to change the things I can by putting myself out there in a different way.
After acceptance, I took on forgiveness. A huge principle of AA is forgiving everything and everyone. Resentments are our number-one offender. If you hold on to your anger, it will take you out. It will eventually lead you back to drinking and using. At the cabin, they asked me to figure out my part in the resentment. Where had I been selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, or afraid?
You guys, I have a lot that I could look back and be angry about, such as what the “abortion money” guy did to me, or what Damon did to me, or what the producer at the W Hotel did to me. There was a lot that didn’t feel like my fault at all. But the only thing in life that I had control over is myself and my reactions. I can’t change my past. I’m allowed to be mad about these things, but I can also work to let them go. I can release the resentment and forgive. Because, honestly, my life depended on it—and I no longer wanted to die. I had purpose on this earth.
It was freeing.
I started to look at other people around me not as inherently bad or good, but rather as healthy or sick and doing the best they can. Everyone is doing their best. Sure, sometimes their best sucks, but that’s okay.
I learned from AA that selfishness and self-seeking are the roots of all of my problems. I started to shift my thinking from what I could get to what I could give. When I felt depressed or suicidal or wanted to drink, they told me to ask myself who I’ve helped that day. Have I called my mom and asked how she was doing? Have I told a friend how much I appreciated them? I got really obsessed with buying homeless people sandwiches. Specifically, sandwiches. Thanks to the program, I had a new person to eat lunch with almost every day. This was my anti-depressant!
Then I started to feel . . . weird. I was smiling a lot? My jokes were less self-deprecating and more . . . joyful? What the fuck was happening to me?
Oh shit. This was happiness. I was happy. The fuck? Being sober was fun. Being single was fun. I didn’t know that I could enjoy doing anything besides getting wasted. Holy fucking shit.
When I opened myself up to sobriety, things started to fall into place for me in my career. Soon after this, I booked a pilot on NBC called A Mann’s World, written and directed by Michael Patrick King who wrote on Sex and the City. It was an amazing script. My character was supposed to be this vacant dumb model, but I took it a step further and gave her a really high, breathy, monotone voice and dead-eyed expression. Man, I really wasn’t born to model, but I was beginning to think I was born to make fun of them. Then, the pilot didn’t get picked up. But this time, I wasn’t devastated. I was fine. This didn’t feel like the end. I had met a bunch of amazing writers and actors through it. And I kept thinking about that character . . . who is she? What is she like when she goes to the grocery store? Sure, I didn’t get to be on a pilot, but this was the inspiration for my Ivy character, who I still do all the time in my videos.
This pilot led to Michael Patrick King hiring me to guest star on 2 Broke Girls. It was an incredible time in my life, when I felt like I was leading with faith instead of fear. I felt like the world was open to me. Every moment felt like an opportunity.
There was one day that I got locked out of my apartment. It was eleven a.m., and Jack was going to be at work until five. Normally I would have just cursed the world for twenty minutes, then found some drugs and got high to pass the time. But I was sober now. So . . . uh, shit. What do sober people do? What was second best to drugs? Ah yes. Coffee.
I walked down to the coffee shop on the corner of the street, ready to kill six hours until Jack got home to let me in. I got a coffee and sat down. I didn’t have anything to read