Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking

I was talking to a priest friend of mine recently (as one does) and I was telling him about how I was scheduled to meet with my daughter and her shrink the following week.

“It’s going to be so difficult,” I moaned.

He shrugged. “You’ve done difficult before.”

Well, who hasn’t done difficult before?

As I mentioned earlier, I turned fifty-two this year. (Did you hear, they made an announcement that fifty-two is the new thirty-one—or the new black.)

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

If I’ve forgotten to tell you anything in these pages, it could be the ECT, it could be bad memory from getting old, or it could be because there’s just too much stuff stuck in my head.

Sherlock Holmes believed the brain could only hold just so much information, so if he ever learned anything that was useless to his profession, he set about systematically to try to forget it.

I like to quote fictional characters, because I’m something of a fictional character myself! But my point is that I have something stuck in my brain. And because it’s in there I frequently get lost on my way to people’s houses, I always forget people’s names, and I leave stuff everywhere so that my husband, Dick Tater, has to pick up after me. And at times I forget parts of my show, which is how this whole thing got started. So now I’ve written it down at least.

Anyway, the following is the “something” that I have stuck in my brain which I go about trying to systematically forget publicly here in these pages! (And if you understood that, you’re in desperate need of medication.)

It’s a poem. Yes, as you probably guessed, a poem, by George Lucas:

I can’t forget that stupid, fucking hologram speech! That’s why I did dope!

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of duty in Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). 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.

They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medications one has to inject.

Thank you to my inextinguishable and amazing mother and neighbor, Debbie.

To my brother, Todd—hogger of all the sanity available in our freak family.

To Greg Stevens, my best and only Republican friend—no one will ever be as much fun to shop with. I miss you every day.

To the epic engineer of all my elsewheres, magician assistant, memory and running mate, Garret Edington.

To Melissa North, South, East, and West—I’d follow you in any direction you decided to travel in.

To my father, Puff Daddy, who gave in part by taking away—thanks for the highest grade of absence available on Earth.

To Josh Ravetch—who helped me get this whole Wishful Drinking thing started—I owe you big time.

To Clancy Imislund—whose voice is louder than my head—thank you for keeping sobriety fun.

To Helen Fielding—thank you for keeping sanity fun.

To Judy and RJ Cooper, Dave Mirkin, Bruce Wagner, Bruce Cohen, Craig Bierko, Abe Gurko, The Tolkins, Rachel and the Edgars (big and small), Gloria and Mary, Cyndi Sayre, Michael Gonzalez, and my literary mod squad—Suzanne Gluck, Kerri Kolen, and David Rosenthal.

1:

First row (left to right): Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Harry Karl, Richard Hamlett

Second row (left to right): Carrie Fisher, Todd Fisher, Marie MacDonald, Connie Stevens

Third row (left to right): Paul Simon, Bryan Lourd, Joely Fisher, Tricia Fisher

Fourth row: Billie Lourd

2:

First row (left to right): Elizabeth Taylor, Mike Todd, Richard Burton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

Second row (left to right): Eddie Fisher, Miss Louisiana

Third row (left to right): Betty Lin, Chinatown, Liza Todd, Hap Tivey

Fourth row (left to right): Rhys Tivey, Quinn Tivey

Delusions of Grandma

Surrender the Pink

Postcards from the Edge

The Best Awful

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Copyright © 2008 by Deliquesce Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

The world premier of Wishful Drinking was presented at the Geffen Playhouse Los Angeles 2006

And subsequently at Berkeley Repertory Theatre

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-5380-2

ISBN-10: 1-4391-5380-9

PHOTO CREDITS: © Bettman/Corbis: Introduction (bottom) Introduction, Chapter 1 (top), Chapter 3 © Underwood & Underwood/Corbis: Introduction, Chapter2; © Michael Ochs Archives/Corbis: Introduction (top); © John Springer Collection/Corbis: Chapter 2 (bottom); © St. Martin’s Press: Chapter 3; Courtesy of Lucas Film Ltd.: Chapter Introduction, Chapter 5.

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