Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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goddamn nosy she was. It was a grudge I’d nursed since she had called my house. “I really thought you liked me,” she said. “I do like you,” I said, because what was I going to say? She was the one who started it? Every one of those girls got grounded except me. My parents didn’t believe in grounding. I was in bed when my mom came into my room. She had one of the notes in her hand, and I hated that she was seeing me like that. “Help me understand why you’re so angry,” she said. But I wasn’t the one smashing dishes and arguing with my father after the kids went to bed. My parents’ fights were bad that year. I turned up the radio to drown out the sound. I listened to the Top 10 countdown every night, and I tracked the movements of songs by Madonna, and Michael Jackson, and Prince the way other children might count sheep. “I’m not angry,” I told her. “Then what are you?” she asked. I thought maybe I was bad. A lot of crazy things were building up inside me, and the more they accumulated, the stronger the suspicion that I was messed up and wrong. I shrugged my shoulders. Tears dripped down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” my mother said, pulling me into her, and I was so confused. My family made no sense to me. I had screwed up, but somehow she was apologizing. I GOT DRUNK for the first time in the summer of my sixth-grade year. Kimberley was 16 and working at an arcade so epic it was called Star World. Dark rooms lit by neon, full of clinking machines and 25-cent shots at redemption. A bar for people who can’t drink yet. My self-consciousness had become overpowering by then. I couldn’t stop dreaming about those shaggy-haired boys playing Galaga, but words were staple-gunned to the back of my throat. I hung around the arcade all day, but I never said a word. Someone actually asked Kimberley, “Is your cousin mute?” The staff of Star World threw an end-of-summer party in a house by the lake. For the first two hours, I stayed in my usual spot on the sidelines. Teenagers played quarters on the table and drank potions I understood to be off-limits: peach schnapps and orange juice, rum and Coke. But then the pudgy assistant manager handed me a beer. He must have felt sorry for me: Kimberley’s little cousin, watching from the benches again. Or maybe he had reached the euphoric point in your buzz when stupid ideas seem brilliant. Let’s pee our names in the snow. Let’s get the dog drunk. He grabbed a Budweiser out of the fridge and handed it to me, like he was sliding me a winning lottery ticket. Hey, you’re cool, right? I was two weeks shy of my twelfth birthday, but I had been practicing for this moment for years. I knew how to pop open the can with a gratifying pfffffft that sprayed like the lightest afternoon shower on my face. I knew how to tolerate the zap on my tongue and the way my glands squeezed like a fist. I knew how to sip, and I knew how to glug. Yes, sir. I was cool. I drank the beer. Then I drank another. And the evening began to glow in my veins. Words rolled out to me on red carpets. The perfect comeback. The fastest burn. And I kept drinking: a syrupy mixed drink, a shot of clear liquor like a grenade down my gullet. That shit tasted awful, but who cared? I was transformed. Pierced by divine light. Filled by a happiness I’d longed for all my life.
I threw up seven times. Hunched over the toilet, Kimberley at my side. The Star World manager tucked me into bed in a room upstairs. “You’re too young to be drinking like this,” he said. He was a sweet guy, with a hangdog face, and I nodded in agreement. He was wise and ancient, twice as old as me. He was 22. The next morning I was so shaky I could barely force blueberry yogurt in my mouth. And Kimberley was asking me weird questions. “Do you remember when you took your pants off last night?” And I laughed, because I knew that couldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t even undress in Kimberley’s room when she was there. I sure as hell didn’t strip off my clothes at a Star World party. But she had the unsmiling voice of a state’s witness. “You sat at the bottom of the steps, crying, and you said everyone loved me more than you. You don’t remember that?” I did not. It’s such a savage thing, to lose your memory, but the crazy part is, it doesn’t hurt one bit. A blackout doesn’t sting, or stab, or leave a scar when it robs you. Close your eyes and open them again. That’s what a blackout feels like. The blackout scattered whatever pixie dust still remained from the night before, and I was spooked by the lost time. I had no idea this could happen. You could be present and not there at all. Those first few drinks gave me hope for escape. But I knew from Stephen King stories how hope could boomerang on a person and what looked like an exit door turned out to be the mouth of a more dangerous maze. So I swore I’d never drink like that again. And I kept the promise for many years. I kept drinking, but not like that. Never like that. I assured myself it was a first-time drinker’s mistake. Instead, it was a blueprint.
Page 3 and 4: Begin Reading Table of Contents New
Page 5 and 6: PRELUDE
Page 7 and 8: The guy isn’t bad-looking. Slight
Page 9 and 10: WOMEN WHO DRINK I was 33, and lying
Page 11 and 12: she did not get—but I’ve never
Page 13 and 14: In my 20s, friends called with that
Page 15 and 16: I discussed roofies with Aaron Whit
Page 17 and 18: a while, a columnist would come alo
Page 19 and 20: ONE
Page 21 and 22: when no one was looking, and I woul
Page 23 and 24: steps, not talking. As much as my f
Page 25 and 26: Our home was on a major artery thro
Page 27: She’d transformed, like Olivia Ne
Page 31 and 32: STARVED One of the curious aspects
Page 33 and 34: more successful her eating disorder
Page 35 and 36: orrowed. She couldn’t miss the si
Page 37 and 38: To make it more confounding, Miles
Page 39 and 40: efused to be won. I drank cup after
Page 41 and 42: DRESSING IN MEN’S CLOTHES I start
Page 43 and 44: coffee. But that seemed like a very
Page 45 and 46: you to imperil our amazing friendsh
Page 47 and 48: I FINALLY GOT a boyfriend near the
Page 49 and 50: FOUR
Page 51 and 52: The production guy passed my desk a
Page 53 and 54: drank myself to the place where I w
Page 55 and 56: ehind me, and told him I was moving
Page 57 and 58: my Harp as soon I walked in the doo
Page 59 and 60: FIVE
Page 61 and 62: “Your key, mademoiselle,” said
Page 63 and 64: My friend Meredith lived in an apar
Page 65 and 66: “This was fun,” I said. He was
Page 67 and 68: OF COURSE. OF course I’d gone to
Page 69 and 70: like you should not be crying,” h
Page 71 and 72: SIX
Page 73 and 74: When the bottle was drained, I’d
Page 75 and 76: But no, really, I had it this time.
Page 77 and 78: off a gargantuan diamond. I thought
Page 79 and 80:
INTERLUDE
Page 81 and 82:
ain, which allowed his body to deve
Page 83 and 84:
SEVEN
Page 85 and 86:
But his once-sallow cheeks were ros
Page 87 and 88:
announcing their baby. Nobody wants
Page 89 and 90:
want to remain silent and unknowabl
Page 91 and 92:
Bubba curled up alongside me when I
Page 93 and 94:
EIGHT
Page 95 and 96:
for me? My friends didn’t necessa
Page 97 and 98:
ecause otherwise you have to go int
Page 99 and 100:
said, and she was right. The next w
Page 101 and 102:
fill-in-the-blank letter of apology
Page 103 and 104:
NINE
Page 105 and 106:
the tastes of a frat boy, or a grum
Page 107 and 108:
Mine was a recipe for unhappiness.
Page 109 and 110:
He tugged too hard, then I tugged t
Page 111 and 112:
SEX My first date in sobriety was w
Page 113 and 114:
30s to stare down a personal profil
Page 115 and 116:
and said, “Look, I dressed up for
Page 117 and 118:
“I’m thinking: Well, that was f
Page 119 and 120:
he’s impotent or not, I don’t k
Page 121 and 122:
ELEVEN
Page 123 and 124:
the scorn of strangers. They skip t
Page 125 and 126:
Addiction was the inverse of honest
Page 127 and 128:
I worshipped alcohol, and it consum
Page 129 and 130:
THIS IS THE PLACE A few months befo
Page 131 and 132:
Anna and I have had 20 years of the
Page 133 and 134:
saying in midsentence. My dad loses
Page 135 and 136:
from here, I told myself. There wil
Page 137 and 138:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR SARAH HEPOLA’S w
Page 139:
Contents COVER TITLE PAGE WELCOME D
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Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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