**** FEEL FREE TO COPYNPASTE. GIVE CREDIT TO AMO****

An interview Alicia did along with Susan Lucci, Eden Riegal, and Walt Willey concerning Erica Kane's addiction storyline:



Let The Healing Begin by Mara Levinsky

Talk about a Kane mutiny. One of All My Children’s signature families is in a grave danger of splintering permanently, thanks to matriarch Erica’s out-of-control drinking. In the hopes of reining in her alcoholism, this week, Jackson summons Erica’s love ones- daughters Kendall and Bianca, half brother Mark, best friend Opal, and surrogate mom Myrtle- for a dramatic intervention. The special episodes airing Friday, July 2 and Monday, July 5, will forever alter Erica’s life – because over the course of these two hours, her darkest secret will finally come to light.

It’s an inebriated Erica’s effect on Lily, Jack’s autistic daughter that pushes Pine Valley’s favorite former DA into organizing this intervention. “Jack comes back to his loft to find that Lily opened the door to Erica, who has a pretty good buzz going,” explains Walt Willey (Jackson). “She completely freaks Lily out because she’s not thinking about anybody but herself because of the alcohol. Jack has to calm Lily down in the other room and ask Erica to leave. And after that happens, Jack gets on the phone, off-camera, to all the people who mean the most to Erica.

“The next morning,” Willey continues, “Erica answers her door, still in the clothes she was wearing the day before, and there’s a big, red-wine stain on her white carpet-this from a woman who is constantly handing people napkins so they don’t get crumbs anywhere. To me, that’s the ultimate symbol of just how much trouble Erica is in with regards to drinking. Jack confronts her first, with the standard, ‘I want to tell you how your alcoholic behavior has affected my life, the people I love, in a negative way.”

This is hardly music to Erica’s ears. “She feels ambushed,” observes Susan Lucci (Erica). “She’s completely taken by surprise. She doesn’t consider herself addicted to anything except pills, which she has beaten in the past, so she doesn’t feel that there would be the need for an intervention. She really feels she is in control of the alcohol.”

Which is precisely the notion of which her loved ones are there to disabuse her. And neither Alicia Minshew’s Kendall nor Eden Riegel’s Bianca mince any words when it’s time to let their mom know how her drinking has upended their lives. “Kendall is the most outspoken, as usual,” previews Minshew. “She’s the one who says, point-blank, “You’re screwing up this family, and here’s your chance to make things right. Do it. It’s no-holds-barred.” Notes Riegel, “Erica feels abandoned by all of them. She feels like they’re pushed her out of their lives. They tell her that they want her back in, but that her behavior is unacceptable, that she needs to get control and then they’ll be there to help her and love her and support her.”

But even that isn’t enough to penetrate Erica’s thick defenses-and that’s where Mark comes in. “Without trying to sound like, ‘I think Mark is a big gun in that he has been down the road” of chemical dependency, says Mark LaMura (Mark), who earned an Emmy nod for his work during Mark’s cocaine addiction and is back for these two episodes. “In fact, I share that dialogue with Susan. He’s talking about his addiction and Erica says, ‘It’s not the same.’ Mark says, ‘Yes it is. It’s exactly the same.’ He speaks from experience and Erica knows that; she was part of his intervention. And, in fact, it does turn the tide.”

Erica, however, has been wrestling with more than just her drinking-and the intensity of the intervention is the reason that she’s drinking, the reason she didn’t want Bianca to keep her child, the reason she’s resented Kendal all these years,” sets up Willey. And it’s a doozy. “Erica, with help and relentless love of her family somehow is able to access a very dark secret that she has been in denial about,” says Lucci. “Namely, that her father basically handed her over to her rapist because he wanted to star in one of his movies. On Erica’s 14th birthday, her father told her there would be a party, but there was no party. She was left alone with this man [Richard Fields], this child molester, came in. She never confronted that aspect (of her rape) before”.

Reigel and Minshew both get teary eyed when discussing the emotional impact that this revelation has on their characters. “It connects so many dots,” notes Reigel. “Suddenly, Erica’s behavior makes a lot more sense. She’s been protecting herself from this terrible secret. She’s been doing everything in her power to suppress feelings and emotion and memory because she thinks that if it does start to bubble u, it’ll be so overwhelming that she won’t survive; she’s been drinking to dull this horrible pain.”

Armed with a new understanding, Erica’s estranged daughters reconcile with her. “Erica tells both of them that she loves them,” Minshew reports. “Kendall says, ‘When you look at me, Mother, who do you see now? And Erica says, ‘I just see you Kendall, and I love you.’ It’s a huge turning point for the Kane women.” Willey adds, “It’s a beginning of a new course for all of these characters. Erica is finally unshackled from a thing that has both driven her and held her back for her entire adult life. So, it’s a new beginning for Erica, for Erica and Jack, Erica and Bianca, and Erica and Kendall.

It’s quite a nasty journey,” sighs Lucci. “But at the end of these two shows, Erica does say, ‘Okay, I’ll get help. I’ll try.” She has never believed in psychological help. But we see the states she’s in. She needs help; she’s full of shame and low self-esteem. And for the first time, she wants to heal. So that’s already an important step in the right direction.

“This is some of the most painful work I’ve ever been asked to do”, Lucci concludes. “When we did these episodes, all of us –Walt, Alicia, Eden, Mark and Jull and Eileen-all of us dissolved. These scenes took us to a place I don’t think any of us could have imagined”. And even though most of AMC lovers will be glued to their screens on July 2 and 5, Lucci has yet to decide if she’ll be among them. “I have a hard time watching my work,” she confesses. “I’m never happy. So I may just leave with a good feeling.”

Reference Clip: The two day episode clips can be found in the Projection Room 2004.

Reading that made me teary eyed! I've never read this article before E, thanks for posting!