Wishful Drinking

by Carrie Fisher

I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up (and I guess this gives us a sense of extended community), but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!

Well, if you have a life like mine, then these experiences gradually accumulate until you become known as “a survivor.” This is a term that I loathe. But, the thing is that when you are a survivor, which fine, I reluctantly agree that I am—and who over 40 isn’t?—when you are a survivor, in order to be a really good one, you have to keep getting in trouble to show off your gift.

The man has transported audiences the world over and has provided Mark and Harrison and myself with enough fan mail and even a small merry band of stalkers, keeping us entertained for the rest of our unnatural lives—not to mention identities that will follow us to our respective graves like a vague, exotic smell.

Speaking of graves, I tell my younger friends that one day they’ll be at a bar playing pool and they’ll look up at the television set and there will be a picture of Princess Leia with two dates underneath, and they’ll say “awww—she said that would happen.” And then they’ll go back to playing pool.

So, what happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn’t—so you get strangled by your own bra.

Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit—so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.

“instant gratification takes too long.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but he’ll never call me anyway.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a problem as a thing thrown or put forward; hence a question propounded for solution, a set task, a difficult or puzzling question proposed for solution. The first use of the word was in 1382—so I suppose prior to that there was either no way to put a name to one’s difficulties—or everyone lived in a world of different levels of inconvenience.

An inconvenience, on the other hand, is defined as being troublesome—this was in the mid-1600s so I imagine there were three hundred years of problems between 1382 and 1656.

But I think if you have the expectation that you’re going to be happy throughout your life—more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time—well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.

didn’t have to like meetings, I just had to go to them.

If I could, in fact, learn to experience a quota of discomfort, it would be awesome news. And if I could consistently go to that three-hour meeting, I could also exercise, and I could write. In short, I could actually be responsible.

I never realized how fun it could be to get a current partner and a past partner together and then pit them against each other. I mean, if you can’t find a good book to read.

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

You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever. Well, with manic-depression, it’s sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse—and

And though generally it’s useless to diagnose someone as bipolar who is engaged in ingesting large quantities of drugs or alcohol—which I was—because drug addiction and alcoholism, done properly of course, classically mimics the symptoms of manic-depression.

I just wanted to turn the sound down and smooth all of my sharp corners.

So based on the fact that my best thinking got me in an emergency room with a tube down my throat, I had no trouble at all accepting the fact that I was an alcoholic.

Anyway, I didn’t have any difficulty accepting the notion that my life had become unmanageable.

I don’t have a problem with drugs so much as I have a problem with sobriety.

When you qualify for the mental hospital, you have to sign yourself in, like commitment papers, I guess; but I was so far gone I didn’t know what I was signing or doing, and so when they put the papers in front of me, I took the pen and I signed with my left hand, “Shame.”

So maybe this was another example of nothing ever being just one thing. No motive is pure. No one is good or bad—but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.

If what doesn’t kill you makes you—well, what doesn’t kill you makes you not dead but if what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then I should be able to lift Cedars-Sinai Hospital and glow in the dark. So I say to myself at this point—BRING IT ON!!! Don’t ever say that. Because it will be brought.

Anyway, how would I know which was post-traumatic stress, which is addiction, which is bipolar, which is Libra?

And she says, “God, like the God Bless You God?” Like that’s his main claim to fame.

I heard someone say once that many of us only seem able to find heaven by backing away from hell.

“Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

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

“A fly is as likely to land on shit as it is on pie”

I learned not to get my tongue pierced. Because if you’re getting it pierced for the reason why I think you’re getting it pierced and you’re not good at that thing to begin with, no little piece of jewelry is going to save the day.

“You’ve done difficult before.”

And I like to think of myself as a threshold guardian. “There but for the sake of me, go you!”

At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of.