Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

past, but what I could not bear was the slow and aching present. Much of my life has been this way. A
complete inability to tolerate the moment.
But the moments were adding up. Day 32. Day 35. Day 41.
One small gift was that I did not crave cigarettes. I detested the smell, and even the thought of
smoking made me nauseated. It made no sense. I smoked for more than two decades, sometimes two
packs a night, but without the booze in my system to build up the nicotine craving, I couldn’t have
cared less. And yet I would have clawed up the walls to get a six-pack of Sierra Nevada. In case
anyone needed a reminder that addiction is complex and variable, there it is. What we long for, what
our bodies crave, is as individual as the whorls of our thumb.
I was reminded of this in the AA rooms. One day this guy said, “I just can’t believe I’ll never do
blow off a hooker’s ass again.” He wasn’t being funny. His face was in total despair. I felt terrible
for that guy, because it was the same heartbreak I experienced every time I passed a craft cocktail bar
or read about the local-beer renaissance. Paradise lost, motherfucker.
Each Sunday evening, I walked out to the Hudson River, and I sat on whatever bench was
unoccupied by families or nuzzling couples, and I stared across the glistening water at New Jersey.
This was crazy to me—a whole other state visible from where I sat—and I tried to imagine what
came after the fast-forward. My future fantasies were not unique. The boyfriend with brown eyes and
shaggy hair, the writing award, the lather of love and admiration. But what occurred to me as I sat on
the bench was that the fantasies all had one thing in common. I was someone else in them.
What a poignant commentary on my own self-worth—I recast myself in my own daydreams. I
wondered what it would take to change this. If I could ever collapse the space between my imaginary
self and the human being sitting on the bench. Was it even possible? Because you can be a lot of
things in this world, but you can never be another person. That’s the deal. You’re stuck with yourself.
I STARTED GOING to a meeting in my neighborhood every morning at 7:30. That was a dicey hour for
the girl who struggled to get to work at 10 am, but it was a good alternative to hiding in the closet. I
liked the location of that meeting, which was a big airy room inside a pretty church, with a chandelier
and a door in back that opened onto a leafy courtyard. I got there at exactly 7:30 am to avoid itchy
small talk. Otherwise, people would descend on me in the coffee room, and they would say things
like, “How are you doing today?” and it was like: Jesus, stop prying.
The meetings weren’t bad. I liked listening to stories about people’s last gasps. Overdoses,
alcohol poisoning, swerving down roads in a blackout. There were riveting narratives, but it was
also astonishing what the human body could endure. And I couldn’t believe how articulate people
were. As I listened to them share some epic tragedy or riff on some philosophical point, I wondered:
Where is this speech coming from? Are they reading from a teleprompter?
I struggled to string words together. I always assumed people who quit drinking snap into shape.
But often they fall apart, which was certainly what happened to me. I was experiencing classic signs
of withdrawal. The hammering heart, the slow response time, the sensation of moving underwater.
But I didn’t understand it at the time. I just knew I felt sluggish and stupid. I wanted to be strong and
forceful again.
On the 15-minute walk to the church each morning, I started scripting out what I was going to say
in the meeting. I wanted people to know I was intelligent and well spoken like they were; I didn’t