I Feel I Remember: The Phenomenology of Autobiographical Recall in Individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder

Abstract

Plain Language SummaryBeyond the memory deficits classically observed in individuals with alcohol use disorder (IwAUD), research has recently focused on the study of autobiographical memory (AM), which is the memory of personal experiences and facts about the self. By analysing the content of AM narratives in IwAUD, recent studies have reported a degradation of AMs content that may impact the self-conception of IwAUD. However, little is known about how IwAUD subjectively experience autobiographical recall. Thirty-seven IwAUD and 37 control participants were invited to perform an AM task that involved recalling memories for 4 life periods (2 important memories per period) and to assess their subjective experience during AM recall using 6 phenomenological scales. Anxiety and depression symptoms, interoceptive sensibility, and difficulties in emotion regulation were also measured. The IwAUD were more likely to feel that the person they are today is different from the person in their retrieved AMs (greater distancing), except during childhood AM recall. Very few intergroup differences were observed for AMs from childhood, adolescence-young adulthood, and adulthood, and a greater number of differences were observed for AMs from the last year: the IwAUD experienced AMs with a more negative valence, greater emotional intensity, fewer sensory details, greater distancing, and less sharing. A positive correlation was observed between distancing and interoceptive sensibility in the IwAUD group, indicating that the greater their interoceptive sensibility was, the more the IwAUD felt that they were a different person from the person in their AMs.