SHAIR 135: "BLACKOUT" with Sarah Hepola, Remembering the Things I Drank to ForgetSHAIR 135: "BLACKOUT" with Sarah Hepola, Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Writer Sarah Hepola talks with Omar Pinto about her long history of blackout drinking, years of failed attempts to quit, and how AA, routine, and storytelling supported her in building a quieter, more honest sober life. The conversation highlights blackouts, gender pressures, creativity, and the slow process of finding meaning without alcohol.
1:54:57•12 Sept 2017
From Blackouts to Brave: Sarah Hepola on Life After Alcohol
Episode Overview
- Alcohol can feel like a solution—socially, sexually, and creatively—yet still create dangerous blackouts and deep shame.
- Attempts to control or moderate drinking over years may highlight powerlessness more clearly than a single dramatic rock bottom.
- Hearing other people’s stories in meetings can make someone feel less alone and help them see their own patterns honestly.
- Sobriety often starts out lonely, messy, and uncomfortable, but gradually opens space for calmer routines, creativity, and real connection.
- Letting go of alcohol can mean learning that the very thing you crave is what’s blocking you from becoming who you want to be.
“I have watched people come back from places I never thought they could come back from.”
Experience the emotional and inspiring tales of recovery as The SHAIR Recovery Podcast features writer Sarah Hepola, author of the New York Times bestseller *BLACKOUT – Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget*. Across a long, free-flowing conversation with host Omar Pinto, Sarah talks candidly about growing up shy, discovering alcohol as a “missing puzzle piece,” and how blackouts became a frighteningly regular part of her life from her teens into adulthood.
She explains how drinking seemed to fuel her social life, sexuality, and career as a journalist, while secretly eroding her self-respect and safety. Sarah walks through the messy, unglamorous reality of trying—and failing—to quit for years, including all the “chemistry experiments” with moderation and the painful sunday-morning promises that never stuck.
Her rock bottom isn’t a single dramatic crash, but an exhausting series of collapses that finally lead her into AA, where she starts out cynical, eye-rolly, and determined to stay on the sidelines. Bit by bit, meetings, stories, and sponsorship begin to shift her thinking.
She talks about praying in the mornings, learning to write without wine, and discovering that alcohol “didn’t make me better; it kept me from becoming who I was meant to be.” Sarah also shares how she rebuilt a calmer, often very simple life, and why recovery for her meant facing loneliness, shame, and body image issues without the old liquid shortcut.
This episode speaks straight to anyone who worries life without alcohol will be boring, sexless, or socially impossible and wants to hear from someone who felt exactly the same way. If alcohol has ever felt like your superpower, could it actually be the thing holding you back?
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