What’s Left Behind: An Interview With Erin Lee Carr

Portrait by Edith Zimmerman

I saw an interview you did and you mentioned "radical empathy" which is a concept I try to adapt in recovery, too. It's tough sometimes. But I'd love to hear a bit more about how you've made it work for you and its origins in your recovery story.

My interpretation of radical empathy stems in part from giving people the benefit of doubt, no matter what. My dad (who was in recovery), sort of drilled into my twin and I that we are not equal to our best or worst action. Some might say that that is letting oneself off the hook. I don’t agree. I think mistakes are so much a part of our time on earth. His story is one of transformation: from Catholic school boy to acid-on-the-tongue college drop-out to landing hard when getting into crack cocaine. But the story didn’t end there like it might have. He went on to have a storied career at The New York Times becoming the media columnist, a thing he once only dreamed about.

I remember the crushing day that was my dad’s funeral, after his untimely death at the age of 58. New Yorker editor David Remnick told me, “F. Scott Fitzgerald said ‘there are no second acts in American lives.’ Your father proved him wrong.” I was hungover when I heard this and yet the words sank deeply into me. I cover crime in my documentaries which is a space littered with black-and-white assessments. I live in the grey — always have, always will. In terms of my recovery, it taught me to forgive myself and others. We are all just trying our best. I genuinely believe that as Pollyanna-ish as that might sound.

When you wrote the book was there an intention at all to be a companion to NOTG? I loved your book on its own and for that fact that, because since I've really went geek on NOTG as a recovery manual, it gave me the second part I'd always wanted.

It’s crazy to think that I wrote All That You Leave Behind in the shadow of an amazing memoir like Night of the Gun, and while I don’t think it’s fair to put my book on the same level as my dad’s, I can’t deny that I hoped to create something that would be a kindred spirit in book form. I was incredibly self-conscious while I wrote my book, knowing that I could never touch the language and depth of human emotion that was witnessed in his. Honestly, I would lie awake at night, fantasizing about quitting and telling my editor it just wasn’t for me. I freaked out at the blank page. I don’t know how you writers do it! Masochists! But what I came back to, time and time again, was that I wanted my dad’s emails (the basis for the book) to be out in the world and if I had to undress myself emotionally to do it, so be it.

I was also conscious that I was not engaging in the same process that my dad used. He used his amazing reportage to go back and check the memory and reflection of others. I didn’t do this. I made digital technology the spine of the book and I think it served it well. Now, I’m proud of it and I think it lives on its own or as a companion piece.

How do you forgive yourself? Is it easier to forgive yourself or easier to ask others to forgive you?

Self-forgiveness is a process for me. I genuinely thought I had forgiven myself but then I realized my mind was picturing two people: one being the 'drunk Erin' and the other the 'sober Erin.' The first Erin was solely responsible for dumb, sad things I did and therefore it wasn't really an issue. As I get longer into sobriety (I hope to celebrate five years in August), I've realized that I am just at the start of something that looks deeper at what happened and I have to combine the two versions. Asking others to forgive, while painful and embarrassing, is easier as most humans don't want to exist in conflict. I made amends to people (and people have made amends to me) but honestly, those people are no longer a part of my life. Every time we'd socially hang out, I could clearly feel what the other Erin had done and it made me wince. So besides my family and a couple of really close pals, I've had to build, in large part, a new life with new relationships, letting go of the old. It's an uncomfortable truth to sit with. But it's nothing compared to how it used to be.

What's your program look like today? How has it evolved, especially given your professional success?

Well, I am currently bunkered in a cabin in the woods. Typically, I wake up and make a pot of coffee (just for me, my boyfriend doesn’t drink it which I find eternally strange), and put on an AA speaker tape first thing in the morning. They are usually men (I’ve listened to every single female AA speaker on all of YouTube, I think) and they often sound like a bible thumper from a different era. I find myself calmed by the story; I always know it will be a tale that tells me a human being’s relationship with experience, strength and hope. I am soothed by the platitudes — it’s the weirdest thing. I usually check in with my sober buddy Tim and I'll tune into a Zoom meeting twice a week. I have a sponsor that I don’t call enough but I know she is there. Success and sobriety can be a beautiful or toxic combo. Your brain begins to tell you that you’ve kicked it and that you learned all there is to learn. My dad relapsed after 14 years of continuous sobriety, so whenever I have a floating feeling about how good it would feel to have one bottle of wine, I remind myself I only have access to good things like this because I don’t drink. There is no having both.

Success to me is professional accomplishment, but it can be so much more than the trappings of wealth. For me, it looks like having a layered, thoughtful relationship with my sisters, not just “I am sick and I need help” phone calls. It also looks like my mentor having me stay at her house and knowing I won’t completely trash it. I used to completely wreck people who came close to me and while I hate that I did that, I know that isn’t something I’d do as a sober person. Plus, we have so much more time than other people. I regularly try to convert people who ask me, “Hey, how do you do so much stuff?” I say, "Stop drinking or using substances, and you will be amazed at what you can do."

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Erin Lee Carr is a documentary filmmaker and author of the book "All That You Leave Behind." Her latest doc, "How To Fix A Drug Scandal," can be found on Netflix right now.

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