I find this look at blackouts very interesting - specifically someone being "in a blackout". I always looked at blackouts as something after-the-fact; you're conscious and cognisant while drinking in the night, and the next day you can't remember what happened. This presents a slightly different view - someone slides into the state of blackout while drunk, and consequently can't remember the next day. I mean, the distinction is mostly insignificant, but it has a different temporality. Certainly I'm no stranger to the haze of reconstructing the night before - exact words forgotten, the order of events re-arranged - but I haven't had a blackout in many years. There's a story of me in university that a mutual friend tells at every party; he allegedly encountered me in the street at morning time, with a traffic cone on either hand shouting "I am Conehand the Barbarian!". To this day I don't know if he's making it up or not.