Only In Bel Air

Beverly Hills therapist Donna Burstyn blogs:

I received a telephone call from a celebrity who got my phone number off of a website.

She called me directly and was telling me about how she had broken her sobriety after ten years of being sober. She was putting her children through graduate school at elite universities and how dare they come to her house – after her ten day binge — and search for bottles of booze and break them. And how she was running like a crazy woman trying to down as much booze as she could while they were breaking the bottles. And she hadn’t been able to show up to the set. And the producers had warned her and warned her. The day she finally felt like she could get there, her luxury car broke down and she couldn’t get to the set.

She started crying on the phone. She said, “What’s become of me? I can’t believe this has happened to me.”

She wanted to remind me how much money she had. She said, “I live in Bel Air! And I have a Mercedes. And people have been stealing things from me. It’s only jewelry but I can’t figure out what’s missing. I’ve lost my mind. I’ve been in rehab before. I’ve been in hospital before. I have such shame and guilt. I can’t believe I let this happen again. I have so much stress. Will you see me? Have you worked with people who’ve gotten off the wagon?”