Sarah Hepola -- Blackout: remembering the things I drank to forget
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I admit that I read this book (1) because I feel that I drink too
much and maybe want help and (2) because I feel that I don't drink
enough and I worry that I'll die without drinking enough to really
enjoy the rest of my life.

Or, maybe I want to feel better about my drinking and I want to know
about someone who I can believe is worse than I.

And, maybe I want to drink better: to learn to enjoy it more (maybe
even while drinking less), to learn how to gain something of value
while drinking, e.g. new ideas, new feelings, new kinds of
interactions with those close to me.  During the course of this book
and her life Hepola changes her mind and ideas about whether writers
need to drink in order to be creative or whether it even helps to
drink when trying to write.  Hepola's discussion of this issue and
her feelings about it is another good reason for reading this book.

So, I've read this book hoping that I'll understand Hepola a bit,
and that, by understanding her, I'll understand myself a bit better.

From this book's subtitle ("Remembering the things I drank to
forget") you'd think that there were deep, dark, terrible, traumatic
events in Hepola's past.  But, that doesn't seem to be true.  She's
lived, actually, a very blessed and fortunate life; she's had
interesting and good paying jobs and good friends.  She's lived in
pleasant and interesting places.  Her childhood, as much as we learn
of it, was not all that eventful and not the kind that leaves
someone emotionally crippled.  Hepola is blessed with intelligence
and wittiness and charm and ability.  So, what's to keep us from
saying: "Get over it."  "Get a grip."  Drink if you want, but don't
blame the world or anything in it for "driving you to drink".  If
you work your way through this book, I think you will find that
Hepola arrives at a place where she does not blame things outside
herself for her drinking (in spite of the subtitle), and that she
does find some strength and solutions from within, from her own
thoughts, feelings, and actions.

And, her account of a few sessions in therapy back that up.
According to Hepola, at one point her therapist says to her, that
there is no point in continuing with sessions if she (Hepola) does
not really want to stop drinking.  In other words, you do not have
disturbing emotional problems that cause you to drink; your drinking
*is* your problem.

There are things that are missing from Hepola's life, mostly things
that she envies in some of her peers.  But, if not having everything
that you want were a sufficient cause for excessive drinking, we'd
all be smashed senseless every day and every night.

That's not a good justification for being heartless in our attitudes
toward Hepola: she does deserve our sympathy.  She drinks
excessively; she drinks destructively; she drinks way past tipsy and
beyond staggering and well into oblivion.  She drinks until she
blacks out.  And, during one very long period of her life, she could
not seem to stop herself from doing that.

And, in some ways, it's the lack of reasons for her heavy drinking
that make this book more interesting.  There are no easy answers or
justifications here.  There are no clear, identifiable causes or
problems (in her life) that can be fixed.  Which means that we, her
readers, can be moved to try that much harder to understand why
she's the way she is and why she does what she does.

You'd think these blackouts would be frightening, waking up the next
morning not knowing how you got where you are or even who you are in
bed with.  She says that she has been frightened by it.  But, it
doesn't seem to be enough to *successfully* motivate her to stop.
It's enough to frighten me.  Doesn't she worry, I was asking myself,
about STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), since she often seems to
wind up in bed with a strange man.  I'd worry that I'd die on the
way home from a party, because in California, U.S.A., we drive home
from parties (we drive everywhere we go, but that's another of our
problems), so I'd end up dead, or someone I hit with my car would be
dead or injured, or, if I were lucky, I'd be arrested for DUI
(driving under the influence) and would have my driver's license
taken away.  In fact, mid-way through the book, Hepola moves to New
York city.  Why?  I'm thinking it's so that she will not have to
drive home after a night's heavy drinking.  She is effectively
enabling her own excessive drinking.

Maybe Hepola does need more therapy and analysis and self-awareness.
But, ignorance is not her problem.  She's plenty aware and plenty
smart.  That leaves us wondering what would or could possibly help
her get out of this.  Maybe the only thing that would work would be
some dramatic event from outside of her and her life, what she calls
a "deus ex machina".  And, maybe that's what happened and helped
her.  She aged; she became different; she grew to be someone who did
not want that kind of drinking anymore.

That's not very helpful, because, one, it suggests that if you have
Hepola's problem, it might stay with you for a long time (possibly
while your life is wrecked in several ways), and, two, not all of us
age and change in the same way, in fact, some of us will get worse
in how much we drink.

So, perhaps Hepola's book is not all that helpful as a guide to
changing out drinking.  But, then she did not intend to write a
self-help book, and did not write one.  Her book is more interesting
for what it is: an account of what a life of severe excess drinking
is like, and a very personal description that show much
self-awareness.

I was led to "Blackout" by a reference in "Unwanted advances", by
Laura Kipnis.  Kipnis's mention of Hepola's book was in the midst of
a discussion that circled around Kipnis's claims (1) that this kind
of sex is not fun or enjoyable much less a rewarding experience and
(2) that women who drink like this (excessively, whether they
blackout or not) are making themselves targets (prey, actually) for
men who want quick, easy sex, without emotional strings attached.
This is not liberating and it's not freedom; it's a form of bondage
and to do it is to unwittingly provide sexual services.

And, if Hepola's book interests you, then you may also want to look
at "American girls: social media and the secret lives of teenagers",
by Nancy Jo Sales.  It describes teenage girls who are slaves to
their mobile phones (and perhaps sex, or an least the need to be
"liked") in contrast to Hepola's book which describes someone who
seems to be a slave to alcohol, as Hepola was, (and perhaps sex
too).

Hepola, by the way, says that she believes that (one of?) her major
problem is that she grew up worshiping celebrity and fame.  That
might be another reason for reading "American girls" after (or
before) "Blackout".  The teenagers (girls) in Sales's book also seem
obsessed with fame and celebrities and also seem excessively needy
about being noticed and liked.  Perhaps there is a connection
between these two books.  Maybe that connection has something to do
with a desperate need for approval and love from outside yourself
and an inability to live with your own self-validation.  Towards the
end of Hepola's book, she seems to be working toward a life that is
fulfilling because of her own thoughts and feelings and deeds rather
than someone else's.  That idea is a bit more complicated than I can
really handle.  You'll have to figure it out for yourself.  And, if
you want to, Hepola's book will be helpful.

07/25/2017

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