money to help me hobble along with my mortgage. I managed to keep the house a little longer by convincing my mom that more work would come, but she was always badgering me about whether I had a job. I knew her charity couldn’t last much longer.
We had some tea. I was conciliatory. I told her that I understood how she could have made the mistake, but I’d appreciate it if she could keep her paranoid musings to herself.
She let the matter drop, but I knew it was a close call. After that I started hiding my empties inside a cabinet-model Victrola that movie photographer Robert Zuckerman had given me for my birthday. I used to play 1920s His Master’s Voice records on it, while inside its belly it kept Its Mistress’s Secrets. But secrets have a way of creeping to the surface. One day while my assistant Holly was helping me choose the last of my personal belongings to sell, she caught sight of the Victrola.
“What about this old thing?” she asked. “Any special reason you want to keep it?”
She tilted it to test its weight, and her question was answered by a muffled orchestra of teetering glass.
I came clean about my drinking problem; Holly was so understanding. She agreed to help me and, for starters, bought a latch and big brass lock for the cellar door, which she proceeded to secure with military efficiency. She locked it down and took the key with her. The next day, after finishing a bottle of cooking sherry that I’d tucked away in the kitchen cupboard, I had a great idea.
I was glad that Holly had agreed to help me. This was progress. As Sun Tzu says, know yourself and know your enemy and in a thousand battles you’ll never be defeated.
Ten minutes later I was standing in my dungeon drinking a Chateau Lafite Rothschild straight out of the bottle, crowbar in hand, the brass lock hanging from a splintered door. There’s always another option.
My normal morning started with dry heaves. The previous night’s wine was no longer in my stomach, but my body kept trying to cast it out, and like a bad exorcist it failed every time. I’d be left exhausted, my muscles aching from the effort.
I was still getting offers for small roles in movies that my friends were making. There was never any real money on the table, but I took the jobs anyway, because I needed to keep busy and I needed to put on a good show to ensure my mom’s continued investment in my life.
I knew she had the money. She’d married a multimillionaire and continued to earn her own income as an interior decorator. My mother is an impossibly generous woman. She’s always helped her children out, but this time I was taking enormous advantage of her. I’d told her my mortgage payments were slightly higher than they actually were—to make sure I had enough money to drink on. Don’t get me wrong; I was working hard to stay sober between binges. I just never wanted to be caught dry. That was an unthinkable possibility.
And I expanded the development of my detox schedule. I’d have scheduled binges, orderly hangovers, and well-planned detoxes, arriving on set or at auditions disguised as my alter ego: happy, funny Claudia. It must be the German in me; I had the whole routine down to stopwatch precision. I was a highly functioning alcoholic, killing myself with utmost efficiency.
A binge would last anywhere from one to three days, and it would usually take me up to a week to recover.
By the time I’d finished off the last of the French collection (and nearly finished myself in the process) I was starting to behave erratically. I’d usually crave alcohol when I was PMS-ing, and when I satisfied the urge it supercharged my emotional irritability.
That’s when the monster came a-knockin’, and she had another great idea.
I rang up my mom in tears. Through heartbroken sobs I told her I’d had a bad pap smear. What’s more, I could never have children. Even worse, they were going to have to perform some kind of operation on me to cut out the cancer. The other end of the phone was silent for several seconds and then a flood of pity and emotional sympathy followed. Mission accomplished.
I was so fucking clever. That’s the addict’s brain at work. It convinces you that you’re not out of control, that your insane decisions are perfectly logical. It’s not a big-picture state of mind. You’re so busy covering all the angles, looking after all the little details, that you have no perspective, no idea of just how strange you seem to the people who love you.
It took my mom all of twenty minutes to penetrate my carefully constructed fortress of deception. I forgot she knew that my friend Trish and I shared the same gynecologist. She called Trish, asked for my doctor’s number, and got him on the phone. The doctor said he couldn’t share any patient information, but my mom countered with a whole “I’m so worried about my daughter, she won’t talk to me, I think she might be dying” routine, which led to the doctor basically implying that I was fine.
She appeared on my doorstep like an angry Valkyrie; the “for sale” sign went up in my yard the following week.
I figured this was it, that I’d finally hit rock bottom. I’d been found out, my mom knew that I was a fucked-up drunk, and I knew that after that stunt she’d never completely trust me again. One part humiliation, two parts mortification, one part depression—the Stone Cold Sober cocktail. It was time to clean up my act. I wasn’t going to add alcohol to that emotional mixed drink. I needed change. Now I couldn’t
To help pass the time, I’d fill out alcohol tests in the backs of magazines and read up on alcohol addiction. Sun Tzu was right; I knew myself but not the enemy, and that wouldn’t win me jack shit. For instance…
A: Never. I’m five days into a week of sobriety right now. Wait. Does drinking after 5 p.m. count?
A: No one is nagging me. (They just gossip behind my back.)
A: Nope, I’m a wino, period.
A: Does a mimosa with friends count? Then yes.
A: Not really (those bastards!).
A: Does sleeping with strangers and passing out at 8 p.m. count as a problem?
A: Nope, I live alone.
A: I’m usually the one throwing the party, so I can drink as much as I want.
