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1. About the book itself
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is the autobiography of the famous actress Drew Barrymore. With the help of the professional writer Todd Gold ( a reporter of the People magazine ) she wrote down memories of her childhood, experiences with her divorced parents and how she came to take drugs. She had been out of rehab a few months and was excited to tell everyone her story of recovery when she started to work on the book in 1988. But during her work she suffered a relapse and had to admit that recovery of an addiction is a lifelong process. When she finished the book at the age of 14 she was again in the final weeks of rehab. She tries to cope with her addiction and looks for reasons.
Drew Barrymore, the famous actress from the Barrymore family, which produced a lot of Hollywoodlegends, became an addict to drugs and alcohol at the early age of 9.
In this book she describes with the help of Todd Gold`s comments how difficult life as a celebrity can be.
2. Drew¡äs bad family situation:
Drew¡äs mother Jaid and her Dad John had a lot of problems in their relationcship and thought that a baby would solve them, but the violence of the father didn¡ät vanish. He couldn¡ät handle his wife¡äs pregnancy and once even kicked her into the stomach to kill the baby in her so that she had to go to hospital. When Jaid finally left him, she moved to West Hollywood. As an unknown actress she was forced to work very hard in little acting jobs and as a waitress in the \"Troubadour\" in order to afford the best education for Drew. That logically ment for Drew that her mother hadn¡ät much time for her and so Drew experienced a lot of different babysitters and felt very lonely because her father was a violent and brutal addict, who didn¡ät care about his daughter. She met him only a few handful of times in her life. The first memory she has of him isn¡ät very nice: He came home completely drunk, first threw Jaid on the floor and then Drew against the wall. Luckily she didn¡ät get hurt because she landed on a big sack of laundry. As a little child Drew always thought that her mother was a bad person because she had left her husband. She begged to see him and once Jaid let him do the babysitting with a friend of hers together because she wisely didn¡ät trust him. He burnt Drew¡äs fingers after kicking her into the stomach, because he was again completely drunk. The last time she saw him, she was 7 years old. From this time on he only wanted to get money from her.
3. The Barrymore family¡äs destiny:
Alcohol and drug addiction are a stable part of Drew¡äs family-history. The famous actor family has lost some members as victims of these demons and it wasn¡ät to skipp one generation.
John Barrymore ( Drew¡äs grandfather ) was aone of the greatest Shakespearen and movie actors of the 1920s and 30s drank himself to death at the age of 60.
Her aunt Diana admitted her alcohol-addiction in the best seller Too much Too soon.
John Drew Barrymore jr., her own father had lots of alcohol - and drug related problems, which often touched Drew¡äs life.
Johnny ( Drew¡äs half brother ), 20 years older than Drew who often did the babysitting, begged his little sister for money and she sold fruits for him to help him. But when Jaid noticed that the money was for drugs, he wasn¡ät allowed to come over again.
4. The plot
Drew played the little girl Gertie in the blockbuster E.T. and this great experience caused the wish to act. After begging very hard her mother agreed and became her daughters`manager, which Drew soon disliked because she wanted her mother only to be her mother and not her boss. it was very hard for Jaid because she had to take her daughter all over town to shoots, auditions and fittings so that she had no time for her own career and struggles to make ends because the career of her daughter also required expensive dance-lessons.
The film E.T. completely changed her life: the 7 year old girl became a celebrity. Drew loved working at the set because lacking a mother and a father the crew became a big family for her.
Her acting allowed them to move to a better appartement and to attend a private school. During the shooting of Firestarter ( Stephen King again ) she met Jenny Ward who became her best friend. Drew was impressed by the family-feeling they gave her and was down when they had to leave again. They met again during the shooting of Cat¡äs eye ( Stephen King ).
But there were not only good aspects about that: She simply wanted to be an average girl at school but became an outsider which made it very difficult to find friends and she started going out on premier parties and giving interviews. The second aspect had the worst consequences on Drew`s life because at these parties she first got in touch with alcohol. Later she began to smoke cigarettes and also pot (marijuana), first offered by her friends`mother. Her mother didn¡ät notice anything because she trusted her daughter and when she once caught her smoking nothing happened. Drew was accepted by older kids only because of her using drugs and they addopted her as a mascot. She was in a constant struggle for independence and freedom with her mother and treated her very badly. This was the time when she first recognized that she couldn`t have fun at a party without sneaking beer. During the shoot of the film \" See you in the morning\" she went out to all nightclubs of New York with her new friend Stacy. She discovered that cocaine was the perfect drug for her because after a drunken night she always had a bad hangover. But this drug also turned the relationship between mother and daughter into hell. When they left New York and went back to L.A. again it even got worse. They acted as two strangers fighting against each other all the time. One night Drew told Jaid that she should leave the flat so that she could come home to smoke her pot, but when Drew completely drunk opened the door her mother was there and called a friend to take her to hospitel. His was the first time when Jaid noticed what was going on with her daughter.
Drew was very upset about the strict rules in the ASAP reha-clinic and didn`t say any word in her therapylessons but she was quite happy to be sober.
During a promoting tour in New York she had her first relapse because she met her old nightlife-friend Stacy again. They took a lot of coke stole Jaid`s credit card and flew to L.A. where they made a big shoppingtour. Then they wanted to fly to Hawaii as they had always planned in their dreams but had a car crash because Drew was too high to drive. She was finally caught by private agents, working for Jaid, who took the girl back to the ASAP where she was very ashamed to tell her friends that she had only 20 minutes of sobriety. The worst punishment was Drew¡äs feeling of lonelyness: Her mother didn¡ät visit or phone her apart from multifamilylessons once a week. Now she had to work right from the beginning but after she got into Growth Group (the permission to go out with techs on weekends), where she noticed that having fun without drugs is possible. She began to react positively on the community of the therapy groups and talked about all her problems she had with her appearence, her mum and dad, her low selfesteem and her incompetence to deal with her feelings. For example they told her that she could love her father but not let him ruin her life because he had done enough to her. It was the first time Drew said that her father hit her when she was a child. Besides she learnt to listen to others. David, Jan and Edie gave her the support she needed and so she finally got her discharge day.
At home it was not easy for mother and daughter but they had learnt to discuss their problems.
The press was shocked by the news that the cute crying E.T. - girl had a drug addiction and the telephone rangall day long. Finally Drew decided to go to the public in order to end up all the rumors with an issue of her own in the people-magazine.
After nearly six months of sobriety Drew simply missed being high and forgetting all the problems and smoked pot twice. She was too scared to tell the truth and so she lied to her mother, which made their weak relationship worse again. Although Drew promised to herself to never to do it again she wasn¡ät able to stick it out. Jaid and Drew quarrelled every day. After a big row caused by her jealousy against her mother¡äs new boyfriend she ran away and moved out into her own flat together with Edie. But although they were good friends they didn`t get along. They were too competitive and the flat became too small for both. When her mother and her boyfriend went to NY without inviting her to come with them, Drew was very angry and depressed. Shortly before her father had called and asked her for money pretenting that he was in an emergency but Drew was strong enough to refuse.
All this led to the fact that one time Drew nearly killed herself by scratching her wrist with a knife. Killing herself didn`t even cross her mind but it was a desperate cry for professional help. Covered with blood Drew was brought to the emergency room from where she called her mother to confess her lies about her sobriety. Then she went back to the clinic by her own choice. Jaid made a therapy too in order to learn about her and Drew¡äs relationship. Now Drew is clean and can manage life with her mother but nevertheless the recovering process of an addict is a lifelong one.
5. How Hollywood effected her life: ( reasons for her addiction )
¡¤ People might blame Hollywood for Drew¡äs problems because beeing a celebrity at the early age of 6 must leave its marks on a young personality. The worst effect was the lack of friends because after E. T. she was not an ordinary girl anymore, a problem with which children can¡ät deal easily. Most of her collegues were simply jealous because everyone seemed to \"love\" the perfect nice fair girl, who cried for E.T.. Drew had great struggles to find real friends at school and often wished not to be famous but only an average girl. That made her feel lonely and forced her to concentrate on shootings more and more
¡¤ because at the set she found friends like Jenny who were in the same situation. The people working in a filmcrew are used to famous actors and celebrities. There Drew was noone special and felt as if the set was a big family, she lacked at home. Stephen King became a close friend to her and she often acted in his films. He was like an uncle for the children on the set and told the best horrorstories.
¡¤ At the set Drew always felt confident in contrast to school for example, where she was full of self-doubt. But acting gave her positive emotional nourishment and she loved to be in front of the camera. At home she also used her talent to hide her problems and addiction in front of her mother. Drew took cocain for a long time before her mother recognized what was going on.
¡¤ Her low selfesteam had its roots in her appearance she saw as too fat. Losing weight was a constant wish of hers.
¡¤ The public interest in Drew¡äs life complicated her life and the rehabilitation. She was known as the little innocent girl of E.T. and her fans were shocked when the news of her addiction first appeared. A little girl hanging around at premier parties until late in the night caused some headlines and every relaps was again published. When she came back home from the first rehabilitation their place was besieged by reporters. As an actor public opinion is very important for the job and so she first wrote an issue for the people-magazine were she admitted everything and now this book to show everyone that it isn¡ät easy to live with the pressure of the public in the neck. The history of her family weighed on her too. Everyone seemed to wait for a new member of the Barrymorefamily who steps into the old tratition of alcohol and drugs.
¡¤ The criticism on her mother to go out with the little child on parties for so long while normal children have to go to bed at 8 o¡ä clock was right, because this habit lead to the first taste of alcohol and the first drunkenness at the age of 9. Soon she couldn¡ät have fun on those endless parties and in the night clubs of NY and LA without alcohol. She sneaked beer and other drinks as much as she could but it wasn¡ät easy. Marijuana offered an easier solution to become high because it was easier to get and you have no hangover the next day. The mother of a friend of her first offered pot to the children at the age of 10. She smoked without letting her mother know that and the same happened when she started with cocaine in order to keep up with her older friends.
The problem is, that in the scene of actors, models, singers and other rich celebrities there is a lot of drugs. You can get everything from nearly everyone and it is accepted as quite normal. In all those people the young Drew had no good idols. Noone showed her that it is possible without drugs too.
¡¤ Another reason for her addiction is her bad family situation. Without a father her mother Jaid tried to do her best to get the best for her child, but in these efforts she forgot that her daughter needed only one thing: a week mother who cares for her and spends time with her. But Jaid tried to make ends and worked very hard. So she had not enough time for Drew and let her alone with a babysitter very often. Later when they had more money from Drew¡äs jobs Jaid again made a big mistake: She became Drew¡äs manager although Drew only wanted her to be her mum. When she was in the clinic for example her mother brought her a script instead of something personal like mothers do which hurt Drew very much.
Drew felt lonely most of the time and fled into her addiction.
¡¤ The lack of stabilty she had at home without a caring father and a mother working all day long increased her wish to flee. During the shooting of Firestarter she first learnt what a real family looks like at home at Jenny¡äs house. She had a family with a mother, father and brother eating together every evening and living a normal life. That¡äs what Drew often missed! She wanted to be as normal as all the other children at school. But without this stability the danger to get into such a scene is much higher.
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