I’ve felt myself approach that cusp, and then I’ll dart off to the bathroom to write myself notes on the back of receipts in my wallet - funny jokes, where my car is parked, and the crazy gossip that only comes out when everyone is lubricated. But that was years and years ago. The only thing that hasn’t improved since then is my handwriting.
I’ve had temporary memory loss due to alcohol, but whenever my friends tell the story again the next morning I’ll remember what happened. Unfortunately.
The thing is, you’ll have to ask someone other than Jack Batty. He can’t really help you. 
Sadly, I don’t remember much more of that weekend than you do. Maybe not sadly, exactly, because from what I’ve been told my behavior wasn’t particularly great at that or any other Dopefest I attended. I do remember you lying down on the grass outside the restaurant where we ate breakfast because you couldn’t remain upright any longer. I remember that because it struck me as a really, really good idea.
To answer the OP’s question, I lost 2002 and 2003. I’m not attempting to be funny, I really can’t remember a single thing that happened in that time period. I know I didn’t have a job (the last job I was fired from was bartending at a strip club - and I was fired for getting too drunk, even though we were allowed to drink at work) and I drank my way through a trust fund. It wasn’t a huge trust fund, but FFS, it was a trust fund.
I might remember isolated incidents if someone told me about them, but in general my memory skips from 2001 to about 2004, and even that’s kind of a guess. I know that it was 2004 when the last of my friends had enough and stopped speaking to me.
Yet I didn’t quit drinking until September 2005.
As a footnote, besides the enviable situations like being friendless and developing impressive getting-fired skills, last year (after almost 4 years of sobriety) I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, most likely because I drank so much I killed my pancreas. The lost days and weekends might only happen to overachievers.
I have lost hours but never days, and I usually remember most of what I have done. There are a lot of things I’ve done that I would prefer not to remember, the lingering shame and mortification should really be teaching me a lesson but it seems I am a very slow learner.
As I have aged, my tolerance for alcohol has diminshed and I find myself getting drunk on far less alcohol than I used to, so at least these days I’m a relatively cheap date!
Case en pointe.
Restaurant? Breakfast? Grass?
Here’s what I remember from the weekend: a big ass long red leather couch, stealing a pint glass from the hotel pub, painting my fingernails black, head massages from Seadiver, and dancing on the coffee table while people stuck one dollar bills in my pants (the last one I know only from the photographic evidence).
The rest is a complete blur.
Oh … and stopping on the way back to SF to take a piss in somebody’s yard because we couldn’t find a rest stop.
Ah … youth. What was I then? 35? 36?
Everyone bow before the Master of Suicidal Consumption!
Two f’n gulps?!? Dude, as they would say in Boston, "that’s wicked hahd-coah!
If I’ve gotten superbly smashed, maybe I’ll not remember the last hour or two before I crash. Usually I remember everything up to the point of holding on to the bed to keep it spinning before falling asleep though. I’ve definitely never lost a whole day or weekend. I can’t imagine how that would happen without the help of some kind of additional illegal substances.
Wow the Dopefest I attended had no where near as much debaucheries!
I lost 4 years, and they were called “College.”
More seriously, though, I’m sure I’ve lost a few days. My college friends and I weren’t stoners, so instead of “wake and bake” we had “breakfast and booze” or “kegs and eggs,” whichever you prefer.
I recall that after my 21st birthday - which lasted for a week - my friends and I ran down a laundry list of what had happened, with me just saying whether or not I remembered a particular event. Included in the checklist:
-being used as a marionette in the bar by my much larger friend (no)
-vomiting in the urinal at said bar, then emerging from the men’s room amazed that some asshole had vomited in the urinal (no)
-tackling friend’s girlfriend on my parents’ lawn after she gave me a ride whilst apparently trying to hug her (no)
-leaping bare-ass naked out of the bed at my parents house, running downstairs, chugging water, and vomiting in the garbage disposal (sadly, yes)
-father carrying bare-ass naked self up the stairs while giving me a ration of shit and threatening to hospitalize me (even more sadly, yes)
-having friend drive me back to college next day (kinda’ sorta)
-immediately starting to drink a bottle of wine donated by the priests with my buddies (yes)
-visit from the “creepy molester” priest who lived in our dorm (no - fortunately, my buddies were around)
You had a creepy molester priest living in your dorm?
Fucking liberal arts colleges, man.
I woke up on New Year’s Day 2001 with scattered dollar bills from the lap dance I didn’t remember performing. That was the day I was so hung over that I couldn’t keep water down.
I think that’s more than I remember.
And it’s not cause I was drunk. It’s cause it was nine years ago.
And I was with you on that trip back to SF! You peed in someone’s yard?
I think so.
Wasn’t that when everybody was giving me grief because I needed to pee about a half hour after we left and we just pulled over somewhere and I pulled up a hedge?
Maybe that was another weekend.
That’s why I had my buzz-blackouts before I went to the dopefests, so I arrived fully tanked :::::whistles demurely::::::
Well, I organized the first few ChiDopes and since getting hammered was MY priority, I certainly emphasized it. They were essentially raging drunkfests. Once saner folks took over, I think they focused more on a wider variety of activities than “go to bar, start drinking, go to hotel, continue drinking, be so loud the hotel threatens to kick you out.” I attended Dopefests in other cities and SLO was definitely similar to those early ChiDopes, but I don’t think they were all as debaucheriffic.
.
Now that you mention it, I remember the big red leather couch, too.
I forgot you were there! That’s the first time we met, right?