A couple of years ago, I was asked to conduct an interview at the Texas Book Festival with Malcolm Gladwell. A nagging sense that I did not know enough about any given controversy to weigh in publicly (though that never stopped so many others). Five years ago, on June 12, 2010, Sarah Hepola quit drinking, breaking a lifelong habit that could be traced back to sneaking her first sip of her dad's warm Pearl Light when she was 6 years old. Sarah Hepola 's writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, New Republic, Glamour, Slate, Guardian, and Salon, where she was a longtime editor. ThisNew York Times bestseller will resonate with anyone who has been forced to reinvent or struggled in the face of necessary change. Do you have any advice for someone who is thinking about broaching the subject of drinking problems with a friend? Gender, sex, morality. Perhaps he was disappointed in me, or in an environment where writers saved the best and juiciest controversies for private conversations. 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!). Do you think the recent cultural push for acceptance and body love can actually make it harder for people to make a change? I stayed on apodcast about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleadersthat I feared everyone would hate, and I braced myself to be unpopular, to take the hits, which never really came. Terms of Use | Join Tracy Clark-Flory as she presents her newest book Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey Into the Heart of Desire. Leave your condolences to the family on this memorial page or send flowers to show you care. by Sarah Hepola. What was I, a rape apologist? I understood such moral panics to be the product of generational hand-wringing and the religious right, which was then gaining ground. I hadnt gossiped so enthusiastically since middle school. When I came out the other side of that, and I was sober and I was examining, Why did I drink so much?, one of the reasons was because I never felt comfortable in my body. Writers gathered around the long communal table of Twitter, and some days it felt like the last scene ofReservoir Dogseveryone turning their guns on one another. 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. 1928 - 2022 Sally was born on September 1, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Little Falls, MN. Id think those would be the most interesting things to write about., I gave him an exasperated look. She eventually identified herself as Chanel Miller, but at the time of the statements publication, it was anonymous, and identified only the other key figure, a swimmer named Brock Turner, whose ubiquitous mug shot helped turn him into the poster child for every smug athlete, every entitled douchebag the world has ever known. Perhaps he was disappointed in me, or in an environment where writers saved the best and juiciest controversies for private conversations. At my core, I was a people pleaser, and the culture had reached a moment when any opinion worthy of expression ran the risk of losing half your audience. Pero tena un precio. You cant predict these things; its all guesswork. When Don retired, they split their time between summers at the cabin on Duck Lake, MN and winters at their home in Mesa, AZ. As she tells it, Sarah Hepola's romance with alcohol began in her childhood (yes, childhood), when she would sneak sips of beer from her mother's half-drunk can in the fridge. Instead of just not inviting me, which she could have done -- she could have just slowly slinked out of my life, and I would have probably just stayed in denial and thought, You know what? Id long considered myself a liberal and a feminist, but Id grown terrified of being banished for views I considered reasonable, or at least worth discussingbut maybe, but what about, but actually. For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was "the gasoline of all adventure." She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she . And they dont know the difference between blacking out and passing out. And what happens to the addict when he or she is in this place, is that the first week, or month, or in my case, year, are so bad that they keep falling back, keep falling back -- which I did for two years leading up to the moment that I quit. A human life is morally complex, filled with ambivalence and uncertainty, and accepting the quickly assembled dogma of social-media feeds lets us bypass messier realities that we ignore at our own peril. To listen. He skillfully reframed a rape culture narrative as a tragic misunderstanding fueled by the distortion of booze. Beber significaba ser libre, era parte de su derecho como mujer fuerte y progresista del s. XXI. You say that in your own life, "alcohol often made the issue of consent very murky." But in my professional life, I wrote about apolitical subjects such as dating and travel, and on Instagram, I mostly posted about my cat and whatever seltzer I was currently enjoying. My heart goes out to people who have that situation. Also, Id fantasized about having lunch with him, and then later being able to say that Malcolm Gladwell and I were friends. He worked in a factory, with his hands. Artists were the weirdos and the scoundrels, the square pegs who never fit the round hole of society, and the result was typically a bucket of addictions, perversions, and bizarre predilections born of life on the outskirts. The Rise to Fame 1. Perhaps my thinking, steeped in the classic liberalism of 90s slacker culture, was unevolved. (Laughs.) Id choose a lot of gnarly punishments before Id choose to lose the status and career Ive built over more than two decades. If women wanted equality in the bedroom, why did so many confess to being turned on by domination and rough sex? But its not like theyre gonna turn around and say, Thank you! And so alcohol became this way to drown those critical voices. "Alcohol felt like freedom to me," Hepola notes. Big in Finland. I think the first instinct when you have this situation is to cut that person out of your life. Sarah Hepola is the personal essays editor at Salon.com. All around me, people were folding. And though the area of expertise Id staked out as a writer was the complications of womens independence and the nuances of sex, and my own personal brand was blunt honesty, I could not bring myself to say word one about these episodes in public. All Rights Reserved. I simply could not gamble with my future. She was one of those people who rarely had a bad day. BLACKOUT: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget, Things Fall Apart: Thoughts on Joan Didion, Why Im Doing a Podcast on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. When I quit drinking in 2010, bringing to an end a dark history of blackouts and tumbles down staircases, I thought I might lose my writing career. Im not going to die in that ditch today, I often said to a like-minded friend when we spoke about these scandals, which was daily, both of us getting in a lather because the topics were so rich. ), Backstage at the Texas Book Festival event, I chatted with Gladwell. Lets get blackout has been a college rallying cry for many years. Privacy | Going against the online outrage machine could be career suicide. Perhaps my thinking, steeped in the classic liberalism of 90s slacker culture,wasunevolved. She lives in Dallas. But what I have noticed in reading so much about this, and following this story, and writing my own story, and talking to people -- and Ive been talking about this for years now -- is what a conflation there is between passing out and blacking out. In the end, I did what I have done for the past 25 years whenever I hit some crisis in my career. published June 24, 2015. ( 2,291 ) $10.99. "Sobriety sucked the biggest donkey dong in the world," she tells us, and she backs that up. Privately, I worried I was wrong. Sarah Hepola, the author of Blackout, is a writer at large for Texas Monthly. But the way I was doing business had become a prison of my own making. Instead my writing grew better, stronger, more clearheaded. I couldnt always tell the difference between activism and protectionism, valid critique and frivolous complaint. Your size might be different than my size. Sarah Hepola writes a long rambling pointless essay titled The . And in a way, youre telling that person something. The tragic result is a disturbed public forum where it often seems like no adults are in the room. There are uncomfortable dates, compromised friendships, and, most importantly, the inner critic that never shuts up. I felt betrayed. In the Dream House University of Alabama Press *A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was "the gasoline of all adventure." She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she proudly stayed till last call. What things cant you write about?, Gender, sex, politics. My writer friends and I huddled backstage at panels in green rooms filled with chocolate-chip cookies and veggie platters, whispering about everything we couldnt say out there, in the scary beyond. Can you actually support yourself as an Uber driver? So much so, in fact, that when her father suggested she. And this bravado among women has continued to the point where it is considered a right. This is about every corner of human life. She went to St. Is this you? I told these stories and everyone laughed and I felt heroic. Possible humiliation, almost-certain ridicule, and excused overindulgence: Never one to flee from a challenge, our writer goes to her high-school reunion. At what point does an AirBNB just become a hotel? I hope you revel in the writing and wrestle with the problem. Admin. Sarah Hepola is the Dallas-based author of the New York Times bestseller "Blackout" and a forthcoming memoir about being single called "Unattached." She also reported and hosted the Texas. But there was a . The things you and I discuss., Nicole Chung: How to organize your writing ideas, He ran a hand through his hair. When you are making policy, and when you are trying to make social change, it behooves you to speak in very clear terms, you know? So I was relieved that someone of Gladwells stature had broached the topic. I was not in that situation; I was on the other side of the fence. And so it came as an unwelcome surprise to watch the intolerance that my liberal friends once decried on the censorious right flood to our side of the street. Books were a common pleasure point, and I was eager to tell him about a literary party Id recently attended in New York City, where Id once lived and often visited in the Before Times. It was also, as Miller acknowledged and like every story ever told, incomplete. Sarah Hepola is the author of the memoir Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, a New York Times bestseller. Make a change, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Falls. 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