Blackouts beyond alcoholics
        The bulk of the research conducted on blackouts during the past 50 years has involved surveys, interviews, and direct observation of middle-aged, primarily male, often hospitalized, alcoholics.  The phenomenology of blackouts among young social drinkers has largely been ignored, allowing the antiquated notion that blackouts are an unlikely consequence of heavy drinking in non-alcoholics to remain deeply entrenched in both the scientific and popular cultures.  In contrast to this common misconception, there is clear evidence that blackouts do occur among social drinkers.  Knight et al.(1999) observed that 35% of trainees in a large pediatric residency program had experienced at least one blackout.  Similarly, Goodwin (1995) reported that 33% of the first year medical students he interviewed acknowledged experiencing at least one blackout.  He writes, "They were inexperienced - they drank too much too quickly, their blood levels rose extremely quickly, and they experienced amnesia" (p 315).  Such observations led Goodwin and his colleagues (1969) to assert that, "Amnesia experienced while drinking obviously occurs rather frequently among alcoholics, but there is reason to believe it also occurs rather frequently among nonalcoholics" (p 192).  Other authors have reached similar conclusions.  In a study of 2076 Finnish males, Poikolainen (1982) found that 35% of all males surveyed experienced at least one blackout in the year before the survey, leading to the conclusion that blackouts are common among males in the general Finnish population.