Lynda Carter Discusses Her Battle With Alcoholism

Rate This

Lynda Carter, known for her role as Wonder Woman, openly recounts her past alcohol abuse and shares the resources she used to recover.

Todd Hartley:
At EmpowHER, roughly every six weeks we roll out a new upgraded version of our website and we name that upgrade after a woman that’s inspired us to be, as a company, to be better, to be stronger and more powerful advocates.

In August of 2009, EmpowHER rolled out its then latest site upgrades with enhanced, more powerful tools for women to better advocate for their health, and even though she has no idea what I am about to say, we named the upgrade of that version of the EmpowHER site in August 2009, Lynda, in honor of our courageous guest, Lynda Carter. Lynda, welcome to EmpowHER.

Lynda Carter:
Wow! That’s so cool! I had no idea.

Todd Hartley:
Well I get the chills telling you. We have been watching you closely and we are all about advocating for women. In fact, Lynda, when our Lynda version of the site rolled out, we had a ‘Lynda party’ at the office and the entire team, we had a cake with your photo on it and it was a wonderful day for all of us.

Lynda Carter:
Oh that is very cool. What a wonderful, wonderful honor. I appreciate it so much.

Todd Hartley:
Well let’s talk about, you know, you’ve inspired women to be strong for a very long time and you’ve got a lot of great things that are out now, a CD at last, your music that I’ll tell women where they can find it and also some concerts coming up, but you haven’t always been as strong as we might have thought. When did you first realize you weren't so strong around alcohol?

Lynda Carter:
Well, you know, to be honest with you, I never even hardly drank until I was in my 20s. It just wasn’t something I ever really did, but I did notice that when I did drink I didn’t seem to have a very good shut off button, and that is indicative, you know, the ‘hollow leg’ thing.

Todd Hartley:
Right.

Lynda Carter:
It’s indicative of an inability to process alcohol at a certain rate, your liver, and so you end up consuming more because you are not getting the same effect as somebody else is after a beer. You’re not feeling what they feel so you drink another one. By the time you start to feel it, you’ve already taken in too much and so my decent, I guess you could call it, happened probably between my… it was about a ten-year period, late 20s to late 30s maybe and it’s strange because I have accomplished so much in my life if I just make up my mind and I would just, if I thought I was getting out of control I would just stop, and then I wouldn’t drink for two years or I wouldn’t drink for, you know, really frankly never thought of it and at some point it gets a hold of you.

And those times in between became shorter and shorter and the fear and the shame kind of stops you from reaching out and same as well, and I have got this great image as the strong I can do anything kind of thing and what is this about that I can’t, you know? Until I realized that that is the disease portion of it and when you are predisposed, as I was not in my immediate family, but my mother’s side of the family there’s a lot of alcoholism, and that predisposition wasn’t well known to me because it wasn’t, my mom didn’t have it. You know, and it happens to people that work for the government, soldiers, doctors…

Todd Hartley:
It happens to everybody.

Lynda Carter:
It happens to everyone.

Todd Hartley:
Were you silently suffering for a long time?

Lynda Carter:
Oh, I begged God to help me. I can honestly say that I drank and there was a point where I just drank against my will. If you have a beer like anybody else wants just to have a beer and you get started your body, once you cross that line your body says, “Uh-oh, here comes the poison”, and it just, you know, it shift its response and it ends up using that for energy and so, it’s a very insidious thing and if you find it you’ve got black outs or you don’t really remember what you did.

If you realize that you’ve had more to drink without even understanding that you are or compelled to then you really have to take stock on what it is you’re doing and it’s a thing, what I really discovered is that it’s much easier not to try to do it alone.

There are a lot of people that have walked this walk that are in meetings all over and, you know, it’s really, you just deny it. “It can’t be me; it can’t be me; it can’t be me.” And it is and it really can destroy your health and your family and often times, by the time people seek real help for it, they’ve lost everything.

Todd Hartley:
Yeah, at 25-years-old you became the most famous female superhero in the world?

Lynda Carter:
Yeah.

Todd Hartley:
And I read an interview and when I was preparing to talk with you I read an interview did with Larry King, you said, “I was, I think so full of fear about not being, not living up to expectations.” Did the early expectations that you had for your career, and they were understandable, did those early expectations for your career contribute to your alcoholism?

Lynda Carter:
You can use a lot of excuses. Everybody has an excuse. The truth is, I was just terrified, but you don’t have to be in the public eye. You can just, you are trying to hide it from your work, you are trying to hide it from your family, you are trying to hide it from your friends, you’re trying to, and “Oh my god, if anyone…” The stupid thing is, is that everybody knows.

Todd Hartley:
And you still think you are hiding out.

Lynda Carter:
Anybody that you are around knows and it’s not easy to be around someone that has too much to drink. It really isn’t. Not a lot of fun.

Todd Hartley:
That’s the truth. A moment ago you mentioned support groups and have support groups like AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, have they helped you?

Lynda Carter:
Oh absolutely. I went to this wonderful recovery place and it’s Father Martin’s Ashley in Maryland. Actually it’s on the Chesapeake Bay. It’s a beautiful, beautiful campus. They’ve got a full medical staff and I am on the board of directors, before I went and now I’m on the board of it. I think it’s easily in the caliber of the Betty Ford Center or Hazleton, but got a wonderful family program and it really ends up being…the family program is really how to protect yourself against, you know, how to deal with someone. It’s for you; it’s not for them. You know, you’re not going to get away very easily. It’s not to try to . . . it’s to stop people from enabling you.

Todd Hartley:
That help can take someone like you who was silently suffering and give you the tools to take control of your life again and I listened to your CD last night and I just thought it was wonderful. It’s my kind of music. It’s just beautiful. It’s got like some sexy soul to it and the CD is named ‘At Last’ and it’s out and it can be found at Amazon.com or iTunes. I saw it at Amazon and you also have some concerts coming up. I know that you have two in New York and one in D.C. starting with Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 23rd and the 24th and then you are performing in D.C. at the Kennedy Center, which has got to be a thrill, on May 8th.

Lynda Carter:
Yeah, thank you, and I’ve got Biloxi and I have got a whole bunch of other places but you can go on my website and see where they are.

Todd Hartley:
And what’s the website address you’d like them to go to?

Lynda Carter:
It’s LyndaCarter.com.

Todd Hartley:
Couldn’t be any easier, right?

Lynda Carter:
Right.

Todd Hartley:
LyndaCarter.com – it’s got your future dates on there and Lynda, thank you so much for helping us advocate for women and most importantly, from the company here of EmpowHER, we want to thank you for inspiring us to be more effective, more powerful advocates for women.

Lynda Carter:
Well thank you very, very much. I really am thrilled to have talked to you.

Todd Hartley:
I feel the same way. Best of health to you, and I’ll look forward to talking with you again.

Lynda Carter:
Bye-bye!

Click Here To Learn More About Alcoholism