New
Memoir Brings Awareness to Blackout Trend
By Dr.Fourkan Ali
Sarah
Hepola's new book details blacking out while having sex and doing stand-up
comedy.
Blackouts from drinking are practically considered to be
standard operating procedure among hard-partying college students, but a new
book solely devoted to one person’s experience with them hopes to shed a sober
light on the subject.
Sarah Hepola, a personal essays editor at Salon, is recalling her own memories (or lack of)
on the subject in the new memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to
Forget. Hepola drank for 25
years before entering recovery and now being sober for five years.
She recalled finding herself in the middle of a sexual encounter
after coming to from a blackout and even had no memory of performing in front
of hundreds of people at a comedy night during one particularly rowdy evening,
making her question what else she had done during these episodes.
"Those people in the audience did not know I was in a
blackout and I did not know I was in a blackout and so that's a very important
thing to acknowledge when we think about what constitutes valid consent,"
she told CNN. "The legal standard for consent is
that if you're incapacitated you can't consent, but what is incapacitation and
does [a] blackout fall under that category?"
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines
blackouts as periods of amnesia about things a person did or where they went.
Underage and young drinkers are far more likely to report having experienced
one before.
A 2002 study from Duke University surveyed 800 drinking students
and found that 51% reported having at least one alcohol-induced blackout, with
9% admitting they blacked out within the last two weeks. Some of the students
reported driving, having sex or engaging in other similarly risky behaviors
during these episodes.
"There is sort of a recipe if you want to black out,"
said Aaron White, PhD, senior advisor to the director of the National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "You basically drink in a way that gets
alcohol into your brain fast and so that could be by doing shots, chugging
beer, but also by skipping meals.”
White said women are more susceptible than men to blackouts
because they are more likely to skip meals and choose beverages with higher
alcohol concentrations like wine and spirits. However, he said that blackouts
are largely preventable for both genders by making sure to “have food in your
stomach, pace yourself [and] limit the amount you drink."
As for Hepola, she is hoping to use her book as a platform for
people to talk more openly about blackouts and make it clear that the
consequences can be potentially lethal.
“This is such a widely used and available substance. We have
kind of turned a blind eye to the fact that kids abuse it,” she said.
"It's a rite of passage for them, but I feel like there's just not at all
an awareness that there are consequences."
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