HIGH ON ARRIVAL –
March 11, 2021 – Phillips, whose parents were both in popular 1960s folk rock band the Mamas & the Papas, described her struggles with addiction after her tumultuous childhood during the annual Conference on Addiction at Utah Valley University on Thursday.
While attending a screening for “American Graffiti,” the early George Lucas film that Phillips acted in when she was 12, Phillips said she learned shocking details of her youth — ones she’d forgotten.
At the time of the screening years after the film’s initial release, Phillips was by then a mother in her 30s. A producer on the film asked her if she remembered when she got off a plane to film the movie, carrying a “fake leather suitcase” and all by herself. “And we said to you, ‘Where’s your guardian? You’re only 12. You can’t be all alone,’” Phillips remembered the filmmaker asking.
“And my heart started to pound. My hands started to shake,” Phillips said.
She learned the producer had needed to scramble to become her legal guardian for the duration of the film, and Phillips lived with his family.
“I had literally, absolutely no recollection and I still don’t to this day. I tell you that story because it gives a practical representation of how trauma lives … Trauma survivors don’t necessarily have memories,” Phillips said.
“But I have symptoms that have taken me throughout my whole life. Restlessness, irritability, trouble sleeping. All of these things,” she said.
That was just one example of a childhood with parents who suffered addiction Phillips shared during the conference, which took place virtually this year after being canceled last year due to the pandemic. Phillips appeared in her home in California over videoconferencing.
