It finally happened at my parents’ annual Fourth of July party. My best friend, Chloe, was there, and she kept insisting that I tell them. And I wanted to, I really did, but I was terrified of losing his trust. Later that night, after all the other guests had gone home, Chloe and I were lying on the couch in food comas, whispering about the Harris situation. My mom pried like she did when we were ten years old, giggling in the backseat of her minivan: “What’s going on over there, girls?” Chloe and I made eye contact, and her eyes said it again: You have to tell them.
“Ugh, I have to tell you something terrible,” I blurted out.
“What? What’s the matter?” my mom asked, concerned.
Their faces froze. This isn’t a sentence you want to hear from your pregnant daughter.
“Harris is a drug addict. He told me right before the wedding and made me swear I wouldn’t tell you and told me he was gonna handle it, but I keep getting these panicked emails from Sarah, and she’s really worried about him, and I don’t know what to do. I’m worried he’s gonna do something stupid or kill himself or something fucked up and you have to help.”
I could see them instantly sucked into quicksand, although they managed to remain relatively calm. No tears or hysterics. They absorbed the information and tried to formulate a plan. Coincidentally, they were visiting Harris in LA in a few weeks and, given the weight of this news, they decided a face-to-face conversation with him would be most effective. They’d figure out what needed to be done. Action steps. Crisis/solution. The problem would be solved.
“Steph, take it off your plate,” my mom said. “We will handle this.”
This felt like telling my feet to stop swelling. Impossible.
• • •
Life with an addict means constantly revising the script. The story is always changing—and quickly. A few days after the panic-stricken Fourth of July emails, we got an unexpected update from Sarah:
I just wanted to let you know that Harris is being very sweet and loving again, and he’s decided to get some help to get clean. He has an appointment with a great Dr. tomorrow to discuss doing an outpatient program. It’ll help him to have a professional get him the right supplements he needs, and to help him come off easily I think. I can keep you updated but I just wanted you to know that he’s being so good now and I think everything is going to be fine.
So, good news? Temporary good news? Death was off the table? Off the table for now? It was difficult to keep the story straight across multiple state lines. He was in therapy, then he was out. He was doing an outpatient program, then he wasn’t. He was on Suboxone, then he was off. He was back with his girlfriend, then they broke up. Then they were just friends. Then they were full-blown enemies. He obsessed over her regardless. He was a very obsessive human being in general. In fairness, so am I. Perhaps it’s genetic.
During this time, I tried to temper my tone, to stay calm and supportive, to mask much of my frustration. For one, he didn’t know that Sarah was sending us updates, and I didn’t want to betray my source. And two, he was acting so erratic that I didn’t want to cause more stress and push him further over the edge.
My mom and I constantly compared notes:
Have you heard from Harris this week?
Did Harris text you today?
Any word from Harris?
Any further communication from Harris?
Harris anxiety became a defining characteristic of our family dynamic. Mostly, we were in the dark and disconnected from his day to day. Plus, having a demanding job was a great front for his addiction. Work was always the perfect excuse for not responding to my texts for days, for why he’d been out of touch, for why he seemed extra prickly.
Despite the false alarm from Sarah that Harris was on the mend, their relationship continued to deteriorate over the next several months and, eventually, seemed just as dysfunctional as the others. The making up and breaking up reached a boiling point in late November, when Harris sent her a series of exceptionally bleak emails that said stuff like, “I was sober and I did it with hopes of us being together again, and now I’m a suicidal junkie and it’s your fault.” And: “When I die, which is hopefully soon from pills (I tried last night but woke up somehow), it’s entirely your fault.” And: “You look my parents in the eye at the funeral and tell them all i asked was to talk to you and you refused.” And: “Actually picture what you would feel like and how you could’ve prevented it. Remember this moment.” And: “I loved you.”
My mom and I knew about the emails because she forwarded them to us and urged us again to intervene but said it with less patience this time. She was clearly done. She copied her dad on the emails, who responded with similar sentiments. They were all done. He needed help. Bottom line. Couldn’t be any clearer.
But there was a significant obstacle: Harris was a grown, financially self-sufficient man who was living 1,500 miles away. There was no rock bottom in this story. My parents couldn’t cut him off and put him on the streets until he got the help he needed. He had a great job, a beautiful home, a stable income, and a stellar reputation. He got up every day and went to work at a job everyone would kill for. He was a prolific comedy podcaster and continued to get hired for more and more writing jobs. He was working on a project with Scott Rudin. He had an assistant who took care of the details. We were worried about the drug use, but from the outside looking in, this was
