It is redundant to say that drinking is a part of college culture. Movies, television, songs on the radio, stories told around campus—all celebrate college drinking, which often means drinking to excess. Frequently, these references elicit no more than a wink or an eyeroll, if they’re acknowledged at all. Drinking is woven into the fabric of life on campus, whether or not students drink. We can’t help talking or hearing about it. The stories of drunken escapades are often half the point of drinking in the first place.
The darker underbelly of binge drinking and blacking out is rarely acknowledged, but always understood as just beneath the surface of these stories. Sarah Hepola is no stranger to drinking culture and its slippery, sometimes terrifying, side effects.
Experiencing a blackout for the first time at age 11, Hepola went on to have more than 200 episodes before she got sober. At a March 3 lecture in Trinity University’s Laurie Auditorium, Hepola shared stories of insults delivered and forgotten the next morning; of having sexual encounters, then later hearing about them secondhand. She points out that this is the appeal of blackouts: “there’s a romantic oblivion about them.”
The entanglement of alcohol and sex is an especially difficult one. Jeremy Allen ‘07, coordinator for Fraternity and Sorority life at Trinity, notes how Hepola’s story might inspire students to think critically about their choices and how they impact others: “We know our students are drinking, and we want them to do it safely. Seventy percent of sexual assaults reported on Trinity’s campus involve alcohol consumption by one or both parties involved,” Allen says. “We have to navigate the relationship between alcohol and sexual assault as a community, and Sarah’s story helps to articulate how we might do so.”
Hepola realizes that talking about alcohol and sexual violence is tricky. In an effort to avoid blaming victims of these crimes, alcohol is often left out of the conversation. Yet, because alcohol is such a prevalent factor in these cases, Hepola thinks it should be discussed: “It is a mistake not to talk about alcohol and what happens to all of us, men and women, when we drink to oblivion.”
Hepola describes how blackouts and consent create ambiguous situations. “Like a headache,” Hepola says, “only the person experiencing the blackout knows it’s happening. You can’t tell from the outside.” Many people appear to have full cognitive and motor function during a blackout. Memory loss has been recorded at a blood alcohol content of .07, still beneath the legal limit to drive. Hepola’s research found that people had flown airplanes and even performed surgery in a blackout. Therefore, Hepola reasons that it makes sense that someone in a blackout might cogently consent to sex and have no way of knowing whether or not they consented when they sober up. Another person in a backout might experience clear signs of incapacitation that prevent them from consenting to sex. “If you’re in a blackout,” Hepola asks us, “how do you know which blackout looks like you?”
For Hepola, this solution lies in a change of social culture. Speaking about the highly publicized case of rape in Steubenville, Ohio, Hepola was struck by one detail in particular. “One of the young men involved stopped his friend from driving that night. He knew his friend had been drinking too much to drive, but didn’t think to later say, ‘you are too drunk, and that girl is too drunk for you to be touching her.’” She notes that several years ago it was not commonplace to stop someone from driving while drunk. A similar social shift in terms of drinking culture and sexual assault might be a similar preventative.
That college students celebrate the lack of inhibition inherent in drinking is the core of the issue. Hepola points out the hypocrisy of a culture that glorifies incapacity: “Blackouts are not a sign of power any more than peeing the bed while drunk is a sign of power. Wouldn’t it be nice if we celebrated drinking with control?”
As she concluded her speech, Hepola’s final mantra was to “stay in the part of the evening you can remember.” It was impossible to listen to Hepola speak with such vulnerability and openness about her personal life and not be driven to consider her advice. College introduces plenty of overwhelming situations-- excessive drinking, sexual violence, and other faults major and minor. Sarah Hepola’s lecture suggests that it is within our power to change the circumstances of these situations gone awry. Her story empowers us to take control of our environment, and make Trinity a better place to work, learn, and live.
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