Edie Falco, actress in The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie (2009-2015) talks about the recovery process from alcoholism while filming a show about an opioid-addicted nurse. She says she became an alcoholic as a young woman trying to launch her career. She credits the 12-step program with helping her recover.
Falco revealed that she didn’t even begin drinking until she was in college, and sought alcohol as a way of compensating for her shyness, which was impacting her confidence level.
“I was a non-drinker for years, then I had my first drink at college and I found nirvana,” Falco recalled, explaining that booze felt like “the answer to all my problems, and the cause of all my other problems.”
“I was a big fan of cocaine if it was around, but I could never afford any,” Falco shared. “Marijuana just gave me anxiety.”
However, her moment of clarity came several years later, in the last year of her 20s, while hungover. Falco woke up after a night of heavy drinking and found she’d drunkenly forgotten to even close her front door, which had been open all night. This lapse in judgment and personal safety was the tipping point that led to her quitting altogether.
Years later, when Falco was cast as a high-functioning drug addict in Nurse Jackie, she said it was not her idea to make the character an addict, as “that stuff’s way too close to me.”
