Wishful Drinking

by Carrie Fisher

But I’d been feeling overwhelmed and pretty defeated. I didn’t necessarily feel like dying—but I’d been feeling a lot like not being alive.

I’ve also been asked what the hell I was doing in bed with a Republican. And in order to demonstrate my loyalty to the Democratic party, I tell people that I may have slept with a Republican, but I’ve actually had sex with a Democratic senator.

When asked to elaborate on our courtship, Senator Dodd coyly replied, “It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .” I believe that it was largely this comment that was responsible for his failure to win the nomination.

But Greg wasn’t a Republican like a person who votes to the right. No, he was a Republican like I was Princess Leia. He was a Republican by profession. Because how many gay Republican drug users do you know? . . . Oh that’s right, lots and lots.

So when I arrived, I was virtually unattended! And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since. Even this book is a pathetic bid for the attention I lacked as a newborn.

Now, my stepfather, Harry Karl, was not a handsome man but because he was wealthy and well-groomed he was said to be distinguished looking. That’s ugly with money.

But imagine this though. Imagine having a mood system that functions essentially like weather—independently of whatever’s going on in your life. So the facts of your life remain the same, just the emotional fiction that you’re responding to differs. It’s like I’m not properly insulated—so all the bad and the good ways that you and most of the people in adjacent neighborhoods and around the world feel—that pours directly into my system unchecked.

I mean, let’s face it, my most creative achievement at that time was having unnecessary gum surgery just for the morphine.

Statistics say that a range of mental disorders affects more than one in four Americans in any given year. That means millions of people are totally batshit. But having perused the various tests available that they use to determine whether you’re manic depressive, OCD, schizo-affective, schizophrenic, or whatever, I’m surprised the number is that low.

Because when you’re manic, every urge is like an edict from the Vatican. No plan is a bad one, because if you’re there and you’re doing it, it can’t be bad. It’s like a bank error in your favor.

I finally agreed to go to this grief counselor they’d found for me. And my favorite thing this woman said to me was, “I’m so sorry we had to meet under these conditions.” Hello!? You’re a grief counselor! What other conditions would we meet under? Then she says, “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.” You can’t!? Well if you can’t then I’m really fucked.

So I say, “Well, baby—if you want to be a comic, you have to be a writer. But don’t worry, you have tons of material. Your mother is a manic-depressive drug addict, your father is gay, your grandmother tap-dances, and your grandfather shot speed!” And my daughter laughs and laughs and laughs, and I say, “Baby, the fact that you know that’s funny is going to save your whole life.”

Saying you’re an alcoholic and an addict is like saying you’re from Los Angeles and from California.