A recent Substack newsletter, written by one of my showbiz comrades, Marc Guggenheim, struck a nerve in me and I felt compelled to respond to him, in solidarity and understanding. The subject of the painfully revealing newsletter was his lifelong struggle with alcoholism.
Marc and I first met when we were both working for Dick Wolf on his TV series, Law & Order, back in the early 2000s. Although my time was mostly spent on the spinoff, L&O: SVU, he and I had some brief – but very lovely – conversations when we found ourselves in the same room together or passing each other in the hallway. Marc was two years younger than I and we were both still fairly new to the world of Hollywood show business. At that time, I didn’t know Marc was struggling with the same soul-sucking stress and anxiety that ultimately led to my forced retirement from the industry, in 2015, after a devastating diagnosis of multiple life-threatening illnesses.
I have Marc’s permission to quote a few passages from his newsletter, for context, as I publicly reveal my own personal story of alcoholism and sobriety, for the very first time. Marc’s quotes are in pink.
For years, I would describe myself as a “high-functioning alcoholic” — but there was a lot of truth bound up in both halves of that term. I was (and, I think, remain?) extremely high-functioning. For sure, I’m productive AF. And that made it easier to ignore the “alcoholic” half.
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I never had a rock bottom or come-to-Jesus moment. I’m extremely fortunate that nothing really bad happened while or after I was drinking. However, that’s not to say life was all sunshine and rainbows. In hindsight, there was a certain stress that came in the form of “did I say anything offensive while I was drinking?” “Am I okay to drive?” “Did I drink too much last night?” These stressors had me making promises to myself to cut back on drinking. But the breaking of these promises only added a new stressor to the mix.
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Anyone will tell you that if you’re trying to improve your sleep, start with eliminating or minimizing alcohol consumption. So I decided to go off booze for 30 days. I’d done 30 dry days before and it wasn’t a big deal. And, sure enough, my sleep did improve for 2 weeks.
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I decided to try 90 days.
And then something else started to happen: My mood improved. Not only was I no longer burdened by this chronic anxiety, I was also getting the boost that comes from doing something good for yourself, even if it’s foregoing something you enjoyed indulging in.
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Other things have changed as well. For example, I no longer end the day at the keyboard with a glass of something at hand. A lot of evening writing hours that were fueled by a drink (or 3) have been replaced by going to bed early, my sleep still unimproved. My wife and I now daydream about retiring to upstate New York rather than Napa. I enjoy going out with friends even more now that the outings are more than just another excuse to drink.
And, now, my story:
The first time I ever got drunk, I was 5. Yes, FIVE. My irresponsible, weirdo parents – who were still teenagers when I was born – thought it would be funny to give me a full bottle of cheap wine, at a New Year's Eve party at a friend's home, and watch with amusement as I took sip after sip of this peculiar tasting beverage. It was 1973, childrearing was different back then. I got plastered drunk and was singing and dancing on the dining room table less than an hour later. I still remember this, quite vividly.
In later years, I was allowed a glass of wine with supper at age 10, 12, 14. By age 17, I was already into hard liquor. Shots of scotch, vodka, gin, tequila. I was petite, so, just one shot of liquor gave me a buzz that lasted well over an hour. I knew that, as a high school kid, drinking like this was abnormal. But I thought I was handling it just fine. It was no big deal.
On my 19th birthday (the legal drinking age in Canada), my mother and I celebrated by having a glass of wine together, at a nightclub. Less than two weeks later, I was working at that nightclub, where the booze flowed quite freely amongst the staff, after hours. It was not uncommon for me to wake up late the next morning, draped across one of my male coworkers (clothes still on), both of us covered in puke. We thought it was funny. Again, no big deal.
Just before I turned 20, I became the lead female vocalist in a pop-rock cover band. We did local gigs and went on tour within 600 km of our hometown. Oh, man, did I ever make some highly questionable lifestyle choices around that time! No hard drugs, mind you, and no fucking every guy that tickled my fancy. But the alcohol was definitely becoming a serious problem. I’d suffered from anxiety and depression for many years, at that point, and the demands on my time, with work, college, the band and family responsibilities, was unbearable without alcohol to take the edge off my never-ending stress.
The alcohol continued to flow freely, as my career as an actress, voiceover artist, screenwriter and television producer began to blossom. In the early 2000s, I inadvertently became a Hollywood publicist and talent manager, and the stress of trying to score my high-profile celebrity clients some well-paying gigs in film & television – while simultaneously managing their households and sometimes disastrous personal lives – drove me to the edge of my own sanity and physical health. I didn't enjoy drinking at that point, I desperately needed to drink, just to get through some very rough 26-hour workdays – yes, workDAYS, including my brief stint working for Dick Wolf on the Law & Order franchise.
Then, around 2010, I started getting really sick. Like, really, really sick. Dramatic weight loss, dizziness, brain fog, blurry eyesight, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, spontaneous vomiting and passing out in the checkout line at Walmart. After my father, who was an executive in the Canadian healthcare industry, demanded that I go see his family physician, in December of 2011, I found out that I had a devastating list of physical, neurological and psychological disorders – triggered by decades of stress, anxiety, lack of sleep and poor eating habits – that had not only brought me to the brink of death, but had most surely knocked 20 years off my natural lifespan.
The doctor was very clear in his prognosis: I had to make some major changes in how I live my life, starting with having to quit working in the entertainment industry (well, full-time, anyway, I still dabble), along with medication, daily exercise and a healthy, well-balanced diet – a diet that was not to include alcohol (or chocolate, or donuts or lemon meringue pie).
What the actual fuck?! 😡
For years, after that fateful meeting with my doctor, I whined and pouted like a 4 year-old every time I passed the candy & junk food aisle at my local grocery store. I was so angry. Angry at myself, for leading a life of excess and indulgence I knew would eventually lead to this – and deeply, profoundly depressed. Thoughts of suicide flicked through my neurodivergent brain almost every day, for many years.
It wasn’t until the COVID lockdown, in 2020, when I was laid off my full-time restaurant job and spent weeks, alone in my apartment, that I took time to seriously reevaluate how I was living and what I wanted to achieve, in my final years of life. With a brighter sense of hope, I decided to make all the necessary changes my doctor suggested – but I’m not going to lie. I still struggle. As I write this blog post, I have a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream in it, at my side.
Gotta start somewhere, I guess, eh?
KJC
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