Mackenzie Phillips - Hopeful Healing: Essays on Managing Recovery and Surviving Addiction

More Praise for Mackenzie Phillipss

Hopeful Healing

This book will lovingly hold your hand through anything you need to know about recovery and addiction, or really, just getting through life. This is the Mackenzie I know: smart, funny, warmshe has that great been there, done that attitude and just tells it like it is, without judgment. Read this book now. Its your soft place to fall.

Valerie Bertinelli , actress and New York Times bestselling author

This wonderful book offers a powerful and unique perspective of the recovery process. Its conversational style pulls us deep into the heart of our own heart, and helps us view the challenges of our lives through the lens of Mackenzies life experience. The truth is we are all on the path of healing, and these essays help us view our own lives with hopeful reverence.

James Twyman , New York Times bestselling author

Hopeful Healing is a riveting and well-documented account of the messy yet beautiful experience of recovering from addiction. Through a series of intimate and illuminating conversations, Mackenzie Phillips leaves no stone unturned, exploring topics that range from shame and guilt to forgiveness, hope, fear, grace, and more. Indeed, we do recover, and Mackenzie Phillips is as fine an example of that as Ive ever seen.

Chris Grosso , author of Indie Spiritualist and Everything Mind

A light is a light is a light. And Mack, as her friends call her, has shone at every stage: the winsome child, the actress-to-be, the churlish star, and even the anodyne who got lost and clawed her way back from the surface of Mars with a wisdom that mines the core stuff of lifeor hopeas the key that unlocks anyones near-impenetrable fortress of addiction. But see? Little Laura has done it! And its shared here with every word of Hopeful Healing .

Billy Corgan , cofounder of the Smashing Pumpkins, poet, contrarian

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I would like to dedicate this book to my mother,

Suzy Phillips January

May 27, 1936June 18, 2016

Ill love you forever,

Ill like you for always,

As long as Im living

my mommy youll be.

From Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch

And to all creatures great and small,

most especially to Shane

And to Freddie the Noble Pug

July 17, 2000July 4, 2014

RIP

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if

you just show up and try to do the right thing,

the dawn will come.

You wait and watch and work: you dont give up.

Anne Lamott

T iny, we were. Remember? Think back. As far as you can muster. As kids, remember just how little we were, with more energy than our bodies could contain at times. We were growing, so the engine revved and moved and kept us going like there was a supersized battery inside of us. We were passengers on this zany adventure.

I remember how I ran and soared from dawn till dusk with, sometimes, just the mosquitos keeping me company in Eugene, Oregon. Never enough hours in the day!

As a man, I roamed from continent to countryside, wandering in my childs mind; sparked in spirit by the books I had as constant companions. With an always-moving mind and feet to match, I was drifting and dreaming of the next adventure; a dirty, scuffed-up big kid with books in my bag to keep me company.

When I met Mack the first time, I connected with her energy and wandering spirit. Mack has traveled down streets and through spots that weve seen, some on TV and screen, but mostly, as Ive come to know and value her, its her inside journey that moves me.

If we are all born as passengers on a trip, then how good might we get? I asked Mack that very question one day, after wed known each other for bit. We were at the Pacific Ocean, walking on the sand, feet in and out of the chilly sea. She considered the question and smiled.

Far from the Mack that made TMZ buzz that day, all those years ago, for getting busted at LAX for drug possession, this Mack considered and smiled and paused, and I got how I was to be part of her journey. I knew that, not that day but soon, I would get to witness her moving from student to teacher in this grand third act of hers.

We work together. Mack comes to work before everyone else. First in. Last out. Shes like a first responder running into the building to support and steady those trying to get through the trauma-informed recovery program I founded, and where she is a passenger now, too, with me. Its called Breathe Life Healing Center, and I get to witness how good she is getting.

I once asked Mackenzie, When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a fireman. Or a nun, she told me. Her moms response to the dream went like this: Only boys can be firemen. Nuns have to marry Jesus, so you couldnt have a boyfriend.

So I decided I wanted to be an abnormal psychiatrist, so I could understand why people do what they do. Mack told me she had decided this by ten. As we all know, by twelve, shed ditched psychiatry for the big silver screen, and America not only got a sweetheart to grow up with but she found a new set of dreams to guide her. Finally, shes come back around to help others remember who they are.

As a boy, I swam in childlike wonder peppering myself with questions, wondering, What does this mean? and What might this do? and What might I do one day? and even How good might I get?

I was constantly wondering, How good might I get? Not good like mommas good boy but good in terms of a useful mind, and a curious spirit, and feet to take me great places. Imagine this notion as you consider that curious little Mackenzie. The Mackenzie I fell in step with for the very first time on TV as a kid, the second time when she appeared on screen in American Graffiti .

In my mind, Mackenzie was a kindred spirit from a different time, grabbing for her slice of adventure. Later, as Julie Cooper popped up on One Day at a Time , I found a wise-cracking and curious sidekick to play with once a week, no matter what.

Then things changed. Mackenzie was the first peer I remember seeing struggle with drugs. I wondered where my adventurous friend had gone and soon discovered exactly where shed checked into, as I landed there too. Turns out wed both gone down a rabbit hole of adventures, dangerous and terrifying at times.

We got betterwe didand now we thrive. Our very states of being have changed. We went from longing to die and end this thing to swimming in a beautiful journey, and recovering love and family and truth and joy along the way.

I love hearing Macks stories, and I know Hopeful Healing will take you where its taken meto laughter and reconsidering what I dreamed of as a boy. She took me on a trip for two of remembering the life weve had, the jobs weve spun, the loves weve encountered.

Mack reminds me every day to b-r-e-a-t-h-e. As living, breathing human beings, we are wired to breathe and dream. To dream, discover, and wonder as passengers on this delicious journey.

Brad Lamm, author, teacher, and interventionist, and the founder of Breathe Life Healing Centers.