Idiot - Laura Clery Page 0,59
the doubt, but I wondered if I would have been one of the people asked to stay if I . . . wasn’t caught up in my addiction.
After I got fired from ’Til Death, my agents at APA fired me as well. When it rains, it pours! It was the same deal as when I got fired from Progressive Artists: I wasn’t making them enough money anymore, so I was useless to them. I was never a real person to them, I was a commodity. I never took my chance to write them that feature. I wondered if they might have kept me if I had finished it instead of drinking.
Desperate for more work, I reached out to all the agencies that previously wanted me. I called WILLIAM MORRIS. “Heyyyyy, remember when you guys said to reach out if I needed anything? Well if you’re still accepting new clients, I’d love to meet . . . Hello?”
They ghosted me. Pretty sure all those agencies started screening my calls.
WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE?
I always had this unwavering faith that I was going to make it . . . but I was finally starting to see some cracks in that faith. Light was shining through puncture holes . . . and I was going to have to do something about them. I couldn’t ignore my addiction anymore.
CHAPTER 8
New Beginnings (But, like, for real)
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out when you have a problem. There’s a very thin line between doing something you find enjoyable and destroying your life. It’s thin, people!
For example: hoarding. Sometimes you just want to hold on to your childhood blankie AND the locket you got at your baptism AND all the empty yogurt containers that you’ve ever used. And then all of a sudden you need an intervention. It was the same with me. Sometimes I just wanted to get a little high and drink a little, then do some cocaine, except things got fuzzy and my life was destroyed. How was I supposed to know that it was a problem?
I could count all the times that I thought I was going to die from a drinking- or drug-related issue on . . . two hands and one foot. My aunt had told me I had a problem, Colleen had told me I had a problem, a random stranger at a NIGHTCLUB (where presumably everyone was drinking) told me I had a problem. It was that obvious, guys, but who knew if I really needed to change? Honestly, I was twenty-three years old! Wasn’t I supposed to be going out every night and getting fucked up at this age? Wasn’t I supposed to be in my “party phase”? I thought I was fine. Even after starting to attend AA meetings, I still didn’t stop using. I would go and listen to other people’s stories, hearing some that were eerily similar to mine, but did I really have to change? I thought I was balancing everything well. I was booking jobs and auditioning every day. I was a working actor, able to support myself without a side hustle. I was dating and enjoying that sweet independence I got after being dumped. Things were going great.
I had a great group of friends, and I was hiding my addiction well from all of them. None of them knew I had a problem; they thought I knew how to have a good time!
But then I started to become more aware as the consequences crept up to me. I didn’t have a typical “come to Jesus” moment as many other sober people describe. It was as if I started watching myself from afar. Laura-from-afar started judging me. I would go to an AA meeting and then pick up a bottle of wine on the way home. What the fuck are you doing, Laura?
Then, I started buying cocaine during the day. This was a bad sign. You guys, picking up cocaine should not be on your to-do list. When you’re choosing your grocery store and dry cleaner because they’re on the way to your drug dealer’s spot, you have a problem.
I suddenly realized everything was escalating. I couldn’t drink without buying drugs, and I couldn’t do either of them without getting to the point where I didn’t care if I woke up the next day. I had no control over this. Any semblance of balance I had in my life was totally false. I was completely at the whim of my addiction. I still had