Back in the Swing

Leaving Cirque was bittersweet. I felt safe there, strong and supported. But I knew that I had been living in a bubble for a month—an artificial world that didn’t have rough edges and leave bruises. At the airport, as I reached for a bottle of water from the cooler in the deli stand, my hand brushed past a line of small bottles of white wine, chilled and ready. I jerked back for a moment, surprised that I would be confronted so quickly and so innocuously with my drink of choice. I grabbed an Evian, paid the cashier, and allowed myself a moment to feel proud that I wasn’t tempted. As I boarded the plane home, I was excited to get back to New York—I couldn’t wait to see my family. But my therapist’s last words to me echoed, troubling me.

“I think you need to see a therapist who specializes in post-traumatic stress.”

I looked at her, startled. “Post-traumatic stress? That’s what veterans have, people who have been through terrible life trials. Nothing like that has happened to me.”

“Just do yourself a favor and look into it, okay?”

By the time the plane landed in New York, the memory of that conversation had faded. I was beside myself with happiness to be home. I could not stop hugging Zachary and Sam, every time they walked past me. Marc was warm, and welcoming. We all went out to the beach on Long Island for a few days. It was August—the hazy, humid last weeks of summer when it seems half of New York City has left town, fleeing the heat. The family photos from our trip to the beach that year are among my favorites. We look happy, healthy, sun-kissed, lucky. But after just three days at home I got a phone call from the chief publicist for ABC News, Jeffrey Schneider.

“Hey there,” he said. “I hate to do this, but we got a call from Cindy Adams. She got a tip from someone that you were away getting help for some sort of issue. She is going to go with a story, and wants a comment. I think you should issue a statement, saying, ‘Like millions of Americans, I have struggled with alcoholism,’ and say you went to rehab.”

I was stunned. I am not naïve about the fact that people in TV news do call columnists and gossip pages to plant rumors and stories. It had happened to me before when I was at GMA. But this wasn’t another nasty story about me as a journalist; it was a personal story about a deeply painful issue for me and my family. It was no one’s business where I had been or what my family and I were going through. I dug in.

“Jeffrey, my own children don’t know I was in rehab. I am not going to announce to the world where I was or why. I do not have to share my deepest secrets. My children deserve privacy, and so do I.”

Jeffrey is brilliant at his job, and he argued strongly that I should just issue the statement and put it all behind me. But I prevailed. Cindy Adams, who has a column that is syndicated nationwide, did write a story, saying, “People are wondering where has Elizabeth Vargas been these past four weeks,” and “whispers in the hallways at ABC” about some sort of health issue. But that’s as far as she went. I felt I had won the battle that time. I would go on to later lose the war.

By mid-August, I was back at work at ABC, doing a job I continued to love and felt fortunate to have. Mercifully, no one asked me where I had been, although I am sure most of them had heard those “whispers.” We all just got right back to business, telling amazing stories on 20/20. Starting September 1, I also began filling in for Robin Roberts as co-host of Good Morning America. Robin had begun her medical leave, preparing for her bone marrow transplant. No one was sure how long she would be out, literally fighting for her life. Amy Robach and I were asked to rotate weeks hosting the show for the foreseeable future.

As I had been when Peter was on leave, battling cancer, I was honored to fill in… happy to take on two jobs at once. And I loved working with the cast and crew of GMA, just as much as with my own crew at 20/20. The GMA hours are grueling—but there is something strangely intimate about everyone rolling into the studio in the predawn, bleary, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts… and the hustle and bustle as you get ready for the high-wire act of two hours of live television.

It was an exciting time to be co-hosting on the show. Robin, George Stephanopoulos, Sam Champion, Josh Elliott, and Lara Spencer had managed to surpass the Today show in ratings several times already that year. During the fall of 2012, that lead solidified and became permanent. In November, GMA won its first sweeps period in eighteen years. It was amazing and gratifying to be part of it.

All during that fall, I was busy, and happy, and so it was easy for me to stay sober. I had learned (finally!) that I should not drink, and with everything going so well at work and even at home, there was no raging anxiety, no misery to send me running for relief.

But that season of good luck and goodwill could not possibly last. Life doesn’t work that way. I was not, as had been recommended, going to meetings with other alcoholics to buttress my sobriety and strengthen my recovery. I had for a while—right when I got home from Cirque—furtively entering and slouching in the back, rarely raising my hand to join the discussion. I was anxious to preserve my anonymity, especially at a time when I was now hosting a national broadcast for two hours every morning. After a few months, I stopped going. I took my eye off the ball. While I was enjoying my new, sober, exciting life, I was doing nothing to ensure I could stay sober once fortune threw a curveball in my direction.