Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

BEGINNING
The closet in my Manhattan studio was just big enough to climb inside. I had to rearrange boxes and
bags of old clothes, but if I cleared the ground like brush and squished my sleeping bag underneath me
like a giant pillow, I could curl up in a ball compact enough to shut the closet door.
I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out. All those years I spent on the bed as the sun
stabbed me through the blinds. Seeking cover under blankets and pillows, wearing silky blue eye
masks like I was some ’60s movie heroine. All those mornings I felt so exposed, but five feet away
was a closet offering a feeling of total safety. My very own panic room.
I needed protection, because I had such turtle skin in those days. I knew quitting drinking would
mean giving up the euphoria of the cork eased out of the bottle at 6 pm. What I did not expect is that I
would feel so raw and threatened by the world. The clang and shove of strangers on the streets
outside. The liquor stores lurking on every corner.
But you’d be surprised how manageable life feels when it has been reduced to a two-by-five-foot
box. Notice how the body folds in on itself. Listen to the smooth stream of breath. Focus on the bathunk
of the heart. That involuntary metronome. That low, stubborn drumbeat. Isn’t it weird how it
keeps going, even when you tell it to stop?
Sobriety wasn’t supposed to be like this. I thought when I finally quit drinking for good, the
universe would open its treasure chest for me. That only seemed fair, right? I would sacrifice the
greatest, most important relationship of my existence—here I am, universe, sinking a knife into my
true love’s chest for you—and I would be rewarded with mountains of shimmering, clinking gold to
grab by the fistful. I would be kicking down doors again. In badass superhero mode.
Instead, I woke up at 5 am each day, chest hammering with anxiety, and crawled into the closet for
a few hours to shut out unpleasant voices. When will I screw this up again? What failures lurk
beyond these four walls? I trudged through the day with shoulders slumped, every color flipped to
gray scale. I spent evenings on my bed, arm draped over my face. Hangover posture. I didn’t like the
lights on. I didn’t even like TV. It was almost as if, in absence of drinking blackouts, I was forced to
create my own.
I had a few sources of comfort. I liked my cat. I liked food. I scarfed down ice cream, which was
weird, because when I was drinking, I hated sweets. “I’ll drink my dessert,” I used to say, because
sugar messed with my high. But now I devoured a pint of Häagen-Dazs in one sitting, and I didn’t feel
an ounce of guilt, because people quitting the thing they love get to eat whatever the fuck they want.
I built a bridge to midnight with peanut butter and chocolate. Four-cheese macaroni and tins of
lasagna. Chicken tikka masala with extra naan, delivered in bags containing two forks. And if I made
it to midnight, I won. Another day on the books: five, seven, eleven days down. Then I’d wake up at 5
am and start this bullshit all over again.
Back in my 20s—in that wandering place of travel and existential searching that unfolded between
newspaper jobs—I briefly worked at a foster home for children with catastrophic illnesses. One of
the babies did not have a brain, a fate I didn’t even know was possible. He had a brain stem but not a