Center Stage, Whether I Liked It or Not

The first days of the new year, my final days at the Center, were mired in negotiations with Marc about coming home. He had finally brought the boys to Tennessee, not for the long promised visit, but because a therapist he was consulting told him they should see me before I arrived home in a few days. The Center had cleared me to return January 13th, but that date happened to fall while Marc was out of town. He wanted me to stay in Tennessee until he got home. Given what happened the last time I got out of rehab, I understood his request. But I argued that I was ready to come home, and to sit around in rehab doing nothing was ridiculous. I was paying for all this myself, along with all the bills in our household, while I was away. The financial burden was becoming a strain. So I agreed to sleep at my friend Michelle’s apartment for ten days until Marc came back to town.

It was absolutely wonderful to come home. I hugged my sons long and hard, thrilled to see them, to feel them in my arms. I unpacked my suitcases and tossed all those loose-fitting clothes in the wash. I wandered around my apartment. I never felt luckier to live there. I spent all the afternoons and evenings with the boys after school, helping with homework, cooking their dinner, and putting them to bed, before heading over to Michelle’s to sleep. I didn’t allow myself even a whiff of resentment at the arrangement.

Besides, I loved sleeping at Michelle’s. Her spare bedroom was in the back—facing a courtyard. It was dark and quiet, and I slept longer and harder than I ever had. I luxuriated in her big bed with its plump pillows and crisp sheets.

I was exhausted and bone weary from all those months in a twin bed, in a crowded house, rising at seven a.m. I slept in until ten or eleven every day that first week, for the first time in twenty years… maybe more. By that time, Michelle had gone to work. I’d rub the sleep from my eyes and pour myself a bracingly strong cup of coffee, lingering over a second cup, treasuring the solitude and the quiet after three months of communal living.

I felt like someone who had been sealed away for a very long time and had just returned to life. I got my hair cut and my nails done for the first time in three months. It felt like the best manicure and blowout I had ever had. I drank green juice and ate sushi. It never tasted so good. In the hours before picking up the boys from school, I read newspapers and watched CNN, starved for information about the world and what had happened while I was gone. I was like Rip Van Winkle, emerging from a long sleep and discovering that my old life felt brand-new again.

Most important, every day I met with other alcoholics, to keep my recovery going strong. I also joined an outpatient group at a recovery center, and I met there three days a week. I stayed in close touch with my therapist back at the Center, and with my friends Lin and Janie from Tennessee who were also now home. I was determined that this time, I would succeed.

I returned to work at ABC while Marc was still away. I was nervous. The whole world now knew my dirty little secret, and as I rode up the elevator on my first day back, I was afraid to meet people’s gazes. It was strange, walking the hallway to my office, like it was any other day, like my wine-soaked meltdowns and three months in rehab never happened. My heart was thumping in my chest. I was afraid people would shun me, that everyone was thinking, “Oh look who’s back—20/20’s resident lush.”

But the people who tapped on the door to say welcome back or give me a quick hug were wonderful and empathic. Maybe they already knew what was true: that behind our carefully contrived exteriors, we all have something we’re dealing with. No one walks through the world immune to insecurity, worry, failure, heartbreak. It was just that all of mine had been laid out for everyone to see.

It was only a few hours into that first day when there came a tap on the door. It was Jeff Schneider. He gave me a warm smile and a big hug, and then shook his head ruefully.

“Darlin’, I hate to do this, but Page Six just called. They heard you were back to work today and are going to run a story.” My heart sank. No one outside ABC knew when I was returning. Someone at the network must have called in the tip.

I sighed.

“What do you want me to say?” Jeffrey asked. We came up with a brief statement saying I was indeed home, back at work, and grateful to be there. We both knew we could not let the drip-drip-drip of stories continue. Piecemeal statements in response to tips—“Yes I am an alcoholic. Yes I am home from rehab. Yes I am back to work.”—were only fanning the buzz and the interest. I was inundated with requests for interviews from talk show hosts and magazines.

“The best thing you can do now is pick someone, sit down, and tell them everything,” Jeffrey advised.

It’s the first lesson of damage control: tell the truth, tell it all, and put it past you. Hedging, delaying, hiding, and denying will just drag a story out. Better to get it out early and completely. I already knew that and had planned on eventually doing an interview, but not now. I had just come home. I wasn’t ready.

“The stories will just continue,” Jeffrey warned. “Put it to bed.” So that day, my first day back at work, we began making arrangements to do a tell-all sit-down interview. Initially, the plan was just to air it on GMA, the show I had been hosting as I filled in for Robin, just one year before. I picked George Stephanopoulos, with whom I had shared the anchor desk over the years for hundreds of hours of live television. I knew he was tough but fair, and he had integrity. He would ask hard questions, but I trusted him.

The arrangements were made to tape the interview that Thursday. It would air Friday morning.

At nine thirty a.m. on January 23, I arrived at the GMA studios in Times Square and sat down opposite George. As we had countless times before, we both pinned tiny microphones to our clothes while the crews adjusted the focus on their cameras and checked the enormous lights around us. This time, only he had some papers in his lap, a list of questions and notes he had jotted down. I arrived to the studio empty-handed. It felt very, very different to be the subject of the story instead of the journalist reporting it.

For the first time I really understood why nearly everyone I interviewed confessed they were nervous to be on camera. I was terrified. My heart was pounding; my hands were cold and clammy. I felt distracted by my own anxiety, by the sensation of being completely out of control of the next twenty minutes. I was unable to make any small talk with the people around me, people with whom I had worked a thousand times. As the makeup artist powdered my shiny forehead I wondered yet again, Is this the right thing to do?

“Are you ready?” George asked. I nodded and took a deep breath. I had no idea what he was going to ask. I had no idea what I was going to say. All I knew was that I had to be honest.

G: So, you’re an alcoholic.

I nearly died. You’re going to start with that question? The hardest question, right out of the box? For a moment, I thought about stopping the interview, asking for some time to warm up, some space to compose myself. Then I swallowed and said,

E: I am. I am an alcoholic. It took me a long time to admit that to myself. It took me a long time to admit it to my family, but I am.

Okay—it was out there.

G: And it must have taken so much effort to keep that secret.

E: The amount of energy I expended keeping that secret and keeping this problem hidden from view, hidden from my family, hidden from friends, from colleagues, was exhausting.

George’s face was compassionate, and yet his expression was baffled.

G: I mean, you and I have spent literally hundreds of hours this far apart anchoring live television. I would have never guessed this in a million years.

E: I mean, George, it’s a staggering burden to walk around with. And you become so isolated with the secret and so lonely because you can’t tell anyone what’s happening. And yet it was a fact of my life. I spent most of my childhood having almost daily panic attacks and most of my adulthood, um, having a lot of panic and dealing with a lot of severe anxiety. I dealt with that anxiety and with the stress that that anxiety brought by starting to drink.

G: Did anyone close to you realize?

E: My husband. My husband knew I had a problem.

G: What did he say?

E: You have a problem. You’re, you’re an alcoholic. And, and it made me really angry. Really angry. But he was right.

G: So when Marc first said something to you, did you immediately go and seek professional help, go to rehab?

E: No. It took a long time. I mean, denial is huge for any alcoholic, especially for any functioning alcoholic, um, because I, you know, I’m not living under a bridge. I haven’t been arrested.

No arrests. Just a bunch of other really horrible things, like waking up in an emergency room after a thirteen-hour blackout.

E: I had a panic attack on live television when I was anchoring the local news in Chicago. I had to take beta blockers because I was so nervous and so anxious and, and you know, that’s exhausting to, to live like that. And it becomes very easy to think, I deserve this glass of wine. I’m so stressed out, and I’m keeping it hidden. I can’t tell anybody, not even you, sitting next to me… I felt like I had to be, you know, perfect, which is ridiculous. Um, nobody’s perfect.

Except I thought I had to be. All the while I was failing miserably.

G: So what happened?

E: I went to a rehab that specializes in treating trauma.

G: How long did you stay?

E: I—I stayed for twenty-eight days and left against their advice and came home because I really wanted to come home. And they said, we think you need to do more work, and I came home for five days and realized they were right, and I went back and finished and stayed until the doctors there said I was ready to come back. Um, and I, you know, this isn’t what I want to be known for, um, but I’m really proud of what I did.

G: How did you know you were ready to come back, to come home?

E: You know, it’s, it’s a psychic change, I think. I mean, it’s learning to accept that I’m human, that there’s nothing wrong with failing, that there’s nothing wrong with feeling anxiety.

Anxiety can’t kill you, even when it feels like it can.

G: Marc must be relieved too.

To be honest, I don’t really know. I haven’t seen him yet.

E: Yes. And my kids. You know, my kids, too.

G: Is it hard not to drink?

E: Yes.

George looks surprised. People who don’t have this disease really don’t fully understand the need to blot out the feeling that I don’t quite fit into this skin… the need for immediate relief.

E: Right now, I feel really strong, and I’ve got a great support system in place. I have great, great friends who, um, who I love and who love me.

G: What are your triggers? What are the stress points?

E: Daily stress. Listen, there are lots of people who feel a lot of stress. Not everybody turns to a glass of wine or three like I did, or four, like I did on some occasions. What I learned to do when I was away was to feel the feelings. You know what? They’re not gonna kill you. You have to experience them, and I never learned that skill and it makes it tough some days. Alcohol, for me, is no longer an option.

G: Well, what are the tricks now? So when you feel that, what do you do instead?

E: Call a friend. Um, meditate. Pray. There’s been a real spiritual component for me in all of this. Reach out to somebody who can talk you through that rotten day and support you in that.

I hate talking about myself like this. I feel naked in front of the world.

G: Telling your story, sharing it now, do you think it makes a difference in how you live your life?

E: It’s always embarrassing to have the entire world know your deepest, darkest secret and yet, I think in the long term it will be, ultimately, a blessing because I can be free about it.

Ultimately. Not quite yet.

G: Well, you look great and you sound great. Are you ready to get back to work?

E: I feel great. I am! [laughs] I’m really ready to get back to work.

G: Welcome back.

George could not have been nicer. I thanked the crew and left the interview suite in a bit of a daze. My legs felt wobbly. I felt like I had just run ten miles. Later that day, I learned the segment would run for seven minutes on GMA… twice as long as the time originally allotted for it. I could not remember ever doing a segment on the show that ran as long.

Friday morning, I woke up early at Michelle’s, poured myself some coffee, and curled up on the couch to watch. I was gripping my mug with both hands, afraid I would spill it. What if I sound ridiculous? What if I sound defensive? What if the interview is edited in a weird way and I don’t make sense? What if I look as sweaty and nervous as I felt?

But before I could spin out any further, Robin and George were introducing the story, and moments later, my face loomed in the screen stating, for all the world to hear, “I am an alcoholic.”

I wondered, in that moment, about all the people in my life who I had not yet had the chance to tell… people who might be shocked, or who might say, “I always knew.” I wondered if my husband was watching it somewhere, in a hotel room, on the road, and what he thought of my long-overdue, televised admission.

It was excruciating to watch, but I did it, and when it was over, the response was enormous. I was flooded with calls and emails from friends and colleagues; I received letters from people all over the country—wishing me luck, praising my courage, sharing their own battles with addiction.

My 20/20 co-host, David Muir—who had been one of the most supportive people at the network the whole time I was in rehab—decided to do a story about me for our show, using parts of my interview, along with new interviews with my mother and my friends. As I stood on the set with David my first night back, he warmly welcomed me. I was able to fully take in how lucky and happy I was to have this job. But I knew harder days were ahead. Marc was coming home. I had a lot of work to atone for everything I had put him through with my drinking, and to try to save our marriage.

In my final days in Tennessee they had told me, over and over, do not make any big life changes in your first year of recovery. Your sobriety is too new, too fragile. All the ordinary feelings you have been numbing with alcohol can seem overwhelming. It’s advice every addict hears. I, however, never had the chance to take it.