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1 " Here’s a life lesson for you kids: it’s much easier to go through something upsetting when you’re on drugs. The more intense the drug, the more you forget your problems! It’s basic science, really. "
― Cat Marnell , How to Murder Your Life
2 " they have grown like flowers—bright thoughts along the psycho path that I can pick and gather when the forest feels too dark. It’s not always going to feel like it does today. You "
3 " I can’t handle this, I thought immediately. . . . without Adderall. My addiction finished the thought for me. "
4 " Addiction versus ambition: it starts small. "
5 " It went so dark inside of me. And it was dark outside, too, in those miserable after-Christmas months: cold and wet and icy. I felt like I was trapped inside a snow globe "
6 " Heath Ledger was on the little glowing screen in front of me in his nurse’s uniform, smoky eyes, and smeared lipstick, smirking as he set off bombs and burned the hospital down. "
7 " No one can make you feel anything you don’t want to feel,” my mother told me once, a complete delusion. He "
8 " I will repeat the only advice which has ever really resonated with me re: pain—emotional as well as physical—which is: It’s not always going to feel the way it feels today. It’s just true & key to remember. It certainly helped during childbirth! "
9 " My parents were quiet in the car to the airport, but I couldn’t escape the voices in my head. You failure. You disaster. You disgusting girl. The self-loathing was like a radio station between my ears. Loser. You mess. "
10 " I would have swallowed arsenic if someone had promised that it would put me under for at least a few hours—that’s how bad prolonged insomnia feels. But eventually I gave up: on sleeping, on self-control, on my career, on myself. I gave up on all of it. I just fucking gave up. This "
11 " NOW THAT I WAS OUT of that bizarre . . . sobriety fog, I could see everything much more clearly! "
12 " it. No more. I kept scribbling down “rules” as they came to me: NO HARD DRUGS. Ooh, wasn’t it fun counting these pills and organizing them in their cubes and opening and closing the plastic doors? They were like little pink pill-people living in storage units. La la la. No, drugs were not going to rule my fucking life anymore. This was a new era! I was in control now. I made the rules; I was in charge of how I felt! I determined what happened to— "
13 " But you know what they say: mo’ prescriptions, mo’ problems. "
14 " Yep! I was twenty-six years old and an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America, and that’s all that most people knew about me. But beneath the surface, I was full of secrets: I was an addict, for one. A pillhead! I was also an alcoholic-in-training who drank warm Veuve Clicquot after work, alone in my boss’s office with the door closed; a conniving uptown doctor shopper who haunted twenty-four-hour pharmacies while my coworkers were at home watching True Blood in bed with their boyfriends; a salami-and-provolone-puking bulimic who spent a hundred dollars a day on binge foods when things got bad (and they got bad often); a weepy, wobbly hallucination-prone insomniac who jumped six feet in the air à la LeBron James and gobbled Valium every time a floorboard squeaked in her apartment; a tweaky self-mutilator who sat in front of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, digging gory abscesses into her bikini line with Tweezerman Satin Edge Needle Nose Tweezers; "
15 " Sure, it could have been worse—but, to quote Keith Richards on the end of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg: “It could have been better, baby.” We "
16 " By the time I realized my dream of being an editor, I felt like a zombie disaster trying to pass for human in a world where women didn’t even have split ends. I became more and more self-destructive as I realized I wasn’t cut out for the life I’d imagined for myself. Still, "
17 " We’d talk a little and he’d spot me the fifteen pills to get through the week. As soon as I got my next script, I’d pay him back. Then when Marco was inevitably short himself a week or two later, I’d spot him until his next doctor’s appointment. We never screwed each other over. Pillhead honor code. "
18 " Worst of all, I couldn’t find my Xanax or my Ambien. I shook out the sheets; I dug through the piles. Finally, I left without them. Have you ever heard the thing about pillheads—that if you really want to see their addictions, just take their pills away? Yeah, this was gonna be bad. "
19 " It was warm for November. There was even a lovely drizzle, like God Himself was spritzing my face with Jurlique Calendula Calming Mist. I "
20 " Inhale, exhale. When the heaviness finally came it felt so nice—like the lead X-ray smock they drape over you at the dentist. I forgot all about the Red Flower candle burning on the dresser. Black waves were crashing on my bed. I slipped beneath the turbulent surface of the water. It felt so good that I wanted to sink forever. Mmm. My eyes rolled back, my body relaxed, and I passed out to the Britney Spears Blackout album always looping in my head. "
