continually for 7 years straight. Previous to that I had a good 10 years of alcoholism and drug dependancy that ripped me and my family apart. Unrecoverably Im sad to say. I should be dead but miraculously I survived.
My memory loss is acute both short and long term, I struggle to absorb and store new information and often attach memories to the wrong people. I also suffer a Facial Recognition Impairment which means that unless I know you VERY well or I see you every single day, at the same time, in the same place I simply wont be able to recognise you . People who dont know me assume im ignoring them or just being down right rude. Even with people I know well, if they change their hair style or grow a beard then my brain cant register the changes . If you tell me your name and where you know me from I can usually work from there but sometimes fragments of a previous conversation start to piece together in the wrong time frame and I totally confuse the hell out of people. I am constantly looking for visual and verbal prompts and clues when people approach me so that they dont realise that I havent any idea who they are . Thats just one small part of my brain that alcohol has totally burned out...there are plenty of other areas that dont compute properly either.
I dont want to hi jack yr post so I'll cut to the chase and tell you what I take now to sharpen my brain cognitive functionality. These are things that I original sourced for depression and have found that whilst they cant repair damage already done to my memory function they totally have realigned my concentration and focus, lifted my moods, helped with anxiety etc; my memory has improved a lot simply because of the way I now process and store NEW information. (When we are drunk we cant form memories because our brains are too fucked to process any kind of sensical information. You cant remember something that hasnt been stored. Makes sense really doesnt it?) Ive spent $$$$$$$$$$$ on all kinds of things over the last 2 years and this is only what i know works for me and Im not suggesting it will work for anyone else. I take:
L-Tyrosine,
DMAE,
choline Bitartrate
Rhodiola (1/3rd of rec dose for high concentration/ stimulant effects or full dose for sedative/relaxing effects)
Mucuna Extract @ 99% L-Dopa
Ashwagandha,
DL Phenylalanine,
L Carnitine
I cant tell you the doses or strengths to take as they are all individual to you and how you handle them but I will say that I started off slowly and increased in small amounts until I hit the right balance. I can give more info in a PM as I dont want to be seen as promoting any one company.
Im typing this real quick, late for work so apologies if anything comes across as patronising, or bossy like a know-it-all. I dont always express myself well but my intentions are never to be hurtful or nasty. Good luck.....put the bottle down!!!! LOL YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! If a fuck up like me can then YOU can!!!!

 

[aihfl]

Thanks for the advice, but as I'm sure you understand, having built up such a habit, it's not quite as easy as just "cutting out" the wine. I'm doing what I can to drink less, with some degree of success. I will get there, but regardless if I'm drinking or not, I'm hoping there are things that might help me put the pieces back together in the long run. No, I'm not looking for a silver bullet. I will stop drinking, I'm just looking to get the repair process started ASAP.

You might as well not do anything as long as you're still consuming up to liter and a half of wine a night (I'm assuming that by "bottle" you're referring to 750ml) because any benefit that might be gained from any supplement is being undone by the alcohol you're still drinking. That's probably not what you want to hear but the brain can't start to heal until the foreign substance is out of the picture. According to any shrink I've ever seen, the brain takes years to recover, but the bulk of the recovery takes place in the first year. Except recent research does seem to suggest permanent deficits in visuospatial ability. Personally all I've ever taken since quitting alcohol is B vitamins and Vit. D, and you're already doing that.

 

[betman]

Abstinence helped the most. Of course you know this, but worth mentioning.

Intense cardio, either sprints or long distance; intense weight lifting sessions.

Reading, learning. Delving into a passion or hobby that requires a higher level of thinking.

 

[Londonscouser]

No doubt there may be some degree of neurotoxicity, but that doesn't mean you can't recover to a level close to normalitity.

The brain has the uncanny ability to compensate for damage. Recovery can also last years depending on the extent of abuse. Also recovery is what you make of it, obviously somebody with damage who does 30 minute jogs everyday will recover much faster than somebody who does no exercise etc.

my brain has also been negatively affected as a result of my own drug abuse so i do know how it feels to genuinely believe I have permanent brain damage. Longest ive lasted sober is 5 months.