You fucked up your brain

Well here's some good news: Your brain is fucked up, but maybe it can repair itself.

The researchers also found that the day after the subjects had consumed alcohol, their brain metabolism had reverted to what it had been prior to the experiment. However, Armin warned that, 'The brain's ability to recover from the effect of alcohol decreases or is eliminated as the consumption of alcohol increases. The acute effects demonstrated in our study could possibly form the basis for the permanent brain damage that is known to occur in alcoholics.'"

And then again, maybe it can't.

You should see the pictures of messed up alcoholic brains. There are some crazy "dead spots" in there. Even the ones of people who drink too much caffeine and smoke too much are really messed up.

All of this could also explain why I learned nothing in college. Alcohol really messes with your memory.

I wonder what my brain looks like, and if it can repair itself one day. I mean, alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, and mental illness. It's gotta be a mess in there.

But there's hope! "Predictably cognitive functions and motor coordination improve, at least partially, within 3 or 4 weeks of abstinence; cerebral atrophy reverses after the first few months of sobriety." So stuff does come back, eventually, as long as you haven't really torn your brain to shreds. Memory takes the longest, it says, which is funny. The other day a friend of mine said, "I thought your memory was supposed to come back after you quit drinking, but yours is as bad as ever!" Have I told you that before? I always forget what I've already written about, so forgive me if I repeat myself. It should get better as my brain repairs itself, if I let it.

I really need to stop drinking so much diet Coke and coffee, and quit cigarettes. Maybe then I'll only have mental illness and not gigantic, permanent holes in my brain.