Authors: Belinda Carlisle
“Mommy!” Duke said. “Stop! Please stop it!”
It was like a scene from a Lifetime movie where the mother’s addiction comes to a head through an act that’s absolutely insane. It was a detox, in a way—the emotions I had refused to deal with for years came out of me whether I was ready or not. I hoped and prayed this was the last of my episodes Duke had to witness.
He had seen way too much as it was. About a year earlier, I had returned home from London, grateful to walk into an empty house because I was still too high to face Morgan and Duke. Morgan was not yet back from picking Duke up from his after-school activity. After taking a few pills to bring me down, I began to prepare dinner. When they came in, Morgan took one look at me and said, “What did you take?”
“Something,” I slurred.
“You’re disgusting,” he said before sending me to bed.
Duke took my hand and said, “Come on, Mommy. I’ll help you.”
As I got set to drink my last bottle of wine, I vowed never to repeat one of those scenes ever again. Then I sat in front of the TV, drank the wine, and passed out. I woke up the next morning, April 3, and went on a hike around a lake near our house, and was like, Okay, I’m ready for my new life now.
Indeed, I haven’t had a drink or used any drugs since.
* * *
My new sobriety was tested less than a week after giving up alcohol when I went to Paris for a birthday party a very wealthy friend of mine was having for her child. I took Duke, who was nervous about me attending a celebration
and
being there with me, when my sobriety was so new. I assured him that I was fine—and I was. I got through dinner at La Tour d’Argent, one of Paris’s best restaurants. I declined numerous temptations, including a $2,000 bottle of Château Pétrus.
My next test came when I guested on a TV show in London. For me, the city was full of temptations and bad memories. There were few hotels I could stay in that didn’t bring back memories of a binge. Before leaving for London, I talked to my sponsor daily for nearly two weeks. Once there, I was okay—that is, until I went into the Harrods department store to do some shopping and suddenly, inexplicably broke down. I was hit from out of nowhere with a wave of guilt and shame.
I went to a dressing room and called my sponsor. She reassured me that things like this happened.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s okay to cry and feel bad about past mistakes. Soon enough you’ll be able to see the divine person you really are.”
I had almost forgotten about my problem with that Belgian drug dealer when he left another message, demanding money and reiterating his threat. I didn’t know whether or not to take him seriously since he had never made good on his initial threats. To be safe, I contacted an expert in such matters who told me not to respond. He predicted the creep would go away.
I thought about what this guy was doing and got angry at him—and at myself, for creating this situation. But I didn’t react to the anxiety as I had in the past by using, and I also realized I wasn’t helpless. I could talk about it therapeutically, and I did. I discussed it with my sponsor, who was very helpful.
“If he tries anything, you go to the police,” she said. “And if he talks to the press, what are the headlines? ‘Rock Star Has Coke Habit’? Hasn’t the public already heard that story?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “I’ve already talked about that on my
True Hollywood Story.”
“Right,” she said. “So don’t fret.”
She was right. Until something happened, if it ever did, I chose to ignore him. Again, my sponsor helped me see I had some measure of control here. I could put him out of my mind. I also changed my number and then helped myself by continuing to talk about it with Morgan, my sponsor, and my AA group.
With their advice and support, I dealt with this and other problems from a place of strength and understanding, rather than fear and emotion and booze and drugs. This was no small matter. I actually
dealt with my problems
. And thankfully, the dealer disappeared.
Now my slate really was clean. But life wasn’t all of a sudden easy or carefree. I still had to work hard every day at being myself, and hoped I could work up to being my best self. Despite my chanting and workouts, I was fragile, like a baby deer trying walk on new, wobbly legs. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with my marriage. I wanted to stay married. Morgan wasn’t sure. Actually, he just wanted proof I was serious about sobriety. I had to walk the walk—and that took time.
Gradually, I became a different woman inside and out. The obsessive, unhealthy, drug-addicted, alcoholic liar and cheat faded into the background, and a kinder, more open and loving, more honest and healthy woman stepped into view. I worked my steps. I made amends to the many people I had hurt over the years—the hardest and saddest of which were to Morgan and Duke. I made an honest inventory. One day my sponsor had me write twenty ways I had been protected through my use. I had no problem doing that many, and more.
“My God,” I said to her as we reread the list. “It’s all divine intervention. I mean, the same thing that protected me from OD’ing that night in London has always been watching over me.”
“It watches over all of us,” she said. “That’s why a while ago I told you to be patient, that you will see the divine person you are.”
* * *
One thing I never doubted was my French album,
Voila
. It was waiting for me when I was ready to dive back into work, making the project seem as if it had been manifested for a reason. Two and a half years earlier, I had met David James, the head of a small label in Cannes. Over coffee, he asked if there was anything I wanted to do, and I said, “Well, I’d love to do a French album.”
Until I heard myself say those words, I had never had such a thought. The idea just came out of my mouth.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said.
He tried to start the project in fall 2004, but I missed various appointments with David and his producer, John Reynolds. I was too messed up. In January 2005, I managed to record three demos with John. I don’t know how I got it together since that month was sandwiched between two of the worst months of my life. In March, the record company was set to make the album, musicians were lined up, and I was supposed to rehearse a batch of songs with John. Unfortunately I was in the midst of my last coke binge and never made it to the studio.
Once I got sober, though, I was thrilled to find the opportunity to make
Voila
was still there. I threw myself into the project in a way I hadn’t done with any album through my entire career, including with the Go-Go’s. We spent about eight months recording it in London (yes, it’s ironic—and we used mostly Irish musicians), so I spent quite a bit of the early days of my recovery traveling back and forth from France. I wasn’t tempted to drink or use, not once.
Somehow a wish list of artists agreed to lend their talents, including Brian Eno, who heard tracks and played for free, and the Egyptian singer Natasha Atlas, who specialized in Egyptian and North African music. I picked my favorite French songs as well as those standards I thought I could sing well. Over the years, a few people had said they heard bits of Edith Piaf in my voice, and I thought, Well, after all the years of booze and cigarettes, I could probably pull it off.
I went into serious work mode. I studied with a vocal coach, took
lessons with a French teacher, and taped the lyrics to each song all over the interior of my car. I sang them wherever I went.
The results showed up on the album. By the time I went into the studio, I felt like I owned the songs, like I had made them my own. Critics agreed. “Carlisle has never sounded as comfortable within a persona as she does here,” said the
Boston Phoenix
shortly after Rykodisc released the album in February 2007. The paper also noted that I was “about as French as a bag of ‘freedom fries,’” but for this first studio album in a decade I’d gone “all ou-la-la.”
The review was right on all counts. It was, like all my previous albums, a measure of where I was in my life. I was ready to sing these songs from Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel, and Charles Aznavour. I didn’t listen to much pop music anymore. I’d heard the best, and although good stuff still came through, it sounded like the originals regurgitated. Instead I was listening to world music, French music, and Indian music.
It made sense. I was no longer a California girl. At almost forty-nine years old, I was a product of the world.
As I was making
Voila
, the Go-Go’s reunited briefly to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of our first album,
Beauty and the Beat
. We weren’t ones to look back, but we enjoyed reminiscing about the 1981 album. We knew it was special. As I said at the time, “It encapsulated a moment and captured a lot of people’s imagination.” Fans constantly told us how much those songs meant to them. I was always flattered and appreciative since I could still recall the songs I listened to over and over again when I was growing up. Music was—and remains—that important.
A quarter of a century later, we were aware of the album’s place in rock history. We knew it had captured a moment in time and opened doors for other women with the same dream we had. It was even more personal for us. Those songs were snapshots of our lives, who we were at the time and what we were doing. It was pretty wild.
I took the opportunity to sit down for the first time with Kathy and
Charlotte, both of whom were also sober, and tell them about the last days of my boozing and using. Despite the time we had spent together on the road, they had no idea. They were stunned and horrified. Kathy said she thought I was on my way out. Charlotte confessed that she had expected to get a call saying I was dead.
By the time I hit my second year of sobriety in April 2007, I was on a very different journey. You could see it from looking at me. I had reacquired a healthy skin color and life in my eyes. My body was fit and I woke up with an enthusiasm for facing the day. Not as apparent was the way I had reconnected at home with Morgan. He watched with relief as I slowly but steadily emerged from the gruesome shell of addiction to become the person he always said I was, the person he saw even when I couldn’t. It took about eight months for me to regain his trust. Then we entered a period of rediscovering the reason both of us felt we were meant to be together.
The biggest problems we continued to have were mine: I regretted the pain I had caused this wonderful, almost saintly man—and the time I had wasted not being with him.
The other role I worked to reclaim was that of mom to Duke, who was suddenly so grown-up and mature. I was thrilled when we started going on weekend trips together and even more delighted and impressed when I saw he was a fine, thoughtful, and intelligent young man. At his age, now almost fifteen, I was cutting school, running away from home, and experimenting with pot and alcohol. His biggest vice was C-SPAN. He loved politics and worshipped Nancy Pelosi.
Duke and I were driving back home from a weekend trip to the Gorges du Verdon, also known as the French Grand Canyon, when he opened up to me in a way that I had never been able to do with him. He said he had something to tell me. I could see that he was ready to cry.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“No, never mind,” he said.
“Now you have to tell me,” I said.
It was then, with tears in his eyes and a hesitation in his voice, that my son told me that he was gay. I started to say something, but nothing was there. I didn’t know what to say. I was actually stunned. Not
stunned in a way that I had never suspected it, but more like I couldn’t believe this was happening. I glanced at him several times, trying not to crash as I said, “What?” Then I pulled the car over to the side of the road and asked again, “What did you say?”
It’s an amazing thing when you realize your child has surpassed you in some way, whether it’s in intelligence, maturity, wisdom, common sense, or courage. I looked at my baby and thought he was all of those things, and so brave and honest and much better and stronger than I was. I just wish I could have said it, or something, anything that would have made me sound halfway enlightened.
“Are you shocked?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know what I am. I just wish I was better for you.”
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“God no!” I said. “I love you—and I will love you any way you are. I’m so proud of you.” (The absolute truth.)
I don’t know how he did it, but my kid was already the kind of person I wished that I could have been. With a vision of who he was and who he wanted to be, this was one piece of the puzzle he was addressing so he could get on with the rest of his life. I looked at Duke with envy. At almost fifty, I was still sorting through issues from my childhood. How did he end up this together?
“Did you have any idea?” he asked later.
“No,” I said.
That was true at the moment he asked. Later, as I ransacked my memories for clues, I recalled a few times when the thought of him possibly being gay crossed my mind. But it was always one of those things that was easier to ignore—for both of us—until now.
As every parent knows, you spend so many years managing your child’s life that it comes as a shock when that relationship changes, when they break the news that certain things about them aren’t the way you imagined. This was one of those times. Duke was ready to come out. I wasn’t as ready. I know parents react to such news in many different ways. For me, it was more like, wow!
I don’t think I was ever less than accepting, but I was still in a fog for
three days. I spent part of that time letting the reality soak in and part of that time figuring out how to tell Morgan. My therapist said I should have Duke tell him. However, I knew that was wrong. What if Morgan had a bad reaction? Both of us were very open, accepting, and close to many gay friends. But the issue can play differently when it lands in your living room.
I thought, No, I’ll tell Morgan myself.
It’s funny. In the time we had known each other, we had talked about every subject imaginable, or so it seemed, except this one, and probably because it was about our little boy, who was not so little but still this human being we had created; it was harder than anything else we had ever discussed.