Specific memory deficits associated with prolonged alcohol abuse.

The relationship between age, education, length and amount of heavy drinking, and performance on five memory tasks was investigated in 54 chronic alcoholics and 18 age-matched controls. Alcoholics with less than 12 yr of heavy drinking differed reliably from long-term (13-22 yr) and extended long-term drinkers (greater than 23 yr) in recognition memory for visual patterns when scores were corrected for age. Compared with controls, both groups of long-term drinkers were deficient on the visual, auditory, and Faces recognition tests. Age and education of alcoholics accounted for part of performance differences; length of alcohol abuse, however, predicted reliably the decline in memory scores on all but the tactual test. The profile of memory performances seemed to decrease linearly with increasing age and length of alcohol abuse.