Confabulation: Their truth, not the truth
Confabulation happens when alcohol or substance use distorts memory, creating false but convincing “truths.” Learn why it feels like lying, how different patterns of drinking and drug use warp reality, and what that means for you.
When You Live With Broken Promises
You’ve been here before. They look you in the eye and promise: “Yes, I’ll take out the trash every night.” Or “I’ll never forget again.” Maybe it’s something bigger — “I’ll quit drinking. I’ll be there for you. I’ll change.”
They sound sincere. They believe themselves in the moment. But later, the promise is gone. Forgotten. Denied. Replaced with a version of reality that doesn’t line up with yours.
That’s where your mind starts spinning: Am I imagining things? Did I misunderstand? Am I crazy for expecting consistency?
You’re not crazy. You’re witnessing confabulation.
What It Feels Like Inside Their Mind
Here’s the part you rarely hear described: what it feels like for the person who is confabulating.
In the moment, they don’t think: “I’m lying to cover this up.” Instead, their brain experiences a gap — a missing piece of memory — and rushes to fill it with whatever seems most believable. To them, it doesn’t feel like invention. It feels like recall.
Think of it like mental auto-correct. Just as your phone replaces a misspelled word without asking, their brain patches over a missing memory with a version that “fits.” And once it’s patched, it feels seamless to them. They don’t stop to question it because their mind doesn’t label it as a guess. It labels it as truth.
So when they look at you and say, “I already did that,” or “I never said that,” their tone is confident because their brain is confident. They don’t feel sneaky. They feel right.
A Real-Life Example
Picture this: your partner drinks on a Friday night. Saturday morning, you remind them about the fight that broke out — the promises they made, the cruel words they shouted. They stare at you blankly and say, “I never said that. You’re exaggerating.”
In that moment, they’re not smirking or shifting like someone caught in a lie. They’re steady, maybe even offended that you’d accuse them. Their brain never recorded the memory, so it invents a version where nothing happened. And because they believe it, they argue it with the same intensity you argue your reality.
To you, it feels like gaslighting. To them, it feels like certainty.
Do They Realize It in the Moment?
Most of the time — no. They don’t realize they’re confabulating as it happens. The conviction you see in their eyes is real, not staged. In that instant, they are standing in a version of reality their brain has served up, and they have no reason to doubt it.
But later, sometimes cracks appear. Maybe they sense the frustration in your voice. Maybe evidence contradicts their memory — a text, a photo, a witness. In those moments, some will double down (because admitting the gap threatens their sense of self), while others feel flashes of confusion or shame.
After the Fact
When the fog clears, do they realize what happened? Sometimes. But rarely in the way you want.
They might vaguely recognize they’ve been inconsistent, but the brain often protects itself by smoothing over contradictions. Instead of thinking, “I fabricated that,” they think, “I must have been misunderstood,” or “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
That’s why you don’t get closure. Their system isn’t wired to say, “Yes, I created a false memory.” Instead, they continue forward in the version of reality that feels least threatening — even if it leaves you carrying the weight of confusion, disappointment, and betrayal.
To you, it feels like gaslighting. To them, it feels like certainty.
What Confabulation Really Is
Confabulation is a clinical term for when the brain fills memory gaps with false information — and the person truly believes it. In neuropsychology, it’s often defined as the unintentional fabrication of memories without the intent to deceive.
Here’s where it gets tricky for you: from the outside, confabulation looks exactly like lying. Someone says, with absolute certainty, something you know is false. They deny promises. They remember conversations that never happened. They insist events unfolded in ways you know they didn’t.
But here’s the core difference: lying is deliberate, confabulation is not.
Lying is a conscious choice. When someone lies, they know the truth and deliberately replace it with something false — usually to avoid consequences, gain control, or protect themselves. You can often sense the calculation. There’s a pause, a defensiveness, a subtle awareness in their eyes.
Confabulation comes from impairment, not strategy. Their brain literally cannot retrieve the actual memory, so it “patches the hole” with something that feels logical. It isn’t manipulation — it’s malfunction. And that’s why the delivery feels so convincing. They’re not second-guessing themselves because, in their mind, the invented version is reality.
This is why confabulation is so disorienting for you. When someone lies, at least part of you knows it’s a performance. But when someone confabulates, you’re left doubting yourself. Because they don’t just say it like it’s true — they believeit’s true.
Think about that: their conviction is what cuts deepest. You start to wonder, Am I the one misremembering? Did I really misunderstand? That’s the psychological toll. The issue isn’t just the false memory — it’s how their absolute belief in that false memory destabilizes your sense of reality.
This is why confabulation can feel more corrosive than lying. Lies can be spotted and confronted. Confabulation? It pulls you into a parallel reality where the other person is living a story that never happened — and dragging you along with them.
Confabulation in Different Drinking Patterns
You might think this only happens with “serious alcoholics.” But confabulation doesn’t wait for rock bottom. Different drinking styles create different distortions:
Casual Drinkers: Even occasional drinking can interfere with short-term memory encoding. Someone who “only drinks at parties” may still fill in blanks the next day with misplaced confidence. They’ll insist, “I told you that already,” or “No, that’s not what happened.” And you’ll feel gaslit, even though the gap comes from a fogged memory, not malice.
Regular Drinkers: For someone who drinks most nights, the brain takes repeated hits to judgment and recall. Over time, confabulation becomes a pattern. They may remember entire conversations differently, deny commitments they made, or confidently claim they followed through when they didn’t. To you, it feels like endless broken trust. To them, it feels consistent with their internal reality.
Binge Drinkers: Binge episodes — four drinks in two hours for women, five for men — are notorious for creating blackouts. Entire chunks of time never make it into memory storage. Later, the brain backfills the gaps with invented details. That’s why binge drinkers often swear they only had “a couple” or insist nothing happened during a blackout — the memory literally isn’t there. Their brain created a placeholder, and they believe it.
The intensity shifts, but the effect on you is always the same: you’re left trying to survive inside their alternate version of reality.
Confabulation Beyond Alcohol
Alcohol is the most visible culprit, but confabulation isn’t exclusive to drinking. Other substances warp memory and truth in different ways:
Opioids (painkillers, heroin, fentanyl): These sedatives suppress hippocampal function — the brain’s memory hub. Whole conversations vanish, and later, the brain confidently invents substitutes.
Stimulants (cocaine, meth, misused ADHD meds): While high, focus narrows. Context drops out. Later, users retell events with conviction, but their story is missing the connective tissue of reality.
Cannabis: High doses impair short-term memory. Heavy users often believe they’ve done or said things they never did, leaving others to carry the weight of correction.
Benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, Ativan): These drugs can cause profound amnesia. Users calmly insist, “That didn’t happen,” because their brain never stored the memory.
Hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin, ketamine): Trips often merge perception and imagination. Later, “memories” can be a blend of hallucination and fact, told with absolute certainty.
Different drug, different mechanism. But the pattern is the same: the brain can’t tolerate blanks, so it invents truths. And you’re the one who has to live with the fallout.
Why This Hurts You
Living with confabulation is its own trauma. You’re forced to live with shifting truths. You begin doubting your memory, questioning your sanity, carrying the invisible labor of remembering everything because they won’t — or can’t.
Each time their “truth” collides with yours, it chips away at safety. And if you grew up with an addicted or narcissistic parent, this cycle isn’t new. You know what it feels like to cling to promises that evaporate by morning.
As Johann Hari writes in Stolen Focus, our inability to anchor to reality isn’t laziness or weakness — it’s disconnection. And when someone you love is drinking or using, that disconnection becomes the air you breathe.
The Therapy Room Reality
In therapy, confabulation shows up constantly. You may walk in with anxiety, depression, or relationship pain, but peel back the layers and alcohol or substance use is often part of the story — yours or someone close to you.
According to SAMHSA, over 40% of people in therapy are either misusing substances or directly dealing with someone who does. That means almost half of therapy clients are navigating the storm of confabulated promises and fractured trust.
You’re not alone. What you’re experiencing isn’t “too much” or “too sensitive.” It’s neurological. And it’s real.
Spot the Signs of Confabulation
Not sure if you’re dealing with confabulation or just broken promises? Here are some red flags to watch for:
They swear they told you something you know they didn’t.
They insist events happened differently than you remember — and do so with complete conviction.
They confidently claim they followed through on something (chores, calls, plans) that never happened.
They seem offended or defensive when you question their memory.
Their “truth” always bends reality in their favor, even when it makes no logical sense.
You find yourself questioning your own memory more than theirs.
Take a screenshot of this list if you need the reminder.
What you need to remember
When someone drinks or uses, their words aren’t always anchors. Promises may be made sincerely — but sincerity doesn’t equal reality. Confabulation means their truth isn’t the truth.
That doesn’t mean you have to accept chaos as your normal. You’re allowed to set boundaries. You’re allowed to stop treating broken promises as binding. You’re allowed to choose stability, even if they can’t give it.
If this feels heavy and you’re not sure how to carry it alone, reach out. You don’t have to do this by yourself — contact me if you need support navigating the chaos and learning how to protect your peace.
And if this article helped you, share it with a friend, a sibling, or even a young mom you see slipping into unhealthy drinking or substance use. Sometimes the right words arrive at the right time.
Maybe this article can help someone else as much as it helped you. Comment below to ask for advice, or drop wisdom you think could help future readers who find themselves in this same struggle.
