Social Drinking, Memory and Information Processing

Scientific research indicates that alcohol, despite its generally positive image, is a drug with neurotoxic, psychoactive and addictive properties. These properties have resulted in chronic alcohol abuse being a major social, economic, and public health problem in many parts of the world (Charness et ai., 1989). Excessive alcohol consumption has been implicated as a significant cause of a number of neurological disorders including impairments in higher cortical processes. Impaired cognitive functioning, including deficits in various cerebral activities such as concentration, alertness, motivation, general ability, verbal and numerical fluency, and memory, has been reported both acutely and chronically in subjects with alcohol-related problems.