Blackout

'SIMPLY EXTRAORDINARY' New York Times 'It's such a savage thing to lose your memory, but the crazy thing is, it doesn't hurt one bit. A blackout doesn't sting, or stab, or leave a scar when it robs you. Close your eyes and open them again. That's what a blackout feels like.' 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. Drinking felt like freedom, part of her birthright as an enlightened twenty-first-century woman. But there was a price. She often blacked out, waking up with a blank space where four hours should be. Mornings became detective work on her own life. What did I say last night? How did I meet that guy? Publicly, she covered her shame with self-deprecating jokes, and her career flourished, but as the blackouts accumulated, she could no longer avoid a sinking truth. The fuel she thought she needed was draining her spirit instead. A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, BLACKOUT is the story of a woman stumbling into a new adventure-the sober life she never wanted. Shining a light into her blackouts, she discovers the person she buried, as well as the confidence, intimacy, and creativity she once believed came only from a bottle. Her tale will resonate with anyone who has been forced to reinvent themselves or struggled in the face of necessary change. It's about giving up the thing you cherish most-but getting yourself back in return. A raw, vivid and ultimately uplifting memoir of addiction and recovery for anyone who is looking to find their way.

Hepola's account of her experience with alcohol gives a fresh edge to what is essentially a book on the influence booze has on the most precious moments of our lives. Never does she pretend her days of drinking were not as enjoyable as they were painful - both physically and mentally. There is a self-awareness to her writing that hits the right notes without feeling didactic. This is most poignant when Hepola describes how she dealt with the extreme feelings of vulnerability and exposure that came with finally giving up alcohol. Or the moments where she recounts the pressure her alcoholism put on her closest friends. Being an alcoholic, Hepola explains, is the easy part. Sobriety, that's where the challenge begins. Hepola makes for an endearing and entertaining authorand Blackout is an honest account of letting go of (and at times enjoying) alcohol. One that will surely endear and entertain the reader

Vorwort

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER
'READ THIS BOOK... IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY. BUT IT WILL ALSO MAKE YOU LAUGH OUT LOUD... A TOUR DE FORCE' Huffington Post
'It's such a savage thing to lose your memory, but the crazy thing is, it doesn't hurt one bit. A blackout doesn't sting, or stab, or leave a scar when it robs you. Close your eyes and open them again. That's what a blackout feels like.'

Autorentext

Sarah Hepola has written many stories about drinking and eating too much. Her essays on culture have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Elle, The New Republic, Glamour, the Guardian, Slate, the Morning News, and Salon, where she was a longtime editor.
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.
She lives in East Dallas, where she enjoys playing her guitar poorly and listening to the Xanadu soundtrack. Blackout is her first book.

sarahhepola.com
twitter.com/sarahhepola

Klappentext

A raw, vivid and ultimately uplifting memoir of addiction and recovery from the salon.com personal essays editor, in the spirit of "Drinking: A Love Story" and "Wild".

Zusammenfassung
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER. A raw, honest, vivid memoir of one woman's struggle with addiction and recovery, for fans of Bryony Gordon, Cheryl Strayed and Daisy Buchanan.