by N. K. Smith
“So the older crowd?” Doctor Slater asks.
“Yeah, but still, it wasn’t like all the time.” Visions of all the fun I had as a young girl growing up rich and in Hollywood circle through my brain. Not all these memories were tainted. “I still had friends who made me feel better than whiskey ever could. I smoked pot a handful of times growing up, and I—” Jesus, I’m really going to say this. Do I really want to say it? Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I soak in the new silence of the room until I muster up enough strength to push out the words knocking around my head. “I did my first line of coke the night I lost the Golden Reel to my friend Liliana.”
“Because you were disappointed?”
I look up, connecting with Bran, but return to studying his boots. “No. I mean, maybe. The real reason was because I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me and my manager said I should snort a line to stay awake and throw all his crap out. Elsie was always telling me to do things.”
“And you trusted her?”
It takes me a moment to answer. Thinking of Elsie always led to confusing and often times conflicting emotions. “Of course. After the shit with my parents, she was the one adult who stuck by me and helped me make my way through the world. But I don’t think she should’ve suggested I get high to deal with my boyfriend. I think that was her own addiction speaking.” A strange smile comes unbidden. “I’m kind of mad at her, but, at the same time, I’m not. It’s hard to hate someone I idolized for most of my life, no matter what she does.”
The smile fades and I chew on my lip for a moment as images and remembered words come to me. “I guess now that I think about it, it was usually Elsie who bought me the alcohol when I was underage. It was Elsie who started feeding me diet pills before I was through puberty.”
I bring my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. Narrowing my eyes, I study the carpet, but what I really see is my teenaged body, soft and unfinished. I can hear Elsie tell me as she pinches my belly, “People might think a little chub is cute on an eight-year-old, but you’re a fifteen-year-old star, Adra sweets. You won’t continue landing roles looking like this.”
“So maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s all that—”
“But you can’t blame other people. She might have given you coke the first time and even influenced you when you were a kid, but what happened to make you an addict, Adra?”
I look up at Dr. Slater. “I can’t remember the next time I got high. Maybe it was my birthday party. Everyone was having a great time, but I wasn’t. It was like I couldn’t get up out of this hole I’d fallen into, and I looked around and saw everything I didn’t have but wanted, so I went in the bathroom and got high. I continued to do it because I couldn’t control my thoughts or feelings. I think I’ve been an addict all my life, but didn’t do hard drugs until I was twenty-four. I don’t even know if that makes sense. But it feels like I want so much—to have a certain kind of fame, to have clout, to be respected as a veteran in the film industry, to be loved—and yet get so little, which is stupid because I’m a rich celebrity, right? There are women all over the world suffering fates far worse than me. I should be happy with my life since it’s so much better than other people’s. I mean, that woman in the shelter who’d been beaten and sold time and time again?”
I know no one else will know what I’m talking about, but my mind is racing with these thoughts. I’m making a connection with something deep, something more important than my body image or getting high to get back at a boyfriend. “She’s the one who should be crying about her life, not me. But she didn’t cry. At all. She had far more suffering than I’ll never experience, and she didn’t cry about it. But maybe it all stems from the same thing? Maybe it’s suffering—you know, like the Buddhist idea of suffering?” I look specifically at Bran because of his Eastern philosophical leanings. “I mean, that woman I met while I volunteered at a shelter—her suffering made her leave home to try to hide from it, but all it did was lead to her eventually becoming a prostitute. I think, maybe, I allowed myself to be an addict because I wanted to hide from my suffering or not acknowledge it.”
I sigh, before I take a deep breath again. “I wish I could just make my brain slow down and my emotions just a little . . . I mean, it’s like, sometimes I wonder, you know?” I’m getting lost inside my brain, and I can’t find my way out of the maze. “I wonder if I’m just my body. Or my face or my wrinkles. My fat? My breasts? My bones? Am I my talent only? Am I my thoughts, or am I all of these? Who decides? To my parents, I was my talent because I brought them money. I was that for Elsie, too, I think. To a few boyfriends, I was my breasts and my body and maybe my face on the days it was pretty enough to look at. To directors, studios, casting directors and producers, and costumers, I’m just my body. I’m just a body. Does it matter that I have talent to say words in the right order? Or does it simply matter that I have tits and an ass they want to show?”
“Adra, first of all, breathe, okay. You’re a bit manic.” Brandon’s voice is soft. “You’ve won an award, right? You’ve earned it.”
“For a movie where my breasts were shown in one scene. I didn’t need to be topless. Would I have won it if I hadn’t have been brave enough to take off my top?” I say the word again, using air quotes for emphasis. “Brave. I hate that word. That’s what they call actresses who take off their clothes for their art, but it’s not true. It would have been brave to say ‘I won’t do it because it’s unnecessary'. I was weak and cowardly. I was the opposite of brave.”
When I look back up, Doctor Slater is looking at me with a thoughtful expression. “It’s not uncommon for people in your situation, in your industry, to have a sort of love/hate relationship with their own body. It’s also not uncommon for women to dissociate from their bodies. It seems like your overall feelings of being compartmentalized has probably influenced your decision making, and has most likely fed your anxiety about not being able to control people and situations. I think you may have isolated something very important that will play a key part of your healing. How do you love yourself—your whole self—when others only love parts of you?”
I’m not sure if that’s a rhetorical question, but I have no plans to answer it. If I had the answer, I don’t think I would need to be here.
“What about your lowest point? What made you decide to seek help?” she asks.
My face burns as I try to curl up in a ball. “I guess I was just tired.”
“We all were tired, that’s a cop out.”
I look up at Natalie’s strong voice. She’s never challenged me like that before, so I meet her hard words with some of my own. “Well, I can’t fucking remember any more. I’m sure a juicy story would make everyone happy. To get saturated in my dirty story of rock bottom? I know it’s disappointing, but I can’t remember anything other than waking up in some rundown piece of shit building with bugs scurrying along the floor inches from my face. I can’t remember how I got there or why my entire body was sore. All I know is that I did a bunch of drugs with a bunch of people and then someone punched me in the face, and when I woke up, not knowing gave me enough energy to get out of there. I don’t even know how I found the detox place, okay? I blanked out the entire way there, and now the only thing I remember is a nurse named Candice taking my drugs away.” I run my hands through my hair and stare at Natalie in anger. “What else is there to say? I don’t fucking—”
Natalie’s smile takes away my words. “That’s more than you’ve ever told us.”
Bran clears his throat, and when I turn to see him, he’s wearing the same satisfied smile. “It’s probably more than you’ve ever let yourself remember.”
Oh. I see what they just did. I bet they think they’re clever. Well, good for them. Now I feel even more like shit.
Chapter 57
I feel better. I guess this rehab shit isn’t so bad, and maybe these people know what they’re talking about. Talking about all that stuff a few days ago made me feel better. Well, no, first it
made me feel horrible, but now that it’s out there, I feel good about it.
There’s a long way to go, I know, but I finally feel a little bit hopeful. And I’m pretty sure this writing trip is going to happen. There’s a lot of pressure to figure out what we’re going to do after the twenty-eight days, and I really think this could be good. Natalie and I can help each other stay sober and, selfishly, she can help me gain some writing experience. And if Bran was right about me being addicted to the Hollywood scene, getting away from it all isn’t really running away, it’s more like continuing to detox.
I haven’t called Peter. I think about him a lot though. But I can’t bring myself to talk to him. I know one day I will have to, and one day I’ll be brave enough to. I hope he doesn’t hate me. I hope he still loves No, that’s the wrong thing to be thinking. Sobriety comes first.
***
“The point is to release yourself from suffering by choosing to let go of want and attachment.” Bran sits cross-legged in front of me. His eyes are closed, but he opens one to peek at me. He gives me a sly smile. “You’re supposed to have your eyes closed and concentrate on—”
“You said concentrate on nothing. How can I concentrate on nothing?” I feel good today. Light. Airy. Free. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt this way. “And why can’t my eyes be open?”
“Do what you want. I’m just trying to show you what helped me grow as a person and kick some pretty heavy stuff.”
“You know, when I used to watch your videos when I was a kid, you were so hardcore. I mean, you were scary, even. Now look, you’re a Buddha-loving softy. A teddy bear.” It’s fun to tease him. Hell, it’s fun just to have a quiet day filled with something else beyond the weight of addiction and feelings.
Bran draws his eyebrows together in a scowl.
“Okay, so a slightly scary, tattooed teddy bear.”
He gives up all pretenses of meditating and slides closer to me. “Okay, here’s the thing. When we’re new to our public lives we choose a persona. It’s not like we knew we were picking it at the time, but we were. And I don’t know what it’s like for you Hollywood types, but for me, once the label saw me as the bad boy, hard-edged rocker, it was a lock.” Bran clasps his hands together to illustrate an unbreakable latch.
“So I had to live up to it. They wanted hotel rooms to be destroyed. They wanted the media to get wind of partying with women, and in the end, they wanted me high so they could control my image and me.” He straightens his spine, rolls his shoulders back, and lays his hands on his bent knees. “But they didn’t factor in that when I got high, I was uncontrollable. They thought they could just supply me with those light party drugs. They had no idea that it was smack I wanted, smack I craved, and smack I’d practically kill to get.”
“I don’t think I picked a persona,” I say. “I think it picked me.”
Bran seems to consider this for a second but then locks his eyes with mine. “It doesn’t matter. By not changing it, you chose it. It’s like your agent or manager or whoever giving you coke. You chose to do it, and then, you know what? You chose to do it again and again. Even if you felt bullied into it, even if you felt there was no other option, it was still a choice you made.”
“But I hired people—not just my manager, but my agent, my accountant, my lawyer, hell, even my head of security knew what I was doing—people who should’ve advised me better. They should’ve—”
“It’s not up to anyone else to choose your life, and just so you understand, no one else can save us, either. If you’re waiting for that to happen, you might as well just hurry yourself into an early grave. No one can save us but ourselves. It’s up to us to walk the path. It’s up to us to figure a way out. Others can help, but we have to do the work.”
I break the connection with him and look down at my hands as I pick at my cuticles. “What? Did the Buddha say that?”
“Yep.”
“Well, did anyone ever tell the Buddha he needed to stop with the whole self-control and personal accountability thing? It makes it terribly difficult to blame others for my suck life.”
Although Bran chuckles and gives my shoulder a light-hearted push, he says, “You’ve got a brilliant life. Millions and millions of people would trade theirs for yours any day of the week. Think about the kids in poor countries who have to drink worm infested water out of puddles, and the—”
“Okay, okay,” I say and hold up my hand. “I don’t want to hear about that. I have a hard enough time not getting depressed about random stupid shit in my life. I can’t handle thinking about all that stuff, too.”
“Then say it.”
“Say what?” I look up.
“Say you have a great life and name one thing you’re grateful for today.”
I chew on my cheek as I think about this whole conversation. Of course he’s right on all accounts. I can’t blame anyone for where I am. I can’t wait for someone or something to save me, and I’ve got a better life than most people on this planet. Hell, I have the luxury of getting addicted to drugs and complaining about it.
“I have a great life, and one thing I’m thankful for today is the ability to make it even better.”
Bran adjusts his posture to return to a straight-backed position. “How are you going to do that?”
“By focusing on positive things, by realizing, finally, that I have the control and the power to make my life whatever I want it to be.”
“What do you want it to be?”
“Healthy, strong, bright, filled with happiness.” My chest feels stuffed full of something light, and it should be pleasant, but the light burns because it shows just how dark I had let myself get.
“So when are you going to start making that happen?”
I push my cheeks up even as my vision blurs from tears.
“Now.”
Chapter 58
I’ve practiced the speech with Natalie four times now and finally got through it without a panic attack. It’s so stupid that I’ve spent my life acting, but the idea of sharing my story in a meeting full of my recovering addict peers sends me over the edge. Maybe it’s because I know there is no acting. I can’t just make something up. I can’t just lie or pretend to be someone else. I have to go deep within and tell them all those dark things that still hurt. And someone could use their phone to record the whole thing. I’m sure Locker would pay a decent amount to be a fly on the wall in a closed NA meeting. What gossip hound wouldn’t want all the juicy details of Adra Willows’ descent into a sordid life of drugs?
But everyone says I should do it. Bran assures me the good that will come from it will outweigh anything negative. Natalie says she felt liberated after sharing and releasing her story. I don’t know, though. She’s not a celebrity. And even though I shared my story three months ago with the group back in rehab, it’s another thing—an even scarier thing—to stand up at one of these meetings and let these strangers in like that.
***
“So I guess every addict has a story, and I’m no different. I could weave the threads of my life into a long tale of inadequacies—not real inadequacy, just what I’d made up for myself. But my story is no different than anyone else’s. I got high and then I got high again and again and again until I had to get high, all day, every day. What I want to talk about today is what made me want to get clean. This is the moment people call rock bottom. I kind of hate that term, you know. It’s a cliché, and I feel it cheapens the experience, maybe? I don’t know. Anyway, the lowest point I remember is the point I can’t even remember.”
I have to pause and swallow against the rising shame of it all. “I mean, maybe you have a similar experience, but for me, not being able to remember a few hours previous, not being able to think for a moment and come up with some kind of explanation for my whereabouts or physical status? That was . . . well, it was pretty horrifying. Even though I’ve given up control quite a bit in my life, I always knew where I was, where I was going, and what was happenin
g. But in this case, I couldn’t remember a damn thing. And I was scared.”
I keep my eyes on the worn carpet of the aisle in front of me, and not on the faces of the people sitting in the old wooden folding chairs on either side of it.
“The moment I decided I needed—or more than that, wanted—help, was when I woke up and couldn’t remember how I got to wherever I was or how I got several bruises and a black eye. I wandered around for a while, knowing that I was famous, and I could have anything in the world I wanted. But when I finally made it to Midtown, and couldn’t remember where I was staying, and couldn’t produce a clear line of thought, it was like a pathway opened up and cleared the confusion in my mind. It was almost like a seed of light was planted. And, although I was still mixed up and muddled, when I looked up, there was a clinic. I’m pretty sure I’d researched it, but I didn’t know for sure. In the state I was in, I felt like when the seed was planted within me, the detox clinic sprang full bloom into my reality.
“I wish it was a story rich with enlightenment, but it really isn’t. Something outside of myself—or maybe deep within, I don’t know—gave me that path. When the drugs were no longer flowing through me, I realized that the path had always been there, you know? I’d just ignored it for so long, it became invisible.
“I know it’s kind of stupid, but when you grow up in Hollywood, it’s not all fun and games. Playing make believe isn’t the same. When you’re a child actor, you don’t get to make the rules or decide which fictional place you’re going to visit or what pretend person you’re going to be. There are many, many people who tell you that. No one asks you if it’s okay. I was signed up for movies without reading scripts. When I grew up enough to take control, I gave it away again. Over and over, it was the same. I think I know enough now to say the only way to stop playing the victim here, is to take back control and retain it. I’m in control of my life from here on out. Not my parents, not my manager, not whatever man says he loves me, not my desire to be loved, not the ingrained competition between me and other women. I’m not a victim I just pretended I was.”
