The brain’s capacity to return to “normal” following long-term sobriety is unknown. Short-term (6 weeks) abstinence seems sufficient to observe some brain-volume recovery but does not result in equivalent brain volumes between recovering chronic alcoholics and healthy controls (Mann et al. 2005). It is difficult to determine whether recovery is complete. Aging is a factor. That is, older alcoholics exhibit reduced capacity for recovery compared with younger alcoholics (Fein et al. 1990; Munro et al. 2000; Reed et al. 1992; Rourke and Grant 1999). Longer periods of abstinence may be required for follow-up investigations. Some brain damage, such as neuronal loss (Harper 2007), may be irreversible, even with extended abstinence.
