Although metamemory, short-term memory, episodic memory, and free and delayed recall are impaired in uncomplicated alcoholism, deficits in other memory components have not consistently been identified (Crews et al., 2005). Remote memories, especially those formed before the onset of prolonged heavy drinking, remain relatively preserved compared to recently acquired memories (Mearns and Lees-Haley, 1993). Recovery of some forms of memory functioning has been found to vary in relation to duration of abstinence. On episodic memory tasks, deficits generally have not been found following prolonged abstinence (Reed et al., 1992; Rourke and Grant, 1999; Fein et al., 2006). Pitel et al. (2009) reported that for alcoholics who abstained over a six-month interval, episodic memory performance (as assessed by a selective reminding test) returned to a level of functioning comparable to that of nonalcoholic controls, while this level of recovery was not observed in alcoholic patients who relapsed. Additionally, Pitel et al. (2012a) tested abstinent alcoholics on a face-name learning and recognition-memory task during an fMRI scan. At rest, fMRI activation patterns in the left hippocampal and cerebellar regions were positively synchronized
