She drank for almost 30 years – now Mimi Fiedler is dry. In Stephanie Stahl and Lukas Klaschinski’s podcast, she now reports why she is still struggling with addiction. And that’s why she no longer wants to work as an actress.
Even five years after she stopped drinking, she is still an alcoholic – this is so important to Mimi Fiedler that she corrects her host Lukas Klaschinski during the introduction to the psychology podcast “That’s just how I am”. “I’m still addicted, I haven’t overcome my alcohol addiction,” she explains right at the beginning. And then reports in detail what the addiction means for her life, even years later.
Psychologist Klaschinski, who runs the podcast together with colleague Stephanie Stahl, had allowed himself a little slip of the tongue: “It’s about alcohol addiction, specifically about the alcohol addiction you once had,” he was about to start the conversation. But Fiedler doesn’t want to leave the past tense as it is: it’s important to her that it’s understood that people addicted to alcohol will always remain addicted, she emphasizes.
Addiction not overcome
“I’m no longer sick, I’m basically ‘just’ an alcoholic,” explains the now 48-year-old. The fact that she managed to get sober was “a new miracle every day” for her. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still see a danger. “Last May, I almost relapsed,” she says. When she was reading old notes while writing her book “Trinkerbell,” it came to her. “It was like a club hitting me from behind,” is how she describes the suddenly recurring urge to drink.
“The drinking pressure didn’t even come around the corner so elegantly. It just stood in the room. Like an uninvited guest who kicked in the door and said: ‘Well, sweetie, did you think I was gone?'” she remembers. The notes weren’t even about happy memories. “I don’t actually have any fond memories of drinking.”
She was home alone that day and didn’t drink or eat enough. The only thing that saved her was that her adult foster daughter Anna suddenly called her “terrorist” late in the evening. “She always had a feeling for me. I’m usually asleep at 10 p.m.,” reports Fiedler. The calls would have saved her from reaching for the bottle. “That was close.”
“Showtime of my Life”
From Mimi Fiedler to Elena Carrière – these eight women take off their clothes for a good cause
Addiction pressure remains
In general, the pressure for addiction has subsided over time. “I had it a lot in the first few months. But then it went away,” she explains. Through Alcoholics Anonymous she learned mechanisms to deal with it. “But I actually don’t have it that bad anymore.”
Fiedler also sees the injuries in her past as the reason for her drinking. “Being sober is the realization that despite your pain – and I have experienced really deep pain, like many people – you can be happy,” Fiedler summarizes himself. She therefore rejects the idea of moderate drinking.
Drink for the pain
The fact that she is sober today is such a miracle for her because she has been struggling with addiction for a long time. “The first encounter with alcohol immediately turned me into an addict,” she says of her first beer at the age of 14. “Looking back, I was immediately an alcoholic.” She enjoyed the feeling of being drunk from the first moment and thought to herself: “I have to have more of this.”
She suspects the cause was abuse, which she experienced when she was seven. But she wasn’t aware of that for a long time. “Even as a child, I didn’t feel good, I felt beside myself,” she remembers. The lightness from alcohol helped her to suppress any discomfort. “It made me numb.” Today she sees her drunken self almost as a satire of herself.
No return to the camera
Most of the time she drank alone. “I was a seemingly normal person,” Fiedler marvels at himself in retrospect. Acting also played a role in this. “It worked well to have nothing to do with myself but to play a role,” she believes. “And I quickly realized that the hotel rooms and the anonymity of the hotels were a good deal for me. Because no one controls me there.”
That’s why she was always able to get drunk alone after filming was over. “Before, stop by the gas station, buy alcohol and get drunk. And I did that for almost 25 years.” When she stopped drinking, her career was also over. “Because I don’t want to play anymore. Neither privately nor professionally. And I also had to admit that the job itself – playing itself – has never really fulfilled me.” Instead, she would now focus on coaching and writing. She rules out a return. “Let’s see where my path takes me. Definitely not in front of a camera.”
Source:
Editor’s note: The podcast “That’s how I am” appears on RTL+. The star belongs to RTL Deutschland.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
