I learned from AA that selfishness and self-seeking are the roots of all of my problems. I started to shift my thinking from what I could get to what I could give. When I felt depressed or suicidal or wanted to drink, they told me to ask myself who I’ve helped that day. Have I called my mom and asked how she was doing? Have I told a friend how much I appreciated them? I got really obsessed with buying homeless people sandwiches. Specifically, sandwiches. Thanks to the program, I had a new person to eat lunch with almost every day. This was my anti-depressant!
Then I started to feel . . . weird. I was smiling a lot? My jokes were less self-deprecating and more . . . joyful? What the fuck was happening to me?
Oh shit. This was happiness. I was happy. The fuck? Being sober was fun. Being single was fun. I didn’t know that I could enjoy doing anything besides getting wasted. Holy fucking shit.
When I opened myself up to sobriety, things started to fall into place for me in my career. Soon after this, I booked a pilot on NBC called A Mann’s World, written and directed by Michael Patrick King who wrote on Sex and the City. It was an amazing script. My character was supposed to be this vacant dumb model, but I took it a step further and gave her a really high, breathy, monotone voice and dead-eyed expression. Man, I really wasn’t born to model, but I was beginning to think I was born to make fun of them. Then, the pilot didn’t get picked up. But this time, I wasn’t devastated. I was fine. This didn’t feel like the end. I had met a bunch of amazing writers and actors through it. And I kept thinking about that character . . . who is she? What is she like when she goes to the grocery store? Sure, I didn’t get to be on a pilot, but this was the inspiration for my Ivy character, who I still do all the time in my videos.
This pilot led to Michael Patrick King hiring me to guest star on 2 Broke Girls. It was an incredible time in my life, when I felt like I was leading with faith instead of fear. I felt like the world was open to me. Every moment felt like an opportunity.
There was one day that I got locked out of my apartment. It was eleven a.m., and Jack was going to be at work until five. Normally I would have just cursed the world for twenty minutes, then found some drugs and got high to pass the time. But I was sober now. So . . . uh, shit. What do sober people do? What was second best to drugs? Ah yes. Coffee.
I walked down to the coffee shop on the corner of the street, ready to kill six hours until Jack got home to let me in. I got a coffee and sat down. I didn’t have anything to read or work on or look at. GOD I WAS SO BORED. This would not do. I’m going to talk to people. I sat down at a table across from an eighty-year-old man that was also staring off into the distance. I asked him if I could sit . . . and then went on to tell him my life story. Then he told me his: he was an army veteran turned hot-air-balloon driver turned farmer. When he had to leave, I bought another coffee and sat down across from a woman I found out was a dancer turned dance instructor turned detective turned stay-at-home mom. I’m sure by my fourth hour of this, the introverts in the café were starting to be a bit afraid of me.
Then I saw a guy who looked weirdly familiar to me. I was FEELING THE COFFEE BUZZ to say the least, and I sat right down at his table.
“HI. YOU LOOK FAMILIAR,” I said. “Do we know each other??”
“Uhhh. No.” From his face you would have thought a wild monkey jumped down from the ceiling onto his table.
“Well anyway, I’m Laura and I got locked out of my apartment until like five p.m. tonight so I’m just here killing time—” I stopped, seeing his bewilderment. “Oh, sorry. Are you meeting someone?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said, kind of annoyed.
“Oh. Sorry. Well I just thought you looked familiar! Bye!” I awkwardly backed away from his table. At least it was almost five p.m.! I walked back to my apartment to be let in.
A few weeks later I got a call from an unfamiliar number.
“Hey Laura, it’s Peter!”
“Sorry . . . who?”
“Peter! We met at Kings Road Café a while ago. You just sat down at my table and started talking?”
“How did you get my number??”
“Well I figured out why I looked familiar to you. I’m friends with your sister’s fiancé. We met at one of their parties.”
“Oh! Okay cool.” Where was this going?
Peter continued. “Anyway, I’m a director and I’m casting this series for AMC. I’d love for you to come in tomorrow and read for a role.”
“Wow, I’d love to! What’s the role?”
“Her name is Cornelia and she’s a certifiably insane actress. I think you’d be perfect for it.”
“I absolutely would be.”
The next day, I went downtown and read for the role of Cornelia, the crazy actress, and booked it. Suddenly I was acting in a scene across from Jeffrey Tambor and Adam Goldberg in AMC’s first digital series. We did three episodes and they never moved forward with the series, but it was okay. I had the tools to accept the things I couldn’t change and appreciate the positive things that had come from this. Like, damn, I should get locked out of my apartment more often.
I’d be lying if I said that sobriety was a walk in the park. It was hard. Some days felt like they lasted forever. It made me isolate myself from my friends, who still loved to go out most nights. If I went out, I was afraid that I would drink. I was getting more and more lonely.
One night, I was tired of it. I was going to go on a date. I met this French guy at my yoga class a couple days before and he asked me out. It didn’t hurt that he was very, very hot. I was compromising my form just to be able to sneak a peek at his downward dog, you guys. I’m not proud.
I called him to confirm our date. I was a little nervous about going out again, but I was sure I’d be fine. I had two months of sobriety by now! I pretty much had it in the bag. That’s how that works, right?
He took me to a really fancy restaurant, where the portions are the size of your thumb and waiters put your napkins on your lap for you. Weird touch, but okay. After we sat down and were “napkined” by the waiter, my date took one glance at the menu and immediately asked, “May I have two glasses of your finest pinot noir?”
Oh shit. I can’t drink wine. But also, damn what a sexy French accent. Focus, Laura. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was embarrassed. If I told him I was sober . . . what would he think? He’d see me as someone who can’t control myself. Who can’t handle alcohol like an adult. He’d see me as a child.
The waiter brought the wine over. I took it in my hand. He sipped his. I chugged mine.
Suddenly I was drunk and ordering more and more wine. I called the waiter over and slurred: “One more glass of peenwah, please? Just one more peenor. Thanks.” I had relapsed.
By this point, the French guy was looking at me like I was crazy. But drunk-me took this look as bedroom eyes. “We should probably go back to your house, shouldn’t we?” I asked.
“But this is the first date. Why are you so forward?”
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him toward me. “Because I am.” Solid reasoning, drunk-me.
In addition to having a relapse, that date was a one-night stand.
The next day, I felt so . . . gross. It’s like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize that everything you thought you dreamed actually happened. I was so ashamed. The entire two months of sobriety were gone, right before my eyes. I needed to do better.