Moments of Clarity by Lawford Christopher Kennedy

Author:Lawford, Christopher Kennedy [Lawford, Christopher Kennedy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780061456220
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

Jamie Lee Curtis

When I was a kid, I was friends with Kelly Curtis, and Jamie Lee was just her little sister. Of course, she’s considerably more than that. On screen, she’s been everything from a teen scream queen to a sexy leading lady to a hilarious comic (and still sexy) lead. In the past few years, she’s moved behind the camera, producing films and TV specials, and she’s written several bestselling children’s books. Jamie herself puts it like this: “I would say that I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, that I am the mother of two—I have a daughter in college, I have a son in grade school—I am married for twenty- three years to the same man, I write books for children, and I used to be in show-off business a lot and I am not in it so much anymore.” Jamie is such a private person, yet she tells her story with such passion and intensity, as if her life depended on getting her message across. Which it does, in a way. We both cried when I was interviewing her, and I still cry every time I read this.

H

opelessness is a problem that has no solution. There’s no hope for salvation or serenity or some end to that terrible, terrible feeling. In my case, hopelessness was the fact that I was hopelessly addicted to Vicodin and alcohol and I couldn’t stop even though I tried everything I knew to do to stop.

What is most profound to me is that the Serenity Prayer and the recovery program both include the word change. Jung said, “only that which changes remains true,” and when I do public speaking, I talk about that quote all the time because hopelessness is the state of no change. Change equals hope, so you can’t escape hopelessness without change. I think that change is an absolute necessity, for any sort of salvation.

I knew that I was addicted to drugs and alcohol for a very, very long time. I was able to manage the cocaine craze with very few consequences. I did seek professional help and got it for a brief moment. I always knew that alcohol was a problem for me, as it was in my family, and there was one point where I actually went cold turkey. I just said, “I don’t drink anymore,” and I did that for four years.

However, in the pro cess of that, I found painkillers, and that’s when my addiction to Vicodin began. I just replaced alcohol with Vicodin and found myself on a very long ten-year path of always looking for Vicodin. I tell you that background because it lets you know that I started and stopped, I accelerated and pulled back many times in the accep tance that I had a real problem. I kept it hidden because I had everything that anybody would want. All the wealth, property, prestige, fame, attention—I only got it more and more.

My bottom, if you will, was what I refer

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