You're getting ready to meet Tamara
who went from being a beauty queen
competing in the Miss America pageant
to having a very successful career as an anchor woman
on the local news here in Los Angeles.
Where Tamara's husband, Steve says the former Miss Arkansas
and respected news woman started exhibiting
strange behavior four years ago.
Like how you doing baby, mama's here
you know what I'm saying? I scare myself.
She's gotta get while the gettins' good, baby.
I'm trying to give birth to my adventurous side.
I kinda like my inner monster, it's kinda good.
So why is Tamara dancing in a tutu
in the middle of the night and using a puppet?
Well, Steve says he believes that his wife's behavior
is a direct result of a dangerous,
dangerous dependency on Adderall.
Adderall and the music and my inner monster, whew,
that's the chemical equation right there.
Tamara's really addicted to Adderall.
She's gonna give herself in a big heap of trouble.
(laughs)
When Tamara is using Adderall she's kind of like
on a spaceship, I mean, just way off the planet.
I was so lonely I started making love to the furniture
around the house, I was, you know,
making love to the shower door,
I was like, ooh shower door!
She's all over the place.
I scare myself because it's so shameful!
(whines) You know, I can't take it.
She's bouncing off the walls.
I gotta run in here and get these heels on.
She'll stay up all night dancing and singing,
jumping around in heels.
She doesn't sleep.
I'm trying to give birth to my adventurous side.
Tamara rambles when she's on this drug.
I'm have a new chemical formula for some new lip gloss,
it's called smackered up.
[Steve} She over-analyzes everything.
She's always trying to figure out
Avogadro's number, and Einstein's philosophies,
why is the car red? Just a diatribe
of completely meaningless talk.
All I am is a walking side-effect.
Tamara's always sending me all these wacky texts
"electric boots"; "flow!"; "follow, follow, follow!"
"flow", with a picture of an ant
"the bleeding lamp"; "TBL"; "four eyes"
"BLT"; "Blat"; "No avocado on the iPad!"
It just makes no sense.
She has different personalities.
I may have my little girl, you know
I may have my sultry grown woman
who's ready for her knight in shining armor.
But who am I, really?
She reads tshirts and tshirts all talk to her.
She says "oh my god! The message for me!"
and I'm like "No, its not, honey."
"This guy bought that shirt at Target."
"It has no meaning to you."
She tells me everythings okay.
She can function in the world; she's happy.
Like, how you doin', baby? Mama's here.
you know what I'm saying?
But in reality, this drug will eventually kill her
Or she will we committed to a psych ward.
He seems to worry a little bit too much
about everything, I think.
Well Steve says Tamara's addiction
which she INSISTS she does not have
leaves him as her caretaker.
I kinda like it. I kinda like my inner monster.
It's kinda good.
Tamara used to be very independent
but now I'm her caretaker; the guy
that has to feed her, and dress her
and she has become like a child.
When I speak the truth, I just (noises)
She was in television for 25 years.
She was an anchorwoman, she was in the Miss USA pageant
and she was a beauty queen, and now
she has no sense of purpose anymore.
I feel my inner designer. I can write songs!
She needs constant attention.
Tamara will have panic attacks that are violent
and I feel so bad for her.
Because she'll just crawl up in a ball
and pretty much catatonic for an hour or so
she can't move. She's cried in front of me
thousands of times. She'll cry
right when we get into our favorite bagel shop.
And people think I'm beating her. Its like
I'm this really bad husband, you know,
and its nothing like that. Its just
she has these panic attacks and she'll cry
I've been able to do things I could never do.
And I'm sorry it doesn't look pretty on the outside.
Tamara's Adderall addiction
wasn't part of the deal
that I struck when we got married.
I have hope Dr. Phil could actually snap her out of it.
Well Steve, you gotta feel like this is just 24/7, right?
Its gotten pretty intolerable.
Despite your best efforts, you can NOT convince her
that she has an addiction. That she has a problem.
She uses a euphemism. "I am not a addicted;
"I just... I'm, I'm relying, reliant on my medicine."
Okay
That's how she turns it. Yeah.
Because the way she talks about it
She talks about it as though, and I've listened
to every piece of tape, read every word
that she's talked about. She talks about it
as though its unlocking her mind
and letting everything expand,
everything come out that has been tapped down.
She sees this actually as a positive.