Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll, and Mental Illness

by Mary Forsberg Weiland;Larkin Warren

  The cover of Carrie Fisher’s book features the iconic image of Princess Leia. Noah saw it one day and asked, “Is that a Star Wars book?” I told him no, that it was a book by the actress who played Princess Leia, who is bipolar just like Mommy. Some variety of relief passed over his face—there’s much about the past couple of years that has confused or scared him. But Princess Leia is bipolar, too? It was as though my heavy little guy got somehow lighter at the news.

  I never got the chance to be a full-time college student and I never will. But I can see myself still taking classes at eighty, and perhaps someday working in the field of addiction recovery. Addiction and mental disorders isolate us—we need one another. I’d like to help, as I have been helped. As I’m helped every day. Maybe I could be a sober companion to a woman who’s beginning sobriety. And it doesn’t matter to me if an addict is ready to get better or isn’t quite there yet—I’ve been both and received guidance at every step. No one made my character or morality or worth a condition of helping me. They just kept reaching out. I fell, got up, fell down again—and still they reached out. I have seen some of the worst in human behavior, but I have also been blessed to see, and be healed by, some of the best. Hope is a key word when you are feeling helpless.

  Guilt leads to relapse, so I work hard not to make guilt a traveling partner. Through it all, I never lost the sense of right and wrong I was raised with—it was simply buried temporarily and I couldn’t hear it. Regardless of where I am now and what I’ve learned, my parents will always have a former junkie for a daughter, and because I married a public figure, there is no place to hide from that. Gratitude rolls over me when I realize I’ve been blessed with parents who don’t engage in denial. We are a family that finds humor in everything, no matter how crappy and embarrassing the topic may be. We don’t hide behind forced smiles and consistent good moods. It boils down to anything from “Eh, what are you gonna do?” to “Sweet Jesus, this is a load of shit!” In fact, a friend gave me a pen called the Sweet Jesus pen. The first time I tried to write with it, it didn’t work. I looked at it and said, “Sweet Jesus, will you work?” and it did. A lesson in “ask for what you need.”

  It’s amazing how it feels to finally let go of resentments. I’m not going to toot my grown-up horn and tell you that I’ve mastered this, but I’m getting better at it. I can almost guarantee my progress in this department comes from laziness—it requires too much energy to hold on to negative feelings. Dealing with depression, mania, and addiction has made me a more compassionate person. Everyone has a sadness. I try to forgive based on that.

  I have bad days and good days, but everybody does. There is no such thing as happily ever after, or riding into the sunset—that’s not a life, that’s a romantic comedy, and it’s fiction. I continue to see Bernie Fried and Dr. Timothy Pylko. I suppose there will come a day when I no longer do, but I can’t imagine my life without their wisdom and counsel in it. And I go to AA meetings, two years after giving up wine-thirty, although I don’t go every day, and I don’t go as often as I should. It helps that I’ve made sober friends. Addicts are knee-deep in negative thoughts, which is why I try to go to meetings where the speakers are funny. Living in L.A., many times I get lucky and get an actual comedian. By and large (in my opinion), comedians are a mess. Every time I crack a joke, I think, No wonder I’m a disaster—I’m a comedian. Humor is the only way I can work through the basic bad day or even a tragedy. Ever since I torched Scott’s wardrobe, I have friends who call every time there’s a California wildfire to ask me if I was responsible. If I took that personally, I’d collapse like a cheap umbrella.

  Anonymity in a twelve-step meeting has never been an issue for me. I’m not a celebrity and I don’t hold much back. Writing this book is the opposite of anonymity, though, so maybe that will change. I have great compassion for people who are well known and struggle for their sobriety in public. There is so much pain, shame, and recrimination involved in the beginning days of sobriety, and most of us would rather not have witnesses for a while. While it’s not required, it’s suggested that if you are in your first thirty days, you stand and identify yourself. It’s not to embarrass you—it’s just so people can get to know you. This is so difficult, and for repeat “beginners,” it feels like an admission of yet another failure. Fortunately, I never cared much what anyone thought about my failures. I think that attitude helps me stay sober.

  There are so many reasons why couples divorce, and there are so many ways to bring a marriage to an end. I’m not sure there is any one right way, but there are an infinite number of wrong ways. It turns out divorce isn’t fair—as children of divorce ourselves, I guess Scott and I should’ve known that.

  I cannot deny that we’ve changed the course of Noah’s and Lucy’s lives. I’m hoping, with the passage of time and greater health for both of us, we will come to a truce that we all can live with. We go to Legoland together, we try to have dinner together, we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and holidays together, we’ve spent the kids’ school vacations together. We fired our first round of divorce attorneys, because we figured out one day that they were talking to, and dealing with, only each other—neither one of them was paying attention to us. After a marriage is over, a family still remains. It would be nice if divorce attorneys remembered that more often.

  When Scott is fully present, he’s a good dad. The kids adore him, and that kind of adoration is going to be hard for him to lose when they move into the parents-aren’t-perfect-and-ours-are-occasionally-jerks phase that every kid goes through. They love what he does for work, and they both want to follow in his footsteps. When Noah was very small and we took him on the road, he had his own mini-microphone set up at the side of the stage. He could see the audience, but they couldn’t see him. There he’d be, jumping up and down in a little Spider-Man costume, duplicating Scott’s moves. There’s no question in my mind that Lucy will be a musician or a singer. Her voice is pitch-perfect, and she’s fearless. She has a mic stand, too, and two guitars—she loves to go to the studio with Scott and record songs. If you ask her what she’s going to be when she grows up, nine out ten times, you’ll hear “Rock star!” We call her Scottalina—she looks just like her daddy, and she works a microphone exactly the same way he does.

  Noah went through a time when he was obsessed with the Power Rangers. Lucy didn’t share that particular obsession, but she could get into anything that her big brother was into. A friend of ours, Nina, is married to Adrian Young from No Doubt, and she found me an actual Power Rangers costume from a friend who’d worked on the show. It wasn’t a Walmart imitation or a knockoff from the Halloween Store—it was the real thing. Scott and I came up with what we thought was a genius plan. He went to pick the kids up from school and on the way home he shouted, “Oh my God! Did you see that? It looked like a spaceship!” He signaled me with his cell phone just before they pulled in the driveway. When they stepped around to the backyard to look for the spaceship, they found me—the Pink Ranger. I immediately acted shocked and frightened at being discovered. Of course, when you’re from another planet and you’ve just been found out by earthlings, you must defend yourself. I started in with all the moves I’d seen the Rangers do on the show, and Scott hurried them into the house to safety. And then the plan fell apart.

  Once inside the house, Scott was supposed to take Noah and Lucy to their rooms so I could sneak in and change. Only problem was, he locked the door and I couldn’t get in. So I stood in front of the house for what seemed like forever in my skintight pink spacesuit while people passed by.

  I’m going to let you in on a secret—spacesuits are not comfortable and helmets weigh a ton. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I put my helmet back on and knocked on the door. We couldn’t outweasel the kids. When they found out it was me, Noah asked if I was a real Power Ranger. Scott and I looked at each other and decided to go with it. We told them that yes, Mommy is a Power Ranger and so is Daddy. One day, when they were older, they, too, woul
d be Power Rangers.

  “This is a family secret, guys,” we warned them in our most serious voices. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?” They nodded.

  To this day, they still believe we are a family of top-secret Power Rangers. I can’t bring myself to tell them the truth. There are so many other pieces of hard information they’ve had to handle, it seems okay to let this one be for a little while longer.

  I recently asked Steve Jones if there was actually a difference between old Mary and new Mary. “You’re calm now,” he said.

  I never knew I wasn’t calm until the day I was in handcuffs. I knew once I had children, I would never go back to a life of drugs. I have no clue where that certainty came from, because there was nothing in my life before Noah and Lucy that instilled the certainty in me. I don’t know if I’ve been able to stay away from drugs because I’m a good mother, stubborn, or flat-out scared of my own mother. Once she learned the truth, she said (and I believed her) that she would kick my ass if I slipped for one minute. Noah and Lucy are growing, changing, learning, vulnerable beings, and my job is to see that they make it through. Maybe once they’re both grown and gone, I’ll look around to see if there’s any more trouble I can get into. But probably not. One day at a time. I’d like to be around to see them graduate from college, find work they love, find partners they love, get married, and have kids. With luck, it will all happen in that order.

  When someone’s talking about twelve-step programs and addiction recovery, questions about God, a higher power, and faith always go on the table. Having a spiritual connection has saved me from self-hatred. I grew up Catholic, but I’ve altered my faith a bit to suit my circumstances. I think God is cool with this. Like me, I’m sure He takes a sick day on occasion. I talk to Him in the shower, in bed, and in the car. He lets me call him “dude.” He’s just all around rad and laid-back. Unlike Scott and the majority of Catholics I know, I somehow managed to move forward in life minus Catholic guilt. When we sent Noah off to Catholic school, we sent him with a twelve-step mantra: “Take what you need and leave the rest.” Humans are so fallible, so breakable. Nobody knows this better than the One who dropped us here—otherwise, lightning would’ve taken us all out long ago.

  I once asked my friend Guy Oseary why I never saw him go to temple and his answer was, “My home is my temple.” I’d never thought of it like that. Realizing that it was possible to be close to God in my living room ushered the spirituality in. As I’ve come to understand faith (not religion, but faith), it’s gradually changed the way I think about what my higher power might be and how I can connect to it. I find it by making a safe, comfortable home for my children, being a good friend to my friends, a good daughter to my parents, a good sister to my sisters and brother, and the best mother to Scott’s son and daughter that I can possibly be.

  My favorite instructor at school shared the following phrase and I wish more people were familiar with it: “In recovery, we’re looking for progress, not perfection.” There is no cure for addiction and it requires a sometimes overwhelming amount of work, but every attempt is a step in the right direction. The other great advice of my life came from Mark, my stepfather: “When it comes to stupid people, fuck ’em. Stupid situations: fuck it.” “Fuck it” is not a replacement for “I give up.” It’s another way to say, Step back, give it a rest, take a break. Why add more stress to what’s already there? I’m too vain for premature gray hair and wrinkles. I no longer seek perfection. I don’t think it exists, and if it does, it sounds boring.

  When both parents have bipolar disorder and full-fledged addiction issues as well, there’s no arguing with the odds their children confront. There’s no way around those statistics. But the more genetic research identifies the markers, the more neurologists and addiction specialists have to work with as they look for prevention, treatments, and maybe, someday, cures. Scott and I have two factors in our favor that our own parents never had: knowledge and experience. I pray that our children never suffer the way we have. God forbid we ever go down that road with them, but if we do, we’ll be able to recognize the symptoms and fight back with what we know and what we’ve learned. In the meantime, one of my most important jobs as their mother is to show Noah and Lucy how amazing life can be, how full of hope and opportunity and promise it is, and that there is no reason to ever give up. You can take a nap, but you can’t quit.

  It never occurred to me then (and honestly, I’m baffled by it now), but nobody ever asked me whether marrying Scott was the right choice. It may have been that everyone knew how deep our love was. It may have been that there was no use—it’s hard, if not impossible, to change my mind if I’ve set it on something. Only recently, my mother told me that a relative had asked her before the wedding, “Are you really going to let her do this?”

  “I’ve never been able to talk her into or out of anything,” Mom replied. “I’m not about to start now.”

  My family adores Scott, and this has annoyed the living hell out of me on more than one occasion. I would lock him out and they would let him in. What I believe Scott knows is that they love him not because of his success, but for himself.

  Is this the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Probably not. So much of what I’ve done and experienced in my life, I wasn’t really present for. I’ve asked everyone I know, and I’ve woven together memories and images as best as I can. I’ve used many of my journal entries (most of which were written when I was loaded), and there are certain moments that have stayed indelibly printed on my mind while many others have disappeared. I have protected or not mentioned many people who deserve private lives and kindness, and I have tried my best to own—and take responsibility for—the part of this history that is mine.

  I am no one’s victim. I made no mistakes being with Scott, loving him, staying with him as long as I did, or having his children, who are the center of my life. I’m not sure I would’ve learned as much if we hadn’t spent those years together. I regret ever having hurt anyone, but I cannot regret anything that has brought me to where I am. I only have to look at the kids to know I didn’t make a mistake. The fact is, no matter who I loved or who I married, I still would’ve been crazy. He was the love of my life—but I have a long life ahead, so maybe another great love is out there. In the meantime, I can look at the part of my life that has been cursed or I can look at the part of it that’s been blessed. I can choose where I look, and where I put my hope and my heart. Mostly, I look forward to living a life that is a hundred percent me. As long as my home is filled with music and the sound of my kids laughing, I will love it regardless of size or location.

  A couple of years ago, I cleaned up the green velvet couch and gave it to my brother; he recently sold it on Craigslist. Somewhere, somebody’s sitting on it today, maybe watching a baseball game or reading a book or cradling a baby in strong, healthy arms. I would like that to be true.

  What a good life would look like: happy, healthy kids. And health for me, too, please—I promise to take better care of it this time. The exercise I like most is kickboxing, and I hope to win the ongoing fight with my mind. Whether it’s shutting down the committee in my head, not giving in to my reluctance to take these damn meds, or resisting a relapse that would keep me from any true happiness—I want it. The girl who wanted MORE still wants more, but the wish list is different from what it was.

  What I want my kids to know: That they came from love and that they are loved. That making Mommy smile is at times a hard job, and yet they do it every day, and I count that as a priceless gift from them. They are an extension of Scott and me, but they are not us. Their lives will have different paths, and although we have struggled and, at many times, failed, I hope our ability to recognize darkness will keep them in light.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor, Kate Hamill, for your soulful guidance and dedication.

  To my little Noah and Lucy, for letting Mommy live in a cave while writing this book.

  To my mom, for b
eing my best friend and mentor. Thank you for giving up your dreams so that I could have mine.

  To my dad, for all things great and small, and for taking this journey with me.

  To Mark, for loving and accepting me even when I was a teenager.

  To my brother, John—I’m not just saying this because you are my only brother, but you are the best brother a girl could ask for.

  To my sister Julie and Ian—thank you both for your many swift rescues and the countless hours of much-needed recuperation.

  To my sister Suzy, for making me laugh. I never thought I’d meet someone funnier than Mom.

  Mirna, you are an angel. Without you this book would have been five pages long.

  Thank you to all my BFFs: Kristen and Ivana for the countless best times ever; Jody Britt for holding me up (sometimes literally) through the toughest years of my life; Julie Kramer, the Weiland family historian; and Christine Kohout Kushner, for making the road a fun place to live. Randall Slavin, you’ve earned a spot with the ladies.