Despite demons, Fisher helped many fight theirs By Joe Mozingo, Soumya Karlamangla and Richard Winton
Erie Times-NewsJun 25, 2017
She shared, in her distinctive brand of gallows humor, such episodes as
While many young stars who have died from drug abuse became mythologized, stuck in an immortal fast lane, Fisher laid out the much more ragged and tedious reality of a constant struggle that millions of Americans fight.
A coroner's report released Monday about her death in December said alcohol, cocaine, heroin and ecstasy were found in her system. Although the pathologists could not conclude how toxic the drug levels were or how they affected her death, their use after so much medical intervention and therapy testifies to the sheer relentlessness of Fisher's battle.
"Unfortunately there are so many Americans and people across the world who are suffering from addiction and mental health problems, and her life truly highlights how devastating addiction and mental health problems can be as a disease," said
Fisher's willingness to talk about her mental illness helped destigmatize it for many ordinary Americans, and likely led to more people talking to their friends and family about their feelings, and eventually seeking treatment, Leventhal said.
He said the problem is that many mind-altering substances - alcohol, methamphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin - "trick the human brain into believing" they're needed to feel right.
"Drugs made me feel more normal," Fisher told Psychology Today in 2001. "They contained me."
Her drug of choice was Percodan, an opioid medication that became available in the 1970s. At her lowest point, she was popping 30 Percodan a day, she told the magazine. "You don't even get high. It's like a job, you punch in," she recalled. "I was lying to doctors and looking through people's drawers and medicine cabinets for drugs."
By 28, she landed in the hospital with a tube down her throat to pump her stomach, because she was not conscious enough to tell doctors what she was on.
In recovery, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was the second time in four years. The first time, she ignored it, feeling the diagnosis just gave her an excuse for her moral failings as a privileged child turned drug abuser. This time, she accepted it and got treatment for it and her addictions.
She went on to write about the rehab experience in her best-selling, semiautobiographical novel, "Postcards From the Edge."
An estimated 6 million Americans have bipolar disorder.
At least half of those "have a lifetime alcohol use disorder and about one third have a lifetime drug use disorder," said
With treatment, Fisher took nearly two dozen pills a day, sometimes reluctantly for fear of stifling a bout of creativity that came with the mania. She also told interviewers that writing gave her a way to channel her hyperactive mind.
She became a prolific author and script doctor, and her comic, self-flagellating tales of excess seemed to be rooted in the past.
"There is treatment and a variety of medications that can alleviate your symptoms if you are manic depressive or depressive," Fisher told
Many were inspired by her message.
She didn't have any friends to talk to about her illness and felt as though she would never achieve anything in life.
Then she found online articles about Fisher and
"Looking at people who had it gave me a sense of I'm not alone when times are tough," Horton said. "I can become successful. I can make my own story rather than just let my mental illness control my life."
Fisher was in a highly productive period of her life before she died. She just finished filming the "Star Wars" sequel "The Last Jedi."
Fisher stopped breathing
She was taken to
"Everything is moment by moment with addicts," he said.
More than just opening up about it, Fisher showed that she could have a family and a career, and write books and do stand-up comedy.
"I think it makes it easier to come out with your own struggles. Look, people with mental illness aren't just crazy people. ... People with mental illnesses have lives and can in fact achieve great things," she said.