Blackout
Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
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4.5 • 697 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this unflinchingly honest and hilarious memoir, a woman discovers that her best life is a sober one.
For Sarah Hepola, drinking felt like freedom; part of her birthright as a twenty-first-century woman. But there was a price–she often blacked out, having no memory of the lost hours. On the outside, her career was flourishing, but inside, her spirit was diminishing. She could no longer avoid the truth–she needed help.
Blackout is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure–sobriety. Sarah Hepola's tale will resonate with anyone who has had to face the reality of addiction and the struggle to put down the bottle. At first it seemed like a sacrifice–but in the end, it was all worth it to get her life back.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Alcoholism is one of our most extensively documented illnesses, perhaps because—as Sarah Hepola eloquently establishes in this irreverent, fiercely intelligent book—writing and drinking go awfully well together. But even in the crowded field of booze memoirs, Hepola’s account stands out; she looks back on her drunken escapades with hard-won perception and faces her (sober) future with admirable realism. Yes, Blackout covers familiar territory. But Hepola’s version is so well told, it’s virtually impossible to put down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Using as touchstone the astonishing self-revelatory memoir Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp, Salon editor and Dallas journalist Hepola delves into her own lush life as the merry lit gal about town with unique intensity. Growing up in Dallas in the late 1970s and '80s, Hepola was an early convert to the sensation of intoxication that alcohol induced: she snuck sips of beer from her mother's open cans left in the refrigerator, and later found drinking an effective way out of adolescent self-consciousness. By college in Austin, she had embraced the drinking culture with gusto, though she did recognize by age 20 that she had a drinking problem; her nights out were often accompanied by blackouts, after which she relied on friends to fill in the messy details. Working as a journalist at the Austin Chronicle and the Dallas Observer before moving to New York City to freelance at age 31, Hepola naturally equated writing with drinking, because "wine turned down the volume on own self-doubt." But the blackouts began to take their toll, and waking up in strangers' beds with no memory of how she got there felt terrifying. In this valiant, gracious work of powerful honesty, Hepola confronts head-on the minefield of self-sabotage that binge drinking caused in her work, relationships, and health before she eventually turned her life around.
Customer Reviews
See AllCouldn’t put it down.
The most beautiful writing I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Wow!!!!!
This book is full of so much wisdom and insight. I absolutely loved it.
Fantastic
Honest, bold, and brutal. A fantastic read for anyone, especially if you are in recovery. I was a blackout drunk so I identify with her many lost hours/ nights.