There was a flurry of texts. My friends freaked out and called Eric. I always joked to them that I was a mess, but the girlfriend bat signal had gone up for real: “Jessica’s not okay.” I was ashamed, and more so because it was Halloween. I had to be a mom that night. I had to take my kids trick-or-treating. I had to be here for the eighty people who were coming over. And now I was stuck on the floor—
Ace would see me like this, I thought. At any moment he would walk in with Eric. That’s what got me up. I needed to hide.
I got another glittercup. By then my close friends started arriving to check on me. I greeted everyone the same way: “I’m not okay.” Not as an apology, but a baffled realization. I couldn’t fix it. The car I drove at a hundred miles per hour was out of control with the steering wheel locked, and I could only turn to the passengers and say, “Well, this is bad.”
Then the hair and makeup team arrived. A glam squad for a breakdown. The plan for my Halloween costume was to dress me up as Willie Nelson, my friend and spirit animal ever since we worked together in late 2004 on my first film, The Dukes of Hazzard. We still call each other by our character names, Daisy and Uncle Jesse. He and his wife are my role models for marriage. My own marriage was collapsing during that movie, and on set I hung out in his trailer, let him see through the happy face I put on for people. Now and then through the years, just when I needed it, he would text me a simple, “I love you, Daisy. Love, Uncle Jesse.” I needed it every time.
Me dressing up as Willie was Eric’s idea. We were in our study, where I have a big picture of Willie with his friend Waylon Jennings on a shelf, right below Eric’s 49ers helmet. He looked at the photo and decided it would be hysterical if I went as Willie and Eric as Waylon.
I zoned out while the team went to work for hours, gluing a gray beard to my face and helping me into a wig of Willie’s signature long braids and an American flag bandana. I stared at the mirror, relieved not to see me at all.
Eric came in and I made like I was in character. It saved me from being honest. He asked if I wanted to help the kids get ready. I didn’t answer. I let it seem like I was too busy, when he knew that kind of stuff was always a joy for me. Maxwell was home, he said. I was terrified of letting her see me in that shape. She was going to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, while Ace was going to be a cowboy. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know who got them into their costumes that night. I was the mom who set the alarm an hour early if my daughter wanted a French braid for school. Usually, I would a hundred percent be there for a moment like a Halloween costume. I wasn’t.
But I needed the picture to post. Eric and the kids didn’t care, but people expected it, I told myself. Through the window I saw Eric, who in his black hat and vest looked more like Kevin Richardson from the Backstreet Boys than Waylon Jennings. My mom gathered Maxwell and Ace for the photo, and I finally joined them outside. People had already started to arrive, and there were so many kids. I strummed my guitar as Willie would, holding it out to keep people at arm’s length as they laughed at my transformation. Ace looked uncertain, but I was relieved when I realized it was because he didn’t know who I was in my beard and braids. Perfect, I thought. This broken person is not your mother, my sweet son. Nothing to see here.
So, I went through the motions and got the photos, like every mom does on special occasions. Just get the damn photo so we can create the memory. Then I can go back to real life. Then I could go back inside and hide. In the photos, Eric has his hand on the small of my back. He is smiling, but I know he is scared for me.
As I turned to go inside, Eric announced we were all going trick-or-treating. All the kids at the party yelled in excitement, and I shrank. I forgot this had been the plan. We’d rented golf carts to take everyone out around the gated community where we live.
“Eric, I can’t,” I whispered.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” he said. He had been shouldering much of the party hosting on his own that day. There was frustration in his voice. “We’ve got like twenty golf carts.”
“I can’t.”
“Just get on the golf cart,” he said. “We’re going to go trick-or-treating.”
“I’m just gonna sit down for a while.”
I turned and went upstairs to my room. I could hear guests tooting golf-cart horns and kids laughing. I started peeling off the beard, but found it was stuck. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. I didn’t care if I had a house full of guests. I felt broken, undeserving of even being around them. I always put so much pressure on myself to have these parties. Now, it all felt so pointless. I would spend weeks choosing the perfect wrapping paper for people’s presents, and it would be ripped up in a minute. Nobody expected this kind of extravagance, it was just me imagining that they did. Now it was worse than not being enough—I couldn’t even show up for my own party.
I took an Ambien. Maybe two. It was a security pill to me—no matter how tired I was, I was terrified of being awake in bed. I knew exactly why I was always so afraid, but that didn’t mean I was ever going to do anything about it.
My housekeeper, Evelyn, found me crying in my room. She had been with me fifteen years and was like a second mom to me. She sat next to me and held me. I felt like I swam for hours, and barely made it to shore. She laid me back, stroked my forehead lightly, and I was gone. I welcomed oblivion.
HERE I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU THAT I GOT UP EARLY THE NEXT DAY AND got my kids to school. I did not. I slept in, afraid to see them and hoping that Eric would tell them I wasn’t feeling well. I had failed them. No matter how much of a mess I had been, I thought that I had always shown up for them. The fact that I wasn’t present for them, even for just one night, was unacceptable.
I hid until they left, then drank. I felt emotionally hungover, and thought I needed it to recover. I needed to be normal for when my friends came over for our weekly meeting. There’s a core three who help me take care of business: My publicist Lauren, who is way more my friend than my publicist to be honest; CaCee, my friend since I first signed with Columbia in 1997; and Koko, who is not just my assistant but one of my best friends.
Koko. I had bailed on Koko’s party. I had a huge cake for her and everything. I wondered if they’d even brought it out. It was another failure.
That day was supposed to be special, because I’d flown my hair colorist Rita Hazan in from New York. She’s an artist and has been doing my hair since 1999. She packs everything she might need into Burton snowboarding suitcases for an at-home process that takes about an hour. She is so chill and cool with her light Brooklyn accent that I never mind her hearing anything. The girls would be here while I had my hair done. Multitasking.
CaCee and Koko arrived first, finding me still in a panicked state as Rita readied her station in my home. Koko was obviously hurt, and I immediately started crying to her. I blubbered with apologies as Rita left the room to get something.
“I . . . missed . . . putting . . . the . . . candles . . . in . . . the . . . Ziploc . . . bag . . .”
“It’s okay,” Koko said meekly.
“But I feel awful.”
Stephanie walked in. She was there to load out the party she had put so much work into and that I had missed. She took in the tension right away.
CaCee gave me a sharp, direct, “Why do think you feel awful?”
“Because I wasn’t present?” I said, like I was guessing at a math problem.
“And why weren’t you present?” she said.
I knew that one. “Because I probably drank too much?”
“Probably?” CaCee asked.
Stephanie, the good cop to CaCee’s tough one, cut in with her sweet Texas lilt. “Jess, maybe you should—”
Rita came back in, and I was so relieved. She ran her hands through my hair, letting it catch the light to better examine it, and asked what look I was going for.
I sighed. “Bleach it,” I mumbled. “Just completely bleach my hair and make me look like Andy Warhol.” Suicide by hairs
tyle.
“What the hell are you talking about?” yelled CaCee, shaking her head “no” at Rita, her head of blonde curls swaying with her anger.
“I just want it all off,” I said.
“Jess, why do you think you drank too much?” asked CaCee. “Do you think you’ve been drinking too much a lot of days?”
“Yes,” I blurted. “I need to stop. Something’s gotta stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this and making things worse, then I quit.”
Stephanie sighed, as if CaCee had pulled the right plug to stop a time bomb at the last second.
But CaCee didn’t relent. She grabbed my face, holding my chin in her palm. “You better not be lying.”
The chin grab was CaCee’s signature move. The first time I had to go onstage alone after leaving my husband Nick in 2005, I stood frozen backstage, convinced no one would accept me on my own again. She grabbed my chin, and said a firm, “Get out there.”
“Jessica,” she said, as Rita looked on. “This is your rock bottom. This is it. Do you want to change?”
“Yes!” I said. “Like, right now. Yes.”
I know my limits, and I had gone beyond them. I was allowing myself to be taken away from moments that I should have been in. Now I needed to turn inward. To live in the moment and not live in the lie anymore.
I breathed in, breathed out, and looked around. “At least I can say my rock bottom had pretty pillows,” I said. “A soft landing.”
The girls gathered me up in a group hug, and from the center I called out to Eric.
He came in. “Babe, I’m gonna stop drinking,” I said, just like that. As if I said, “I’m going to the store. Need anything?”
He looked right at me. “Then I will too,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. We’re in this together.”
“Okay, can you make me one last drink?” I asked.
“What?”
“Just the last one to say good-bye.”
I know, I know. I hear the record scratch, too. But I said I’d be honest with you. I had one more glittercup.
But CaCee wasn’t going to let me weasel out of my promise. She immediately texted Lauren, who was still on her way. “Dude get your people moving. She’s ready.”
And then, as Rita wrapped foils around my hair to dye it a sane color, Stephanie, CaCee, and Koko explained that they had been planning for this moment for more than six months. Lauren already had a doctor lined up, one who specialized in getting celebrities in-home treatment for addiction. It’s a company town, after all. Lauren had pulled over and was already on the phone, getting a time for me to talk to the doctor, who would then dispatch a therapist specific to my needs depending on what I said on the call.
I had the nerve to be offended. “You were all talking behind my back?”
They each shared their intervention plans, making it clear they did so because they were afraid I was going to die. Stephanie, for one, had planned to talk to my mother.
“My mother?” I said. “Oh God, no. Steph, if my mom told me to stop drinking, I would drink more.”
Another plan was to have Linda Perry talk to me. She’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and I had recently been working with her creating music. Linda had already reprimanded me about writing under the influence. “I don’t want that drunk stuff,” she said. “I need sober writing.”
“I would have been so insulted,” I said. “She’s known me three months.”
“See?” Said CaCee. “We had to let you—”
“But why would you never just come to me?” I said, trying to stay still for Rita as she worked on my hair. “Say, ‘This is too much, Jess. We’re gonna have to take it to the next level.’ Because I would do that to you guys. For you guys, I mean. Why would you be scared to talk to me? I’m not gonna be mad at you.”
“Like now?” asked CaCee.
“I mean, I am out with all y’all in different places, ordering drinks and you’re ordering drinks, too,” I said, on the defensive. “Why wouldn’t you just be like, ‘Let’s not drink tonight.’ ”
They were quiet. A long beat.
I broke the silence. “I mean, I would have probably laughed at you . . .”
Everyone laughed, even Rita. “But then I would have known it was worrying you.” It didn’t break my heart that I was such a mess that they wanted to intervene. It broke my heart that they felt they had to go behind my back. But they were right. I had deeper problems than alcohol, and I couldn’t resolve the problem until I threw away the crutch.
“Guys, I think we should pray,” said Stephanie. She has been with me since we were kids going to Heights Baptist in Texas. She knew what faith means to me.
I stood, foils still in my hair, and the four of us held hands.
“Lord, she’s giving this burden to you,” Stephanie said. Koko gripped my hand tight.
“I’m giving this to you,” I said. “I am your humble servant and—”
A ding went off. Rita’s timer.
“Okay, you gave it to God,” Rita said. “We gotta wash that stuff out now. Or you will look like Andy Warhol.”
She rinsed me out, just as Nikki and Riawna arrived to put in my extensions. They are the co-owners of Nine Zero One, a big salon in West Hollywood. I know, this story only gets more over-the-top, but so was my life. We were getting set up in the wooden chair in my study when Lauren came in.
I was crying, tears pouring from my eyes, and we just exchanged a look that said it was time. She told me she lined up the call with the doctor. “She’s ready now. Are you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking up at Nikki and Riawna. They nodded. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I trusted them and I knew now was my time. Besides, I didn’t care who heard my truth. I was tired of letting shame dictate my actions. And do you know how hard it is to schedule Nikki and Riawna?
Once I was on the phone with the doctor, I started in with a complete play-by-play of all my life’s traumas. The sexual abuse I suffered in childhood, and the abusive, obsessive relationships I clung to in adulthood. I was crying, the women doing my extensions were crying, and my friends were a mess. Still, I reeled off everything in a matter-of-fact manner, connecting dots about why each event had contributed to my anxiety, finally ending with, “So this is why I need help and why I can’t do this on my own.”
I paused to breathe.
“Wow,” the doctor said.
My eyebrows shot up. Was I that bad?
“First of all,” she continued, “people don’t know themselves that well. And the fact that you don’t know me, and you’re telling me all this on the phone tells me you are desperate.”
I wasn’t trying to get an A in breaking down. She said a lot of people who use alcohol as a temporary coping mechanism generally aren’t aware of what they’re covering up, so the abuse becomes permanent. Knowing what I had to face was a good sign for me.
She lined up a nurse and another therapist to come over that very night. In the meantime, we moved every drop of alcohol out of the house, but we didn’t really need to bother. I had no craving for it. I was mad at it. I was starting to feel. Like, Oh, this is what it felt like to be living.
The therapist came and hesitated in the doorway like the exorcist coming to cast out the demons. The house was dark, and I led her to my study, right where I am writing to you now. I thought she was stiff at first and spoke so softly I could barely hear her, but she was just getting the lay of the land. Eric had the fireplace going for us, and we sat across from each other.
“So,” she said, “let’s talk about what’s brought you to this point.”
And the work began. To walk forward through my anxiety, I first had to look back to understand what pain I was running from, and what I was trying to hide.
2
Singing My Life
June 1982
I don’t remember the accident. I was a month shy of turning two years old, so I have to borrow the details of this memory from my
mother.
She was driving near our home in Fort Worth. It was just us in Dad’s heap of a car, a 1964 Chevy Nova with a rust paint job. It was so old there were no seatbelts in the back, and I would constantly shift across the cracked vinyl.
I wanted to go to McDonald’s, and my mom didn’t seem to understand how serious I was about this. I stood on the backseat and leaned so I could throw my arms around her, grabbing her face with both hands to yell, “McDonald’s!”
“Jessica!” she screamed. She looked away from the road. How long? A second? Two? Enough to drive across the lane and hit a car coming toward us.
I flew headfirst at the windshield. I went halfway through it, cracking my skull on the way. The drag of the glass held me, and I fell back inside the car, landing on the floorboard on the passenger side. The shattered windshield then fell on me in a shower of glass. Mom had a bone sticking out of her broken leg. She had also broken her arm and collarbone. She couldn’t get out of the driver’s side, so she climbed over me to pull herself out. Sitting on the ground, she brushed glass off me, not sure if I was alive.
A good Samaritan ran over to help us. An ambulance came and rushed us to the hospital, and thankfully no one in the other car was injured.
Someone at the hospital called my dad and told him his wife was in the hospital. “Your baby is in critical condition.” I had two purple-black eyes, and a very bad concussion. My mom stayed in the hospital for a week.
My stutter started soon after, and the doctors said it was from the head injury. My mom said that when I stuttered it looked like my brain and I were trying to say ten things at once. My voice just wouldn’t work.
“You can’t focus on the one idea you need to talk about,” she told me. “Just say the one thing, Jess.” She is the youngest of three—the Drew girls of McGregor, Texas—and her middle sister Connie was a speech therapist. Aunt Connie advised her to get me to calm down.
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