Grateful American

by Gary Sinise

  I didn’t know where to turn. I started going to Al-Anon Family Groups, for people worried about someone with a drinking problem. I started seeing a psychologist who specialized in alcoholism and helping families through difficult challenges. I learned that family members must become tough in their love. I needed to become ruthless in combating this addiction—for the sake of my wife. But it was very hard to do. You want to plead and beg and appeal to the wonderful, loving person you know is there deep down inside. But that person has been consumed, swallowed up, and cannot hear you.

  One evening in January 1997, I came home from rehearsal and found Moira drunk, and we got into a massive fight. It was just before shooting began on George Wallace, the biggest movie role I’d ever had, and it was hard for me to stay focused on the movie with so much turmoil happening at home each evening. I called John Frankenheimer and finally told him everything. John had been very open with me when we first met. At one point in his life he’d been on top of the world as a director, but he’d become insane with alcohol, and it ruined large pieces of his career and family life. He’d now been sober for more than twenty-five years and was a serious attendee of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He was a hard-core AA warrior and told me what I needed to do. I needed to take Moira to rehab—and I needed to do it right away!

  The next morning, Moira became very apologetic. She promised she’d never get drunk again, but I explained that when I got home that evening, she needed to go to rehab. I called the psychologist, and he recommended a place in Port Hueneme, just north of us, called Anacapa by the Sea. That night when I arrived home, Moira was drunk again. I packed a bag for her and helped her into the passenger seat of our black Ford Mustang. She was on edge, resistant, but got into the car anyway. We started the ninety-minute drive north on the Pacific Coast Highway to the rehab facility. Twenty minutes up the road, Moira started freaking out—screaming, going crazy. I thought of Linda Blair in The Exorcist when confronted by the priest. I was so scared. At one point Moira started fiddling with the door handle as if trying to open the door to throw herself out of the car. I reached over, grabbed her, and held on, wondering, Who is this person? What the hell is happening?! It was the longest drive of my life.

  When we finally reached the rehab facility, the therapists took Moira into their care and ordered me to leave. As I shut the door to the lobby, Moira looked back at me through the window, staring daggers. Her face was so startling. So not her. Normally, Moira is the most beautiful and wonderful spirit. But this was not my wife. The Moira I knew was lost, and I wanted to help find her again. She truly didn’t have control over her life.

  When I returned home that night, I sat, exhausted, on a large landscaping rock that sat outside our front door. I stared up into the night sky. The kids were safe inside with my parents, and I couldn’t go into the house just yet. I needed to be alone for a moment. I’d just left Moira with people I didn’t know, and I desperately hoped I’d done the right thing. As I sat on the rock, a shooting star streaked across the sky. The brilliance of light startled me to stillness. There are greater things at work in the universe, I reminded myself, and I almost relaxed. At least I felt a measure of peace within my despair. I was able to put one foot in front of the other, go into the house, say hello to my family, hug the kids, climb into bed, then get up the next day to begin work on George Wallace again.

  An average stay in rehab is twenty-eight days. My wife stayed in rehab for seven weeks. She was there the entire time I was shooting the movie. I received a call from the facility at one point, and a rehab supervisor indicated they were having a hard time getting Moira to admit she had a problem. She thought she was fine and that everybody there was messed up. That meant trouble. If you never admit you have a problem, then you’ll never get better.

  Moira’s mom was a very funny lady. She reminded me of the eccentric and endearing character of Aunt Clara played by actress Marion Lorne in the 1960s television show Bewitched. But when Moira’s mother drank, and she drank regularly, a different personality would emerge. She had lost both her husband and her firstborn son to cancer, and as time went on, alcohol became more and more of a companion. Once, Moira and I were staying at her home, sleeping on the floor near the kitchen, and I saw Moira’s mother get up at 7:00 a.m., shuffle to the fridge, put ice in a coffee cup, and fill it with vodka. Plus, she had some health problems for which she took medications, and she often mixed her medications with booze. One night in 1991 she went to sleep on the couch and didn’t wake up. Her heart had simply stopped beating. The loss of Moira’s mom was very difficult for everyone—and very tough on Moira. They were very close and much alike. And neither one thought she had a problem with alcohol.

  The counselors at rehab asked me to get letters from Moira’s friends, writing her honestly, telling her what they had observed about her drinking. I gathered those letters and sent them to her. They were difficult for her to read. She became troubled and thoughtful, but also indignant. At one point, we’d both partied with these people—and now they were telling her she had a drinking problem?! She concluded they were all nuts.

  The pressures at work began to overtake me. Each night I needed to learn a lot of lines for the next day. At one point I asked my parents to stay with our children, and I moved out of our house into a hotel, the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, so I could focus on the part. I worried constantly about Moira. Worried constantly about my kids. Worried constantly about doing a good job on George Wallace. I received another call from the rehab center saying that they wanted to increase Moira’s stay because she still was not admitting the problem. The first step to healing is admitting that you are powerless over alcohol. I put John Frankenheimer on the phone with the folks at rehab. and John told them to be tougher with her and not to let up. He remembered what he had been like at his worst, and he explained that if people hadn’t been supertough with him then, he never would have gotten sober.

  When the seven weeks were up, I traveled to Anacapa by the Sea again and brought Moira home, hoping this challenge was all behind us. On the road back to Malibu, Moira looked out across the ocean, turned to me, and said, “You mean to tell me I can never have a nice glass of champagne ever again—even while sitting on the beach watching a sunset? Never? Again? In my life?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I thought, Oh boy. I’m not sure rehab has done the trick.

  When George Wallace finished, I was set to play Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at Steppenwolf in Chicago. Moira started to go to AA meetings in Malibu. I flew to Chicago and began rehearsals on the play, and once the show was up and running, the plan was for Moira and the kids to come out for a visit.

  In those days you could go straight to an airport’s gate to meet an arriving party. The kids came off the plane first. Moira came last. She’d been out of rehab for about six weeks, but as soon as I locked eyes with her I knew she’d been drinking again. You get to a point where you can spot it a mile away. I thought, Oh boy, what now? I didn’t want to fight or argue while they were visiting me, so I rationalized. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this was a onetime thing. She’s going to be all right. Maybe it was just one little drink on the plane to calm her nerves.

  Moira and the kids stayed with me in Chicago for ten days. She was okay the entire time, so I kept rationalizing, thinking her drinking on the plane was a onetime thing. They flew back to California, and I continued with the play until it finished a few weeks later. When I came home, I started to find alcohol around the house again. The amount I found wasn’t as much as before she’d gone into rehab, so again I rationalized, hoping things were going to clear up and get better.

  I was still talking with the psychologist, and he warned me to be careful. I was just about to start my next part, a costarring role with Nic Cage in the movie Snake Eyes. Part of the movie was to be shot in Atlantic City, another part in Montreal. I flew to Atlantic City, and later Moira joined me for a few days—without the kids, who we
re with my folks. Moira and I stayed in a casino hotel. There were shows and booze everywhere. On one of my nights off we saw the great Patti LaBelle, a fantastic show, and we had a great time. Moira drank a little on the visit, but she never got drunk and everything stayed under control. It was a wonderful visit, and I hoped the worst was behind us. Perhaps, I thought, she was now able to have a glass of wine without drinking until she passed out. She flew home and all seemed well.

  Right before Labor Day weekend 1997, the Snake Eyes production moved to Montreal. Moira and the children went to Lake Tahoe to visit friends. Late one afternoon my phone rang. It was nine-year-old Sophie, crying. “Daddy—Mommy’s drunk again. She keeps drinking vodka and telling me it’s water.” We were both silent for a moment. Sophie loved her mom so much, and her heart was breaking. Choking through her tears, Sophie whispered, “Daddy—I don’t know what to do. I just want to be a kid.” I got the picture—Sophie was taking care of Mac and Ella because Mommy was too drunk. I never doubted that Moira always tried to be a good mother with our children. She was never anything but a loving mother. But when just Moira and the kids were traveling and Moira had been drinking, well, it was hard to know what would happen—and that felt very scary. I wanted to be the loving husband, the gentle husband. I wanted to ask Moira nicely, “Please don’t drink again.” But with the vicious enemy of alcohol taking over the life of the woman I loved, I learned you could show no mercy fighting this enemy.

  Moira and the children were scheduled to return to Malibu from Tahoe the next day. I reassured my daughter, then called Moira and calmly told her I had a few days off, and as it was Labor Day weekend, I was coming home tomorrow. She was drunk on the phone and said, “Oh great, yay. I’m so happy.”

  I called John Frankenheimer and said, “Moira has relapsed, John. I’m heading back to Los Angeles, but I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  John said, “It’s time to take the gloves off.” And then he told me what I needed to do.

  When I arrived home the next day, Moira opened the door and I spotted it right away: she’d been drinking again. I came into the house, gave her and the kids a hug, and acted as if everything were normal and fine. After a short while I said to Moira, “Honey, you look tired. Why don’t you go lie down and take a nap?”

  She said, “You know, I am kinda tired. I think I will.” She went to lie down in the back bedroom. Twenty minutes later I checked on her. She was out like a light.

  I packed three suitcases, called a car to pick us up, and wrote Moira the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write. I explained we’d reached a point of decision. She couldn’t have our family and still have alcohol. She needed to choose between us, and she needed to get serious about her choice, because I was finished. I told her I loved her so much, and I wanted her to be okay. What I wanted most in life was for her to be sober and happy, and for us to be together again as a family. But we couldn’t do that if she continued to drink. I was taking the kids.

  The car arrived, and I loaded everybody in as Moira continued to sleep in the back bedroom. I still had shooting to do in Montreal. The kids were in school, and I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew I needed to get them out of the house. We checked into the Chateau Marmont that night so we could regroup and I could figure out the next step. My parents were living near my sister in Idaho Falls, so I called them from the hotel and explained what was happening. They said they’d help any way they could. My thoughts swirled, and I was torn between taking the kids to Idaho or with me to Montreal. Either way, I had to get out of Los Angeles. It was a few days before I needed to be back on set, so I called John Terry, an actor friend who’d played Slim in Of Mice and Men, and asked him if we could come spend the night. He lived in Park City, Utah, and in case I decided to take the kids to my parents’ I could get to Idaho Falls easily from there. I just needed time to think, and I knew I could make my decision from John’s house. The following morning, we checked out of the hotel, flew to Salt Lake, rented a car, and drove up to Park City. John and his family were very supportive, even though there was still so much to figure out—schooling in Montreal, finding someone to help with the kids while I was shooting. After considering everything, I decided I wanted the kids with me. I simply did not want to be away from them.

  After a night in Park City, we headed to Montreal. On the way to the airport, I discovered all three children had head lice. I got them to Montreal, placed them in the bathtub, and scrubbed their heads with special shampoo while picking out the nits. My youngest daughter, Ella, almost five, still sucked on a pacifier a lot. She was crying, and I looked into her mouth. It was filled with tiny sores. I threw away the pacifier and took her to a doctor, who prescribed some medicine for her. Being the sole parent was not going to be easy.

  Moira called us in Montreal. She was sober on the phone, and we had a very frank discussion. I told her she wasn’t going to be able to see the children for a while. I would keep the kids, they would be fine, and all I wanted was for her to focus on getting this thing under control: getting, and staying, sober, once and for all. There would be no more begging or pleading from me. This was it.

  She said, “I know. I know.”

  Perhaps it was the tough love talking or the hard reality that I had taken the children away from her. I didn’t trust her words fully yet, but I thought maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t simply saying those words this time. Maybe she finally did know that she was powerless over alcohol and needed help.

  The next day, she checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm Springs. This time, I didn’t drive her. This time, she got herself there.

  The children stayed with me in Montreal, and after shooting wrapped, I took them to Idaho to stay with my parents. They finished out the first half of the school year with their cousins.

  Moira didn’t see the children for three months. She went to Betty Ford for twenty-eight days and then to a halfway house in Texas for a while. I encouraged her to do this, fearing the twenty-eight days were not enough, and she agreed to go. It was tough for her there, and after staying for a while and doing their program, she promised me she felt strong and was ready to go home. I supported her decision, but still kept my distance, and stayed in Idaho with my parents and kids for most of that time. Back home in Malibu, for the next ninety days after being released, of her own choice, Moira attended ninety AA meetings. One each day.

  During this season, I spent a lot of time in Idaho with the kids and stayed in touch with Moira by phone. She worked hard to attend the meetings and missed all of us. We certainly missed her, but it was important for her to have this time to herself. Plus, the kids were now attending school with their cousins, so it would be hard to uproot them again. One weekend in November I took the kids to see the 20th Century Fox animated feature Anastasia. The music was wonderful, and as it was such a lovely film, we saw it multiple times over the following weeks. It was a beautiful escape during a tough time.

  Right before Christmas I brought the kids from Idaho to Palm Springs to the Betty Ford Center where we had all agreed to meet because Moira and I and Sophie were set to attend a family workshop at the clinic. The two youngest were too little to attend the workshop and would stay at the hotel with our housekeeper, Lulu. When Moira saw our kids for the first time again, she smothered them with hugs and kisses, and they gave those hugs and kisses right back to her. It was beautiful to see. Since we had been through rehab once before without a positive outcome, I remained cautious. Like her, I was going to take her newfound sobriety one day at a time. But there was a clarity in her eyes that I had not seen for a long time. She was fighting for her children. She was fighting for her family. She was fighting for us. And she would let nothing—not alcohol, not anything—hurt her precious children. The workshop lasted for four days, and it proved very helpful and informative for what we might face going forward. We then packed up and headed back to our home in Malibu. And when we got home, the kids couldn’t wait for Moira to see Anastasia. She loved
it too. As a family, we were at last on the road to real recovery, and I felt hopeful for the first time in years.

  It was the end of 1997, and in the twenty-plus years since then, Moira hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol. But there’s more to this story.

  Ella had her heart surgery shortly after Moira got sober for good; it seemed like one big thing after another was happening in our family.

  I ended up winning an Emmy for my role in George Wallace, which was gratifying, yet much of my life was a blur around then. After Snake Eyes wrapped, within about a two-year period, I was featured in seven other movies—That Championship Season, The Green Mile, It’s the Rage, Bruno (later released on DVD under the title The Dress Code), Impostor, Mission to Mars, and Reindeer Games. With the exception of The Green Mile, none of those movies did very well. Reindeer Games was a costarring role for me with Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron and another chance to work with my friend John Frankenheimer. Mission to Mars and Impostor were both leading roles. All these roles came at me at once—and as an actor, you feel hard-pressed never to turn down work. Sometimes I’d shoot one part for one movie, go to a different location and shoot another part for another movie, then come back to the first location and shoot some more on the first movie. I know I wasn’t home enough. You need to travel as an actor, and acting was my work, but I regret being away from home so much and missing time with my kids when they were young.