Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola
I’m in Paris on a magazine assignment, which is exactly as great as it sounds. I eat dinner at a
restaurant so fancy I have to keep resisting the urge to drop my fork just to see how fast someone will
pick it up. I’m drinking cognac—the booze of kings and rap stars—and I love how the snifter sinks
between the crooks of my fingers, amber liquid sloshing up the sides as I move it in a figure eight.
Like swirling the ocean in the palm of my hand.
I’m in Paris on a magazine assignment, which is exactly as great as it sounds. I eat dinner at a
restaurant so fancy I have to keep resisting the urge to drop my fork just to see how fast someone will
pick it up. I’m drinking cognac—the booze of kings and rap stars—and I love how the snifter sinks
between the crooks of my fingers, amber liquid sloshing up the sides as I move it in a figure eight.
Like swirling the ocean in the palm of my hand.
window with a guy in a white dinner jacket and clunky black glasses. The last thing I remember seeing is his face, his mouth open in mid-laugh. And behind him, night. I woke up in my bed the next morning. I didn’t know how the reception ended or how I got home. Bubba was beside me, purring. Nothing alarming, nothing amiss. Just another chunk of my life, scooped out as if by a melon baller. People who refuse to quit drinking often point to the status markers they still have. They make lists of things they have not screwed up yet: I still had my apartment. I still had my job. I had not lost my boyfriend, or my children (because I didn’t have any to lose). I took a bath that night, and I lay in the water for a long time, and I dripped rivers down my thighs and my pale white belly, and it occurred to me for the first time that perhaps no real consequences would ever come to me. I would not end up in a hospital. I would not wind up in jail. Perhaps no one and nothing would ever stop me. Instead, I would carry on like this, a hopeless little lush in a space getting smaller each year. I had held on to many things. But not myself. I don’t know how to describe the blueness that overtook me. It was not a wish for suicide. It was an airless sensation that I was already dead. The lifeblood had drained out of me. I rose out of the bathtub, and I called my mother. A mother was a good call to make before abandoning hope. And I said to her the words I had said a thousand times—to friends, and to myself, and to the silent night sky. “I think I’m going to have to quit drinking,” I told her. And this time, I did.
INTERLUDE
- Page 27 and 28: She’d transformed, like Olivia Ne
- Page 29 and 30: I threw up seven times. Hunched ove
- 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: off a gargantuan diamond. I thought
- 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
window with a guy in a white dinner jacket and clunky black glasses. The last thing I remember<br />
seeing is his face, his mouth open in mid-laugh. And behind him, night.<br />
I woke up in my bed <strong>the</strong> next morning. I didn’t know how <strong>the</strong> reception ended or how I got home.<br />
Bubba was beside me, purring. Nothing alarming, nothing amiss. Just ano<strong>the</strong>r chunk of my life,<br />
scooped out as if by a melon baller.<br />
People who refuse <strong>to</strong> quit drinking often point <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> status markers <strong>the</strong>y still have. They make lists<br />
of things <strong>the</strong>y have not screwed up yet: I still had my apartment. I still had my job. I had not lost my<br />
boyfriend, or my children (because I didn’t have any <strong>to</strong> lose).<br />
I <strong>to</strong>ok a bath that night, and I lay in <strong>the</strong> water for a long time, and I dripped rivers down my thighs<br />
and my pale white belly, and it occurred <strong>to</strong> me for <strong>the</strong> first time that perhaps no real consequences<br />
would ever come <strong>to</strong> me. I would not end up in a hospital. I would not wind up in jail. Perhaps no one<br />
and nothing would ever s<strong>to</strong>p me. Instead, I would carry on like this, a hopeless little lush in a space<br />
getting smaller each year. I had held on <strong>to</strong> many things. But not myself.<br />
I don’t know how <strong>to</strong> describe <strong>the</strong> blueness that over<strong>to</strong>ok me. It was not a wish for suicide. It was<br />
an airless sensation that I was already dead. The lifeblood had drained out of me.<br />
I rose out of <strong>the</strong> bathtub, and I called my mo<strong>the</strong>r. A mo<strong>the</strong>r was a good call <strong>to</strong> make before<br />
abandoning hope. And I said <strong>to</strong> her <strong>the</strong> words I had said a thousand times—<strong>to</strong> friends, and <strong>to</strong> myself,<br />
and <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> silent night sky.<br />
“I think I’m going <strong>to</strong> have <strong>to</strong> quit drinking,” I <strong>to</strong>ld her.<br />
And this time, I did.