The Connection Between Alcohol and Memory Changes

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Alcohol and memory are closely related. In fact, alcohol affects every part of the brain, and even moderate drinking can change your brain’s structure. The younger you start drinking, the more alcohol can alter your brain’s pathways. Alcohol-related brain damage can lead to neural impairments, such as memory loss and learning difficulties.¹

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How Alcohol Enters the Brain

After drinking, alcohol is not digested like food. Instead, 20% of the alcohol is directly absorbed into the bloodstream through the stomach, while roughly 80% travels to the intestinal tract. From there, alcohol is processed by the liver and flows to the rest of the body, including the brain. The brain has a barrier that protects it from harmful substances— called the blood-brain barrier. However, because of alcohol’s chemical characteristics, it easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and enters the brain.²

How Alcohol Intoxicates the Brain

Neurons in the brain communicate by sending electrical signals. When an electrical signal reaches the end of a neuron, it triggers the release of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. These chemicals travel across the synapse—the small gap between two neurons—and bind to the next neuron. This binding creates a new electrical signal that continues the message. This process happens continuously, unless it is disrupted by substances such as alcohol.

Alcohol is a central nervous system (CNS) depressant. It causes sedation by inhibiting electrical impulses in two ways:²

1. Increasing the number of negatively charged impulses that enter a neuron, which depresses neuron firing
2. Decreasing the number of positively charged impulses that enter a neuron, which increases neuron firing

When neural communication in your brain is suppressed, it produces intoxication.

Alcohol and Short-Term Effects on the Brain

Alcohol slows brain functioning, causing a chain reaction as you continue to drink. You may experience the following:³

• Slowed movement
• Slurred speech
• Blurred vision
• Impaired coordination
• Impaired thinking
• Memory failure
• Changed mood
• Impaired judgment
• Increased blood pressure
• Increased heart rate

If you drink too much alcohol too quickly, your body may react by vomiting. This reaction is a natural protective device to expel toxins and relieve stomach irritation.  If you are taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, alcohol may cause a dangerous interaction. Accidents and injuries can also happen because of alcohol’s effect on judgment and decision-making. When someone first starts drinking alcohol, they may feel euphoric and energetic. This does not last long, however. The more someone drinks, the more the brain becomes sedated, depressed, and traumatized.³

Brain blackouts are another short-term effect of alcohol misuse. These are due to memory loss of events that happen while you are intoxicated. You are still awake, but alcohol blocks the brain’s ability to transfer memories from short-term to long-term storage in the hippocampus. There are two types of blackouts: fragmentary and en bloc. A fragmentary blackout is when you can remember bits and pieces—but not all—of events; en bloc is complete amnesia, caused because the memories never formed.⁴

Long-Term Effects of Alcohol on Memory and Learning

Increasing the amount of alcohol you drink and for more extended periods has long-term effects on the psychological and physiological health of your brain. The long-term side effects of increasing your intake can be severe. Continuous misuse of alcohol damages parts of your brain necessary for memory and learning.³

Hippocampus

The hippocampus is in the temporal lobe of the brain and is responsible for storing and saving information. Alcohol can damage the hippocampus, making it difficult to remember and learn new information.⁵ Alcohol also interferes with the transfer of memories from short- to long-term storage in the brain.

Amygdala

The amygdala is responsible for regulating social behaviors and emotions. Alcohol dampens the neurotransmitters within the amygdala, causing sleep dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, and poor behavioral reactions. Also, alcohol makes it difficult to discern social cues, leading to socially inappropriate behaviors.⁶

Cerebral Cortex

The cerebral cortex, or gray matter, is the internal part of the whole brain. It consists of four lobes. The frontal lobe controls emotions, decision-making, social behaviors, and movements.

The parietal lobe holds parts of the brain that aid learning, language, spatial recognition, and interpreting the senses.

The temporal lobe is responsible for all things related to memory, including recall and recognition, sound recognition, and visual perception.

Finally, the occipital lobe is responsible for visual processing and interpretation. Any of these functions can be impaired by alcohol misuse, interfering with your ability to function mentally and physically.⁹

The Reward System

Many neurotransmitters contribute to the development of alcohol dependence and alcohol use disorder. Dopamine, in particular, plays a major role. Commonly referred to as the “feel good” chemical of the brain, dopamine is released when you engage in rewarding, pro-survival activities, such as eating food and having sex, thus motivating you to engage in these behaviors in the future.¹⁰

Alcohol use triggers a rush of dopamine, which has a euphoric and rewarding effect, reinforcing repeated drinking episodes. Over time, drinking hijacks the reward system of your brain, creating a powerful connection between alcohol consumption, the pleasurable feelings, and the external cues related to drinking.

Intense surges of dopamine essentially teach the brain to seek and consume alcohol in favor of other, healthier behaviors. This is because chronic alcohol use can dampen the ability to derive pleasure from natural rewards.¹⁰

Additionally, drinking-related cues, such as a bar, football game, holiday, or friends you typically drink with, have become linked with alcohol use because of the changes that have occurred in the brain’s reward system. These cues can cause powerful cravings whenever you are exposed to them, and unfortunately, this connection can last for many years, even once you’ve stopped drinking.¹⁰

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Alcohol-Induced Diseases

Alcohol’s effect on different parts of the brain can lead to severe but rare, irreversible diseases. Alcohol-induced diseases are neurodegenerative diseases that involve a shrinking or breakdown in the brain’s structure, causing it to malfunction and affect memory and learning.

Alcohol-Induced Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that destroys memory and interferes with your ability to function professionally, socially, and personally. It is a slow, progressive disease with no cure. It affects more than memory; over time, it can impair the parts of the brain that control thinking and language.¹¹

Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome

Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome is a brain disorder caused by vitamin deficiencies, specifically thiamine. This is also known as vitamin B1. The thalamus and hypothalamus become damaged, leading to very troubling symptoms, such as the inability to control body temperature changes, movements, and vision. The syndrome can lead to amnesia, tremors, and coma.¹²

Hepatic Encephalopathy

Hepatic encephalopathy, which is an indirect consequence of severe liver disease, is a nervous system disorder that causes:

• Cognitive impairment
• Difficulty concentrating and staying focused
• Anxiety
• Sleep disturbances
• Hand flapping
• Mood changes
• Slurred speech
• Drowsiness
• Coordination problems.

This disorder is temporary and treatable with medications and supportive therapy.¹³

Who Experiences Memory and Learning Impairment Due to Alcohol Misuse?

Alcohol can trigger memory and learning problems in anyone drinking alcohol, even occasionally. However, many other factors also play a role in your risk for memory and learning impairment that can occur when drinking alcohol.

Older Men and Women

As you age, your cognitive ability can decline. If an older person has alcohol use disorder, that compounds the damage to their brain and increases learning and memory dysfunction. Alcohol misuse leads to malnourishment of brain cells, degeneration of the spinal cord and nervous system, neuroinflammation, and an acceleration of aging effects.¹⁴

Infants Born With Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Drinking alcohol when pregnant increases the infant’s risk of being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. This means the child could struggle with a range of learning and memory problems and physical and behavioral obstacles as they grow. Fetal alcohol syndrome is linked to structural changes and fewer functioning neurons in the brain.¹⁵

Adolescents

The human brain does not stop developing until adulthood. Therefore, adolescents who use alcohol and other substances may experience significant neuronal changes since their brains are still maturing.

Studies show adolescents who misuse alcohol have lower functioning thinking, and poor memory skills. Also, the earlier a person develops alcohol use disorder, the smaller their hippocampus. Research proves that alcohol misuse damages an adolescent’s brain and impairs a child’s cognitive skills.¹⁶

Other factors also affect the extent to which alcohol use impedes typical brain development, memory, and learning. These factors include:¹⁶

• Co-occurring mental health disorders like depression and anxiety
• Family history of alcohol and drug use
• Gender
• Use of other substances
• Patterns of drinking

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Repairing Brain Damage from Alcohol Misuse

The brain can begin to repair itself after you stop misusing alcohol.¹⁷

When you stop drinking, brain neurons begin to recover. Because the brain is capable of change—a process known as neuroplasticity—both during active alcohol use disorder (AUD) and in recovery, you can learn new skills and behaviors. With continued practice and repetition, your brain adapts and gradually becomes accustomed to functioning without alcohol.¹⁷

However, repair doesn’t happen overnight, and it may never restore to its original function. You can make improvements with the help of trained mental health and alcohol use disorder treatment professionals. They can teach you the specific skills necessary to improve cognitive and behavioral abilities.

You can start the road to cognitive healing today by calling us at 800-948-8417 Sponsored . We are open 24/7 and can connect you with a treatment program with doctors and counselors eager to help you recover.

Resources

1. Welch K. A. (2017). Alcohol Consumption and Brain Health. BMJ, 357, j2645.
2. Rodriguez-Gonzalez, A. (2023) Alcohol binge drinking induces downregulation of blood-brain barrier proteins in the rat frontal cortex -but not in the hippocampus- that is not prevented by OEA pretreatment. Frontiers
3. S. National Library of Medicine. (2021). Alcohol. MedlinePlus.
4. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (2021). Interrupted Memories: Alcohol-Induced Blackouts.
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6. Roberto, M., Gilpin, N. W., & Siggins, G. R. (2012). The Central Amygdala and Alcohol: Role of Y-aminobutyric Acid, Glutamate, and Neuropeptides. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine, 2(12),
7. Rachdaoui, N., & Sarkar, D. K. (2017). Pathophysiology of the Effects of Alcohol Abuse on the Endocrine System. Alcohol Research Current Reviews, 38(2), 255-276.
8. Ataullah AHM, Naqvi IA. (2021). Cerebellar Dysfunction.
9. Jawabri KH, Sharma S. (2021). Physiology, Cerebral Cortex Functions.
10. National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2020). Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction: Drugs and the Brain.
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12. S. National Library of Medicine. (2021). Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. MedlinePlus.
13. Ferenci P. (2017). Hepatic Encephalopathy. Gastroenterology Report, 5(2), 138-147.
14. Mende M. A. (2019). Alcohol in the Aging Brain – The Interplay Between Alcohol Consumption, Cognitive Decline and the Cardiovascular System. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 713.
15. Spadoni, A. (2008). Neuroimaging and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. Neuroscience and Behavioral Review. 9;31(2)
16. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (2021). Alcohol and the Adolescent Brain.
17. Seo, D., & Sinha, R. (2015). Neuroplasticity and Predictors of Alcohol Recovery. Alcohol Research Current Reviews, 37(1), 143-152.