I'm making all the right sounds. Im posting this for two compelling reasons. Her writing has been published by the New York Times magazine, The New Republic, Elle, Glamour, The Guardian, Slate, and The Morning News, where she is a contributing writer. I was so hungry for this luxurious taffy pull, where we all gathered together and tried to sort out something closer to the truth. Blackouts might be the freakiest neurological occurrence that also happens to be casually categorized as another Friday night. Sarah is survived by her husband, Russell Hepola; children, Paula (John) Hepola Anderson, Annette (John) Blume, Lynn (Delbert) Fickes & Keith Hepola; grandchildren, Joanna Anderson, Bryan (Mackenzie) Blume, Joshua (Kelsie) Blume, Maria (Cory) Grunewald, Hannah (Mikael) VahnDijk, Christopher Fickes, Angelene (John) Winges & Shane (Kristi) Fickes; I think Im gonna find out the answer to that question over the next few months. 1928 - 2022 Sally was born on September 1, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Little Falls, MN. Fear of professional exile has kept me from taking on certain topics. By Sarah Hepola Ms. Hepola is the author of the best-selling memoir "Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget." One of the trickiest things about blackouts is that you don't . Back in 2015, I was putting out my first book, and then I was promoting that book, and then I was struggling to write a second book, and I could not risk the personal and professional blowback that might accompany stepping into the wrong lane. Its a fair point, but me, personally? While researching my book, I spoke with Aaron White, a leading expert on blackouts who is now the chief of epidemiology and biometry at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. What was I, a rape apologist? Too fraught, no lived experience. Three guys I met on dating apps who refused to get vaccinated: Eh, never mind. Fear of professional exile has kept me from taking on certain topics. Its kind of mind-boggling to contemplatethatnotpouring a beer on a strangers head would be the bad career move. Careerism. From reading your book, that seemed to me like perhaps the time that was the hardest for you. 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. Its projection. . Not because anyone asked for it, but because this is the career Ive chosen, and if Im not doing that, thenwhat are we doing here? Once-celebrated writers were being publicly rebranded as ghoulish, pieces of trash, red-pilled. . Cloud Teachers College and became a 4 th Grade Teacher in Sebeka, MN where she met her future husband, Donald Hepola. So this is my resolution as I trudge from this dark place: to speak out more. Lets get blackout has been a college rallying cry for many years. Staying silent as writers in this fractured world is understandable, maybe even wise; its also a disserviceto society, the career we fought so hard to claim, and ourselves. But there would be no lunch after the show. There are uncomfortable dates, compromised friendships, and, most importantly, the inner critic that never shuts up. But the way I was doing business had become a prison of my own making. One of the common arguments made, at least about #MeToo scandals, is that the men (and women) behaving badly rarely face legal punishment. They were married in Little Falls and moved to Eden Prairie,. ), I sympathized deeply with Miller. The unsavory truth is that I sympathized with many of these men: Johnny Depp, Ryan Adams, Brett Kavanaugh, every booze-soaked dumbass who has been accused of doing or saying things he may or may not remember, may or may not regret, may or may not have done while under the influence. John Ford. Sally was very special and made friends wherever she went. Maybe it would get me into The New Yorker! I was so hungry for this luxurious taffy pull, where we all gathered together and tried to sort out something closer to the truth. He worked in a factory, with his hands. When Don retired, they split their time between summers at the cabin on Duck Lake, MN and winters at their home in Mesa, AZ. We wanted the premium Scotch and the bragging rights of being an outsider. All my friends drank -- why were they telling me its not OK, when their drinking was OK? The Rise to Fame 1. Sarah Hepola is the author of the New York Times best-seller Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget (Grand Central Publishing). This interview has been edited and condensed. Beginning. Sallys mom taught her to play the piano, and Sally accompanied many vocal groups over the years, from high school through her adult years when she accompanied the singing group The Harmonettes (renamed The New Jubilee Singers). If I had to pick, I think I'd honestly say I miss smoking more - although it is nice being able to go up a flight of stairs and not feel like I'm dying! 30 Articles Style & Design |. We know that. One evening, I sat on the brown-leather couch of a younger man who admired me for my writing, and maybe other things, if the salty text messages were true. I kept going. My heart goes out to people who have that situation. Her past jobs include: Travel columnist, music editor, film critic, sex blogger, and for about 15 seconds in the late '90s, she taught high school English. I grew up in a conservative part of Dallas, in the conservative 80s. At one point, for example, she came out of a blackout while having sex with someone she didn't recognize: "It's like the universe dropped me into someone else's body. But my cohort and I had grown up wanting it both ways: a safe career, and an artistic one. All around me, people were folding. 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? Cloud Teachers College and became a 4th Grade Teacher in Sebeka, MN where she met her future husband, Donald Hepola. Her memoir, "Blackout," will be published by Grand Central on June 23, 2015. Executive Editor, Editorial Partnerships, HuffPost. Millers account was one of the most affecting pieces of writing I read that year. She was a very positive person, had an independent spirit, was high energy, and was incredibly welcoming and caring. It started early (she first stole sips of beer at age 7), and blazed a destructive path through several decades of her life. Sometimes, when money was tight, I ate this big jar of peanut butter . And that is a great gift that you can give someone. So much so, in fact, that when her father suggested she. You can call it justice. She was preceded in death by: her husband, Don; her son, Mark; and her daughter in law Twyla (Paul). Her place was filled with hardback books and writers who had been invited because they danced on the precarious edge of what was considered appropriate. We spoke about her newly released first book Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget, which is about a lifetime of drinking and the initial years of recovery. My husband broke up with me, but I didn't drink! She lives in East Dallas, where she enjoys playing her guitar poorly and listening to the "Xanadu" soundtrack. He had a book coming out,Talking to Strangers, which included a well-researched chapter on alcohol and blackouts in the context of a college scandal I knew better than most, having met some of the people involved with the legal case. She was in her own bed, her cat snuggled up beside her and the sun . And what I wish I could impart to someone is: If you can just get through that difficult first month, or two months, or whatever it turns out to be, I promise you, I swear to you, it is so much better on this side. Every day, I scrolled the endless river of outrage and all-caps, watching people express similar views to mine only to be pounced upon. And I knew blackouts so intimately that I literally wrote the book. Into someone else's life. Im dying to talk about the Brock Turner incident, I said. I grew so deeply uncomfortable, so roiled with shame, that I began plotting new careers. BLACKOUT: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure the sober life she never wanted. Its very unusual for sexual assaults involving a blackout to get a conviction, partly for this reason. The question is: What size is that, and should it be? Was the gender wage gap a myth? You say that in your own life, "alcohol often made the issue of consent very murky." The fast-typing egalitarians of the internet age wanted social change, vengeance, a megaphone for their righteous anger. Ours was not a moment to explore The Other Side. But central to Millers despair is this: She could not remember what happened. Sallys mom taught her to play the piano, and Sally accompanied many vocal groups over the years, from high school through her adult years when she accompanied the singing group The Harmonettes (renamed 'The New Jubilee Singers'). One of the great mistakes of our moment is being deemed on the wrong side of history. But has anyone read ahead in the book so they know how future generations will see this stuff? What if I picked up the groceries and I got the wrong ones? In the sixth grade, I did a six-week research project on the PMRC, the Parents Music Resource Center, and you might call that lengthy, impassioned report my first long-form story. Infused with sharp humor and carried along with elegant, brisk prose, Blackout traces the arc of Hepola's life, beginning when she was seven years old and snuck her first sips of Pearl Light from the family fridge in Dallas, "the land of rump-shaking cheerleaders and Mary Kay." After guiding us through her adolescent tribulations, first relationships, and drunken antics at the University of . | Funeral Home Website by Batesville Home | 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. I just decided, I get to be however I want, and you need to accept me. ", "[P]eople in a blackout can be surprisingly functional," she writes. Not to engage in callouts, or scolding, or eye rolls, which are not my style, but to express my own deep ambivalence, my own point of view on subjects that matter to me. I was so scared that my life was over. She was baptized at home on April 19, 1933 into the Finnish National Lutheran Church and later when the Topelius Church merged with the LCMS, she was confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church in New York Mills. Show More. I listened to podcasts on which controversial figures interviewed controversial guests, engaging in those delicious conversations I held so dear. Sarah Hepolais the author of the bestselling memoir,Blackout. Gender, sex, morality. But in a blackout, a person is anything but silent and immobile. I surrounded myself with people who reminded me I was loved, no matter what the firing squads on Twitter said. Sarah Hepola: When I first started thinking about writing a book, I went to Barnes & Noble in Union Square [in New York], and I went to the addiction section and read everything I could find.I found this book about women and drinking, and the upshot was that women hide their drinking and there are no social rituals about drinking for women the way there are for men. Sarah Hepola is represented by Amy Williams of The Williams Company. Privacy | She went to St. A writers life is financially precarious. Sarah Hepola, the author of Blackout, is a writer at large for Texas Monthly. Shes the co-conspirator of Smoke Em if You Got Em, a weekly podcast on whats burning through the culture that she hosts with friend and fellow scribe Nancy Rommelmann. She was one of those people who rarely had a bad day. Fear. "You might think it's stupid, but I still think it's art." I grew up reading Edgar Allan Poe (alcoholic, married his 13-year-old cousin), dancing to James Brown (domestic abuse, alleged rape), watching Woody Allen movies (is Woody Allen). The things you and I discuss., Nicole Chung: How to organize your writing ideas, He ran a hand through his hair. I was not in that situation; I was on the other side of the fence. They have no idea. I had to learn a tolerance to sit in my own uncomfortable feelings -- and then you kind of start thinking, What kind of life do I want to build for myself?. Were missing the chance to learn. I felt betrayed. Well, has the Internet read The Corrections?. Joan Didion, Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, though I had more reservations about that last one. Steven Pinker Will ChatGPT Replace Human Writers? The #MeToo movement, which felt like a necessary corrective when it began, was starting to feel like an arrow pointed at our own agency. In the pandemic madness of 2021, a journalist friend who enjoyed sounding off on science and homeopathy decided to stay the hell away from COVID. You cant predict these things; its all guesswork. But I was swiftly counseled away by my lets-not-die-in-this-ditch partner in difficult conversations. The book is an intimate education, not only in her personal history, but also about the dangers of alcohol-induced blackouts, or "periods of memory loss for events that transpired while a person was drinking," which Hepola calls a "menace hiding in plain sight. I know this: Im finally ready to have a conversation with the world. Sally was born on September 1, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Little Falls, MN. Lets talk about it out there, he said, gesturing to the corridor that led to a packed audience, and I gave him that look, the same look Id given the younger man who asked why I didnt write about these things. See, the body acceptance movement, I think, in its most pure form, is not, You have to be this way and accept it; its that you can love your body at any size. This was the stuff of doorstop novels, and yet people were working it out in 280 characters dashed off in line at Trader Joes. We need to understand these terms -- "blackout" and "passing out -- a little bit better, so that we can have a better conversation. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. For me, in terms of consent, there are these very clear lines. Maybe Ill write something great this year. The stories that youre telling me arent funny anymore., That was something that was big for me. Oh, absolutely! Id say it was disappointed. I thought that my dating life was over, because there was no way in hell that I was gonna be able to be intimate with somebody without drinking. Not gonna die in that ditch today. Lets get blackout has been a college rallying cry for many years. Rags to Riches: How US Higher Ed Went from Pitiful to Powerful, podcast about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Follow David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing on WordPress.com, Paul Fussell Thank God for the Atom Bomb, The Winning Ways of a Losing Strategy: Educationalizing Social Problems in the US. 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. Given your experience, do you think there is a better way to educate people about these issues? Ask the Puritans. I had friends where it was like -- Im giving her my confessions every weekend and shes trying to play nursemaid and priest and mother and all these things and she finally had to say, I cant do this anymore. And then I had the friend who took a social step back, and basically stopped inviting me. Outside on the sidewalk, he thanked me politely and sauntered off in the other direction, and I was left wondering why, indeed, we do these things. The selfie with Malcolm Gladwell I posted to Instagram did get a ton of likes, though. Not to engage in callouts, or scolding, or eye rolls, which are not my style, but to express my own deep ambivalence, my own point of view on subjects that matter to me. 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. That might be why Ive so desperately sought the validation of people on Twitter Ive never even met. We see Hepola scan an AA room for a potential boyfriend, gain fifty pounds by . There were the pressing matters of rent, exorbitant insurance, and the occasional glitter heels. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Its projection. Public scolding, all-caps hyperbole, a stubborn refusal to understand another point of viewintolerance, once perceived as a conservative problem, was fully bipartisan now. First, its a simply stunning piece of writing, which provokes in me feelings of both awe and jealousy. Careerism. Often called the Stanford rape (although the ghastly episode was, under California law at the time, considered a sexual assault butnot a rape) it became famous after the young woman at the center wrote ablisteringvictims statementthat was published onBuzzFeedand went supernova. A single womans life, also precarious. Not because anyone asked for it, but because this is the career Ive chosen, and if Im not doing that, then what are we doing here? Some of them just never spoke about it and silently worried. I was very disconnected from, Am I even hungry? I am such a binge eater, and I will eat away my feelings in the same way that I would drink away my feelings. Privately, I worried I was wrong. At what point does an AirBNB just become a hotel? Id spent the past five or so years watching celebrities, pundits, friends, and internet randos fall from grace for reasons as varied as sharing dumb jokes, making clumsy writing errors, accidentally showing their dong, and expressing controversial (though often widely held) opinions in the public execution chambers of social media. I was screwed. He gave me his dog-eared paperback of Slouching Toward Bethlehem. When Don retired, they split their time between summers at the cabin on Duck Lake, MN and winters at their home in Mesa, AZ. I just thought this was how it was donewe said one thing in public, and backstage we said what we really thought. Taboo subjects have always been delectable, but suddenly we were living in a time when so much that was once considered fair game for discussion (education, biological differences, the benefits of policing) had become dangerous. Oprah had him on to talk about the book, and exactly two weeks later, she sat down with Chanel Miller, whose own memoir,Know My Name,had become a sensation. My parents were Yankee liberals, only one of many ways we didnt fit. I was very disconnected from the emotional stakes of sex. I was screwed. What Sarah Hepola taught me about blackout drinking and sobriety's thrill If women wanted equality in the bedroom, why did so many confess to being turned on by domination and rough sex? ), Backstage at the Texas Book Festival event, I chatted with Gladwell. Well, has the Internet read The Corrections?. I was stuck on my second book, stuck on projects Id taken to cover the expenses of not finishing that book. They were married in Little Falls and moved to Eden Prairie, MN in 1962. She was one of those people who rarely had a bad day. Im worried about you. Louis C.K. I have a million things to say, but well talk about it after the event.. There had been more grievous allegations, of courserape, pedophilia, physical abuse. What if I picked up the groceries and I got the wrong ones? She writes of waking up in a hospital with no idea how she got there and only a handful of cluesa grim scenario that is nonetheless a familiar one for blackout drinkers like me. Sarah Hepola is the author of the bestselling memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, and the host/creator of America's Girls, a Texas Monthly podcast about the lost history and cultural impact of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. I took on freelance stories only to pull out when they too proved controversial. Louis C.K. I had not done the hard work of accepting myself; I was always drinking myself into an acceptance of myself, but I introduced new shame. by Sarah Hepola. I think a lot of people dont know the difference. Course Syllabus School, What Is It Good For? I was stuck. In the sixth grade, I did a six-week research project on the PMRC, the Parents Music Resource Center, and you might call that lengthy, impassioned report my first long-form story. I didnt deserve to be there, or at least thats how I felt as guests exchanged war stories about the scolds on social media, where I mostly posted upcoming appearances, like a bot run by a PR firm. husband and son, that ultimately create the life she needs to survive. What things cant you write about?, Gender, sex, politics. He was president of the History of Education Society and member of the executive board of the American Educational Research Association. The reasons were simple, at least for me. Atlantic. All around me, people were folding. Every once in a while, Id get a head of steam about some scandal, and Id start a big-swing essay only to bench myself a few days later. But being sympathetic to these fallen creaturesa trait instilled by literature, my mother, and Oprahhad been declared a sin. One evening, I sat on the brown-leather couch of a younger man who admired me for my writing, and maybe other things, if the salty text messages were true. Public scolding, all-caps hyperbole, a stubborn refusal to understand another point of viewintolerance, once perceived as a conservative problem, was fully bipartisan now. Hepola, a personal essays editor at Salon who experienced blackouts during her 25 years of drinking, assumed everyone knew what they were. Cloud Teachers College and became a 4th Grade Teacher in Sebeka, MN where she met her future husband, Donald Hepola. I think the first instinct when you have this situation is to cut that person out of your life. I simply could not gamble with my future. Instead my writing grew better, stronger, more clearheaded. Silent, fearful, aching to be heard, petrified of being misunderstood. I have read one article that is like a flawless, pure distillation of everything that annoys me about waffly liberal writing. 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. podcast about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Every once in a while, Id get a head of steam about some scandal, and Id start a big-swing essay only to bench myself a few days later. The #MeToo movement, which felt like a necessary corrective when it began, was starting to feel like an arrow pointed at our own agency. 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. All Content 2023 Sarah Hepola. For press inquiries or to contact the author, click here. Not that project, not that story, not that controversy. Not that project, not that story, not that controversy. Sally was born on September 1, 1928, to Frank and Noella Hall in Little Falls, MN. ThisNew York Times bestseller will resonate with anyone who has been forced to reinvent or struggled in the face of necessary change. I toyed with the idea of writing about Brock Turner. I wanted people to love me without really knowing me, which isnt love. Jones-Pearson Funeral Home. Sarah Hepola is the author of the bestselling memoir, Blackout . I still wanted it both ways: the respect and admiration of strangers without the hard work of earning that respect. Consent, complicity, moral trespass, power dynamics. The things you and I discuss., Nicole Chung: How to organize your writing ideas, He ran a hand through his hair. Every one of my friendships got stronger when I quit drinking -- because when you dare to tell the truth to the people who are close to you, and you dare to show your heart to them, that is an act of trust, and people, if theyre good friends -- and mine were -- they respond to that. and Al Franken became Andrew Cuomo and Dave Chappelle. I told these stories and everyone laughed and I felt heroic. You can call it cancel culture. You mention that you were able to write off educational materials about excessive drinking -- like a student health center pamphlet, in college -- because they just didnt seem that realistic to you. But in silencing our own moral compass and strongly held beliefs, were hanging ourselves out to dry, rendering our wisdom and insight useless. That she sympathizes with accused rapists, for one thing . Were living in a time when social media have made it dangerous to address certain fraught topics from the wrong perspective. But the way I was doing business had become a prison of my own making. My college boyfriend introduced me to Joan Didion. Perhaps he was disappointed in me, or in an environment where writers saved the best and juiciest controversies for private conversations. 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