First published 2009
Mackenzie Phillips opens her story in the chaotic household of The Mamas and The Papas, where she rolled joints for her father John Phillips and navigated a world of constant drugs and dysfunction. At fourteen, she found fame in American Graffiti and landed a starring role as Julie Cooper on One Day at a Time. Yet success couldn't shield her from the toxic environment at home. She began using drugs herself, lost her television career, and spent twenty years cycling through addiction and recovery. After staying clean for a decade, she relapsed spectacularly in 2008 with an arrest at LAX for cocaine and heroin possession. Phillips traces this downward spiral to a devastating family secret she had never publicly revealed. Her memoir chronicles the battle between addiction and recovery, the cost of fame in a broken family, and her search for redemption after losing everything multiple times.
Genres: addiction, autobiography, biography-memoir, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, second-chance
Setting: LAX
Period: 2008
292 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, substance-abuse