Patricia Heaton

And after those two main shows went away, I did a few other things, but I hadn't been working a regular job.

And my boys were all out of the house.

And so the two main things that anchored me in life, being a mom and raising children and having a career, suddenly kind of weren't there anymore.

And so you sense this feeling of being unmoored.

uh especially for women especially as you get to a certain age and you're going through menopause and you you don't kind of know like what am i supposed to do day to day after working and being on the set at 5 45 every morning for nine years and and and raymond before that for nine years and

It's an uncomfortable feeling of kind of not knowing what your purpose in life is and who you are in life.

And so it's very easy instead of looking at those feelings and thinking about them and dealing with them to just go to lunch with your friends and have Prosecco.

And then you finish that lunch and you fall asleep about three o'clock for a nap.

And then maybe you get up and you have some more wine with dinner with your husband.

Like it's easy to get into that.

And I found that I was thinking about drinking a lot.

Like I would get up in the morning and think, gee, do I have a lunch I'm going to today where I could crack open Prosecco at 1130?

And as an actor, and this is one of the benefits of being an actor, you're always looking not just at what the actor's line is, what the character's line is, but what's underneath.

You're always looking for what's underneath it.

Motivation.

And the motivations.

And so I started looking at my own thoughts, thinking, why am I thinking about drinking so much?

And I attributed it a lot to this new phase of my life that I wasn't completely comfortable with.

And...

There was a spiritual component to this too for me because I love alcohol.