RR 212: Recovery Revolution Author Spotlight with Sarah HepolaRR 212: Recovery Revolution Author Spotlight with Sarah Hepola
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Author Sarah Hepola talks with Omar Pinto and the Recovery Revolution Community about life after her memoir *Blackout*, touching on success, loneliness, identity and dating in sobriety. The conversation focuses on how community, honesty and shared stories help people move beyond the belief that something external will finally fix them.
1:08:59•5 Mar 2019
Sarah Hepola on Life After “Blackout” and Why It’s Never Too Late
Episode Overview
- External achievements such as publishing a successful book do not fix inner struggles in the way many people hope.
- Heavy drinking can create a deep sense of having lost or never found one’s true self and values.
- Hearing other people’s recovery stories in groups or meetings helps many people understand their own experiences.
- Community and genuine connection are crucial antidotes to loneliness and the belief that one is uniquely broken.
- It is possible to date, form friendships and learn from relationships in sobriety without repeating old destructive patterns.
“It's never too late to be the person that you want to be.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head‑on against addiction? This Author Spotlight with Sarah Hepola gives a candid, funny and often raw look at life after a hit sobriety memoir. Omar Pinto chats with Sarah, author of *Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget*, about what happened once her book came out and the applause faded.
She talks openly about the fantasy that a book deal, a relationship or any outside win might "fix" her, and how painful it was to realise that the old belief was still running the show: something external would fill the missing piece. Sarah explains how success brought new challenges, including loneliness and feeling "known" by strangers who’d read her work when she had no idea who they were.
She reflects on emails from readers, the awkwardness of one‑way intimacy, and the strange imbalance of being the one whose story is out there. As she puts it, "It's never too late to be the person that you want to be." The conversation ranges into identity, values and that nagging question: who am I without alcohol?
Sarah and members of the Recovery Revolution Community talk about losing – or never quite finding – themselves, people‑pleasing, blackouts, and the fear that years of drinking have stolen precious time. There’s also honest chat about dating in sobriety, wanting partnership in her forties, and reframing dates as chances to connect and learn rather than auditions for "the one". Throughout, community comes through as the antidote to isolation. Hearing other people’s stories, Sarah says, helped her track her own.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re the only one who feels behind, broken or "late", this conversation might make you feel a lot less alone. What if it really is never too late to become the person you’ve always wanted to be?
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