We spoke about her newly released first book Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget, which is about a lifetime of drinking and the initial years of recovery. The #MeToo movement, which felt like a necessary corrective when it began, was starting to feel like an arrow pointed at our own agency. The next day, your brain will have no imprint of [your] activities, almost as if they didn't happen." In the sixth grade, I did a six-week research project on the PMRC, the Parents Music Resource Center, and you might call that lengthy, impassioned report my first long-form story. Some of them were just never going to cut me out, no matter what. She was a very positive person, had an independent spirit, was high energy, and was incredibly welcoming and caring. Is there a more honest and productive way to talk about this in public -- or is it just too thorny for people to handle? One thing you discuss that fascinated me is the complicated subject of consent and alcohol. And the writing community changed. I simply could not gamble with my future. Fear of professional exile has kept me from taking on certain topics. Let's start with the most recent piece: Texas writer Sarah Hepola's Atlantic article, a rambling, illogical screed that was full of fallacious arguments. Im posting this for two compelling reasons. ( 2,291 ) $10.99. Hepola, a personal essays editor at Salon who experienced blackouts during her 25 years of drinking, assumed everyone knew what they were. I didnt deserve to be there, or at least thats how I felt as guests exchanged war stories about the scolds on social media, where I mostly posted upcoming appearances, like a bot run by a PR firm. She and Don raised six children there. Careerism. "Alcohol felt like freedom to me," Hepola notes. Sarah Hepola The Things I'm Afraid to Write About by David Labaree March 24, 2022 Leave a Comment This post is a remarkable essay by Sarah Hepola, which appeared recently online at Atlantic. While researching my book, I spoke with Aaron White, a leading expert on blackouts who is now the chief of epidemiology and biometry at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. I had to learn a tolerance to sit in my own uncomfortable feelings -- and then you kind of start thinking, What kind of life do I want to build for myself?. Not because anyone asked for it, but because this is the career Ive chosen, and if Im not doing that, then what are we doing here? Right. Because I was part of a binge-drinking culture and because it was a part of my life, I always knew -- ever since I blacked out when I was 12. And thats why, midway through a career built on speaking out, I shut up. But in 2015 Id written a memoir that introduced some controversial ideas about women and drinking, and I badly wanted to be a part of their rogue outfit, even as I clung to the more doctrinaire one Id long considered my own. Every day, I scrolled the endless river of outrage and all-caps, watching people express similar views to mine only to be pounced upon. by Sarah Hepola. In the pandemic madness of 2021, a journalist friend who enjoyed sounding off on science and homeopathy decided to stay the hell away from COVID. Im worried about you. I was screwed. To listen. Were missing the chance to learn. Staying silent as writers in this fractured world is understandable, maybe even wise; its also a disserviceto society, the career we fought so hard to claim, and ourselves. Gender, sex, morality. My college boyfriend introduced me to Joan Didion. But then, if you drink too much, alcohol lowers your judgement and your inhibitions. When Don retired, they split their time between summers at the cabin on Duck Lake, MN and winters at their home in Mesa, AZ. But in 2015Id written a memoirthat introduced some controversial ideas about women and drinking, and I badly wanted to be a part of their rogue outfit, even as I clung to the more doctrinaire one Id long considered my own. I felt betrayed. But being sympathetic to these fallen creaturesa trait instilled by literature, my mother, and Oprahhad been declared a sin. Id choose a lot of gnarly punishments before Id choose to lose the status and career Ive built over more than two decades. I actually have a friend whose husband is in AA, and she doesn't have a drinking problem, but she goes to the . In Blackout, Hepola likens sobriety to a "plot twist" and shows the anguish that befell her when she was finally forced to face a version of herself, sans alcohol, head-on. Atlantic. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, the Atlantic, Salon, and Elle. A nagging sense that I did not know enough about any given controversy to weigh in publicly (though that never stopped so many others). One of the reasons that I drank so much when I was drinking and involved with men is that I felt deeply uncomfortable with my own body. I was galled by the PMRC, a group of concerned mothers led by the then-wife of Al Gore, Tipper Gore, fighting the cultural rot of songs about masturbation, virginity, BDSM, all the topics a curious girl might find irresistible. She lives in Dallas. My husband broke up with me, but I didn't drink! You can call it cancel culture. Shes really busy, shes an actress; shes out in LA with her husband, Im not gonna worry about it. The fast-typing egalitarians of the internet age wanted social change, vengeance, a megaphone for their righteous anger. Good. If women wanted equality in the bedroom, why did so many confess to being turned on by domination and rough sex? I had no boyfriend and practically no qualms about that. See, the body acceptance movement, I think, in its most pure form, is not, You have to be this way and accept it; its that you can love your body at any size. A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, BLACKOUT is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure--the sober life she never wanted. But central to Millers despair is this: She could not remember what happened. Taboo subjects have always been delectable, but suddenly we were living in a time when so much that was once considered fair game for discussion (education, biological differences, the benefits of policing) had become dangerous. Lets get blackout has been a college rallying cry for many years. Like me, the younger man had fallen in love with art because it was the place where people told the truth. I toyed with the idea of writing about Brock Turner. This post is a remarkable essay by Sarah Hepola, which appeared recently online at Atlantic. Ive been waiting for someone to confront me on my drinking! They will feel defensive, hurt. But admitting what I really thought, what I really believed about these complicated issues, I feared a similar exile. She was one of those people who rarely had a bad day. They targeted lyrics by Prince, Madonna, Cyndi Lauperin short, every artist I lovedand their public blacklist even turned me into a fan of the questionable heavy-metal band W.A.S.P., whose name was thought to be an acronym for We Are Sexual Perverts. (I had no idea!). My point in all of this is: Hey, were having this explosive, important, necessary, fascinating, difficult conversation about consent. If women wanted equality in the bedroom, why did so many confess to being turned on by domination and rough sex? Not only has she written for us, but she's been filling up the internet for a while. She has worked as a music critic, travel writer, film reviewer, sex blogger, beauty columnist, and high school English teacher. But such was the fierce community forged by booze that I feared exile. I'm posting this for two compelling reasons. He had a book coming out,Talking to Strangers, which included a well-researched chapter on alcohol and blackouts in the context of a college scandal I knew better than most, having met some of the people involved with the legal case. Id say it was disappointed. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Sarah Hepolais the author of the bestsellingBlackoutand whatever she writes next. She went to St. Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods: Internet speech will never go back to normal. Cloud Teachers College and became a 4th Grade Teacher in Sebeka, MN where she met her future husband, Donald Hepola. And in a way, youre telling that person something. Its a shame the Internet hates him, I messaged. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times magazine, the Atlantic, Elle, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, Salon, and Texas Monthly. Hepola conveys both the horror in the mysteries left after a night smudged dark by drinking, and the draw of overdrinking that kept her carving out her memory with alcohol. I dont know. N ot long ago, I visited Austin, where I spent much of my 20s, and I noticed that my female friends were all dressed the . I was very disconnected from the emotional stakes of sex. Heres something that I think helps enrich the conversation." If I had to pick, I think I'd honestly say I miss smoking more - although it is nice being able to go up a flight of stairs and not feel like I'm dying! I have a million things to say, but well talk about it after the event.. Sarah Hepola of Menahga, Minnesota September 1, 1928 - April 24, 2022 Sally was born on September 1, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Little Falls, MN. Yes, exactly! Or I would pause the recording to offer my own opposing view, like I was part of this conversation, and not the passive listener. We need to understand these terms -- "blackout" and "passing out -- a little bit better, so that we can have a better conversation. Can you actually support yourself as an Uber driver? Prickly issues that deserve a full airing are being treated as settled law. The couple next to me on my flight was headed to a wedding and staying with 81 people at an AirBNB. Id spent the past five or so years watching celebrities, pundits, friends, and internet randos fall from grace for reasons as varied as sharing dumb jokes, making clumsy writing errors, accidentally showing their dong, and expressing controversial (though often widely held) opinions in the public execution chambers of social media. Oprah managed deep conversations with each of them, never pointing out that one account brushed uncomfortably against the other. I couldnt always tell the difference between activism and protectionism, valid critique and frivolous complaint. Possible humiliation, almost-certain ridicule, and excused overindulgence: Never one to flee from a challenge, our writer goes to her high-school reunion. I hadnt gossiped so enthusiastically since middle school. Sarah Hepola is the author of the bestselling memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, and the host/creator of America's Girls, a Texas Monthly podcast about the lost history and cultural impact of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Sarah Hepolais the author of the bestselling memoir,Blackout. Yes, exactly! Or I would pause the recording to offer my own opposing view, like I was part of this conversation, and not the passive listener. Perhaps my thinking, steeped in the classic liberalism of 90s slacker culture, was unevolved. And so I watched from afar as the person whose memory had not recorded the incident came to control the narrative. 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