Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

BROTHER THOMAS,

You know how I always seem to be struggling, even when the situation doesnt call for it? Well, I finally found a place where my struggling fits right in: the sunny Middle East. Brooding and moping doesnt seem overdramatic in Israel or Egypt or Turkey. Today I stood in a recently bombed-out train station. I looked at the charred, twisted metal and I thought, Finally my outsides match my insides. Maybe I should take a tour of the worlds trouble spots and really relax. See you soon.

DEAR LUCY,

Okay, heres what I think now. Ready? I have to establish an overall plan for my overboard life. When I cross the finish line of my twenties this fall and that thirty flag goes down, Id like to be closing in on having some idea of whatever it is that my life is about.

Heres what Ive come up with so far: a) Ill get back into therapy, maybe with a woman therapist this time; b) Ill stop coloring my hair and dye it back to its normal colorIll artificially go natural; c) Ill only date people I really like, so I can feel like theres some point to it; d) Ill fix the eating thing; e) Im going to slip my hand out of the comforting clasp of chemicalsNo More Drugs. Also, get up early every day, read more, keep a journal, talk on the phone less, do less shopping and, eventually, have a child with someone. Obviously, the plan is in a really rough early phase, so Ill keep you posted as this gets honed down.

Honey, Im honed.

DEAR GRAN,

Yet another offering to add to your collection of my poetic works.

Give Granpaw a kiss if he remembers me. This is the kind of vacation I might need a vacation after. Ill call you when I get home.

DAY ONE

Maybe I shouldnt have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? My life is over anyway. Besides, what was I supposed to do? He came up to my room and gave me that dumb stuffed animal that looks like a thumb, and there I was lying in bed twelve hours after an overdose. I wasnt feeling my most attractive. Id thrown up scallops and Percodan on him the night before in the emergency room. I thought that it would be impolite to refuse to give him my number. He probably wont call, anyway. No one will ever call me again.

DAY TWO

I was up all night with my head full of frightening, chattering thoughts, walking around and around the halls. After about the sixth spin I stopped waving at the night nurse and just kept my head down.

One of the therapists came in to admit me and asked how long Id been a drug addict. I said that I didnt think I was a drug addict because I didnt take any one drug. Then youre a drugs addict, she said. She asked if I had deliberately tried to kill myself. I was insulted by the question. I guess when you find yourself having overdosed, its a good indicator that your life isnt working. Still, it wasnt like Id planned it. Im not suicidal. My behavior might be, but Im certainly not. Tomorrow I get out of detox and start group.

I hate my life.

DAY THREE

All of the therapists here seem to be former addicts. They have this air of expertise. Drug addicts without drugs are experts on not doing drugs. I talked to this girl Irene at lunch whos been here two weeks, and she said that in the beginning your main activity is a nonactivity in that you simply dont do drugs. Thats what were all doing here: Not Drugs.

The woman who admitted me, Julie, is my therapist. I dont know if I like her or not, but I want to like her. I have to like her, because the way she is is probably the way Im going to be. I need to make an ideal of someone who did drugs and now doesnt.

Three people hereCarl, Sam, and Irenehave been to prison. We also have Sid, a magazine editor, and Carol, an agents wife, and several others whose names Im not sure of yet. Most of them are here for cocaine or free-base, but theres also a sizable opiate contingent. The cocaine people sleep all the time, because by the time they get here, they havent slept in weeks. We opiates have been sleeping a lot, so now we roam the halls at night, twitching through our withdrawals. I think there should be ball teams: the Opiates vs. the Amphetamines. The Opiates scratch and do hand signals and nod out, and the Amphetamines run around the bases and scream. There are no real rules to the game, but there are plenty of players.

Tomorrow afternoon after the cocaine video, the nurse takes everyone whos not in detox on a Sunday outing to the park.

DAY FOUR

It was nice being outside. You feel less like youre being punished and more like a normal citizen. Its hard not to feel like an outcast in a drug clinic, but then its hard not to feel like an outcast, period. I seem to be the only one here who had their stomach pumped. Its an interesting distinction.

Carl and I shared a blanket in the park. Hes a fifty-five-year-old black grounds keeper and a would-be ex-free-base addict. He looks like a burnt mosquito. I asked him how he could afford to be here and he said hes on his wifes health insurance.

Carl talked so much in the park that I thought I was going to kill myself. His main topic, of all things, was drugs. He talked about cooking up the rock and the feel of the free-base pipe, and how hed make enough money from Tuesday to Friday to free-base all weekend. I asked him what he took to come down, and he said he didnt like downers. He said, Shoot, those drugs dont do nothin but constipate me.

The fat guy Sid seems really smart. Hes in for lodes. I asked him what lodes were and his eyes started to shine. When addicts talk about their drug of choice, its almost transcendental. He said, Youve been a downer freak and you dont know what lodes are? It turns out lodes are four strong painkillers combined with one weird sleeping pill, which produces an effect like heroin along with a stomach addiction, which Sid had. I cant believe I missed that drug.

The weird thing about all this is that I had been straight for monthsthe whole time I was filming Sleight of Head in London and all through my vacation. But then I got home and BOOM! four weeks of drugs. I hated it, I even wanted to stop, but I just couldnt. It was like I was a car, and a maniac had gotten behind the wheel. I was driven, and I didnt know who was driving.