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Mackenzie Phillips Reveals Why She Works As A Drug Counselor Now

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 22:16 PST, Apr 10, 2016

Mackenzie Phillips has had a lifelong battle with drugs and alcohol, but now she is on the other side of it. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey on Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Mackenzie Phillips revealed that she is now working full time as a drug counselor.

In a follow-up to her bombshell 2009 Oprah interview, Mackenzie revealed that she is sober and working as a rehab counselor at the Pasadena Recovery Center. The 56-year-old former child star, best known for her childhood roles in American Graffiti and on the ’70s sitcom One Day at a Time, said many people can’t believe she works at the rehab, and some people even asked her if she was doing it for a reality show.

Instead, Phillips says she has found her true calling in life, and that she actually went back to school for training so she could become a counselor. Mackenzie says she just wants to help people get sober because someone did it for her. But the actress admitted staying sober has been a struggle, and that she would never have been able to do it if she had held on to her family’s dark secret.

Mackenzie Phillips made headlines in 2009 when she dropped a bombshell family secret about her father, the late Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips. Mackenzie’s claims that she had a decade-long consensual sexual relationship with her father, which was detailed in her memoir High On Arrival. But her public announcement about the scandalous story lost Mackenzie most of her family. To this day, Mackenzie’s sisters Chynna and Bijou don’t speak to her, and her stepmother Michelle Phillips has denounced the story of Mackenzie’s incestuous relationship.

In her tell-all, Mackenzie Phillips revealed that her famous father was very free about doing drugs in front of his children, and later sharing drugs with them. Mackenzie said that when she was 10 years old, John commissioned her to be his official “joint roller,” pulling out a shoebox full of marijuana and teaching her how to clean it and roll joints. By age 11, Mackenzie had tried cocaine for the first time, and she alleged that later, her father became her enabler, providing her with so many hallucinogens that she is surprised she can speak full sentences, and even injecting her with drugs. In 2008, Mackenzie was arrested after trying to sneak cocaine and heroin through airport security. Her book came out the following year.

In the new interview, Mackenzie told Oprah that there is a genetic component to her addiction, as well as her early introduction to her father’s drug-induced lifestyle.

“I come from a long line of undiagnosed mental illness, rampant addiction, and alcoholism. So there’s the genetic component, right? And there’s the introduction to these types of behaviors at a very young age. You become desensitized to seeing all kinds of out of control behavior and inappropriate things at a very young age. And then you have this idea that in order to be an adult that this is a rite of passage.”

Phillips previously explained why she decided to go to school to get her counselors’ certification. Mackenzie told the website Palm Springs Life that she hoped that by sharing her own story it would help others get to the root of their own addictions.

“I want to try to help people to understand addiction, and I do that by telling my own story,” Mackenzie said. “My life is beautiful, and I want to be a part of showing people who are suffering that they don’t have to suffer anymore.”

In addition to working 40 hours a week at the Pasadena Recovery center, Mackenzie attends conferences and travels for speaking engagements, and she says her new line of work gives her “purpose.”

“You are dealing with vulnerable people and people who are precious to another person. It’s heartbreaking, hopeful, complicated, and triumphant. A lot of work…and I love it. It gives me purpose.”

Mackenzie Phillips lost a lot when she came clean about her secret relationship with her father, but now it seems she found her true calling.

Take a look at the video below to see Mackenzie Phillips telling Oprah why she turned to drugs as a child.

[Photo By Valerie Macon/Getty Images]

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