by Rich Roll
But that dark night of my sodden arrival I saw nothing, my vision glazed and my balance compromised as I stumbled out of the van and apprehensively found my way up the steps to the main hall entrance, pushing through the double doors to the impossibly bright fluorescent-lit intake desk within.
“Rich Roll here. Checking in for duty,” I cracked wise to the unamused nurse.
She averted her glance and wasted no time zipping open my duffel bag and rifling through my belongings.
“Hey, that’s my stuff!” I slurred smugly, a good twelve beers under my belt for the day’s travels. But without offering a response, she continued to toss my clothes about the countertop, rummaging for drugs in every pocket and crevice, uncapping the lids of my various toiletries, scavenging even the inner lining of my bag. Addicts can’t be trusted. And attempts to smuggle contraband are routine.
Luggage frisk complete, the nurse pointed me to a small bedroom just behind the desk: hospital drab meets boot camp chic. Shutting the door behind me, I hit the plastic pillow fully dressed and promptly blacked out.
The next morning, I awoke in a complete fog. Rubbing my eyes and breathing in deep, I raised my aching bones out of the cheap, damp bedsheets and stood at the window. The drizzly gloom of the Oregon skies stirred a foreboding that began to rhythmically pound the temples of my throbbing head. And then I remembered. The day was June 7, 1998. Holy shit. I’m in rehab.
Hence began the first day of a self-imposed incarceration shared with inmates from all walks of life—people who would otherwise never in a million years comingle. Doctors, poets, professors, priests, students, pilots, drug dealers, bartenders, soccer moms, salesmen, and bankers. Many with wreckage more heartbreaking than you can imagine.
My problems seemed small in comparison. I’m not like them, I repeatedly told myself.
But the walls of separation I built would soon come down. One of my first assignments—Step 1, as it’s called—was to prepare a detailed written account of my top ten most catastrophic drunken escapades. Then I was compelled to read the twenty-page overview aloud before the entire Springbrook regimen of patients and staff.
Shortly thereafter, I was summoned to the office of Springbrook’s executive director; out of respect for anonymity, let’s call him Paul. Paul was a recovering addict who years before had traded in a promising magazine publishing career in favor of Colombian white. But he’d come out the other side intact. And along the way, Paul had heard every story, fielded every excuse, and didn’t suffer any bullshit.
“You remind me a lot of Jay Maloney.”
Once a Hollywood talent agent and the youngest of the infamous “Young Turks” of CAA, Tinseltown’s most successful agency, the charismatic Maloney had represented superstars like Martin Scorsese, Leonardo Di Caprio, and Dustin Hoffman before succumbing to the free fall of drug addiction. And despite several rehab sorties, including a stint at Springbrook a year or two prior, Jay had been unable to achieve lasting sobriety. Fifteen months after this conversation, he would hang himself in the shower. Dead at thirty-five.
“We think you should consider a protracted stay. You’re young. But your alcoholism has progressed to that of a sixty-five-year-old lifelong chronic drinker. And unless you make this your absolute top priority, you’re going to end up just like Jay.”
At the time, my plan was to spin-dry the mind for a short spell. Three weeks tops. I was already suffering acute anxiety from the confiscation of my cell phone. And haunted by the idea that back home, the world was passing me by. But Paul’s words helped me realize that my top priority, much like Jay’s, was my career—not sobriety. And that unless I made this final stand, there would be no career. No, if I didn’t do this now, and do it right, I had no future.
And so I agreed. I became willing, ultimately staying one hundred days.
“You only have to change one thing, Rich. Everything.”
Daunting words from Stan,* the Springbrook counselor assigned to lord over my rigid and admittedly pathetic butt. Once a successful trial lawyer, Stan’s love of the needle had left him disbarred and homeless before he found sobriety and reinvented himself as a drug and alcohol counselor. Let’s get to work.
Every morning, the alarm went off promptly at 6:30, reveille for the first of several group and private counseling sessions of the day. Some days it was painful. Other days, hilarious. And often confrontational, like the time I got busted sneaking out to give Jen—a young college professor with a nasty heroin habit who decided to head back to New York City “AMA,” or against medical advice—a lift to the airport. That move almost got me tossed out.
Then there was the dreaded family weekend. Two days of group-therapy torture with my parents and sister in which I was pounded with a litany of my failures. They all ganged up to provide an exhaustive recounting of how their cherished son/brother had humiliated them, abused their trust, and otherwise disappointed them.
It was tough, to say the least. But with Paul’s words ringing in my mind, I decided that if I was going to be here, I would let go of my misapprehensions and simply do as I was told. Willingness. And in time, I began to open up, eventually coming to understand that I was absolutely powerless not just when it came to alcohol, but with respect to most things in life. And my persistent belief that I could find a way to control my drinking had left my world not just completely unmanageable, but in ruins.
But most important, I learned that it wasn’t my fault. I had a disease. And like a diabetic who needs insulin, I, too, needed a treatment protocol. It’s just that the treatment for alcoholism doesn’t come in the form of medication. The solution is spiritual.
I’d never been a religious person, let alone spiritual. In fact, I can’t say I even knew what that word meant. As a youth, I briefly attended Presbyterian Sunday school, but it never stuck. Yet I wasn’t an atheist either. The fact that I was still alive was potent testimony that something beyond my awareness just might be looking out for me. But I never found answers, let alone solace, in church. No, religion was not for me, I’d long ago decided. And from that point forward, the only time you’d find me seated at the pew was for a wedding or the occasional Christmas Eve service with my parents.
But lasting recovery, I was coming to understand, is purely spiritual, premised on the conviction that only a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.
“Let’s face it, Rich. Your best thinking has you institutionalized. The time has come to set aside your self-will. Because that barometer is broken. If you look at it objectively, it’s an attribute that has essentially destroyed your life. And you simply cannot solve this problem with your mind. So let it go, already.”
I couldn’t fathom it at first. Without self-will, who was I? Doesn’t that mean giving up? But Stan seemed to know what he was talking about. He’d helped hundreds before me get sober. Who was I to challenge his methods? So I agreed.
My immediate reaction? Relief. A huge burden lifted. A realization that by making a simple choice, I no longer had to be solely responsible for solving all my problems. That’s not to say that I abdicated all control over my life. Just that I became willing to do what had always been so difficult for me: not just ask for help, but be willing to receive it. And as payback, I began helping others—because it turned out that a cornerstone of recovery was service.
It’s said that alcoholism is a disease of perception. Change your perception, change your reality. As the Springbrook weeks blurred into months, I began to replace my distorted perspective with a finely ground lens of objective clarity. The first step was compiling a written account of all my resentments, fears, and harms to others in an attempt to uncover my “character defects.” The project took weeks to complete, ultimately totaling more than one hundred pages. For example, I resented my father for his success and for placing expectations on me that I felt I could never quite meet. And I resented myself for never being quite enough in his eyes. But the inventory helped me to understand that my emotions were primarily
fabricated; misdirected and ill-placed. Behind them lay a deep insecurity—a desperate need for approval rooted in poor self-esteem.
And that all these confusing feelings boiled down to one singular emotion. Fear. Fear of people. Fear of situations and institutions. Fear of economic insecurity, the unknown, and events that hadn’t yet and possibly never would transpire. All told, fear of everything.
And there’s only one cure for fear. Faith.
Bridging that gap started with another irksome assignment in which I was compelled to share—out loud!—the entirety of my encyclopedia-sized moral, or should I say immoral, inventory. It’s one thing to concede the nature of your wrongdoing to yourself. On some level we all do that. But expose every dark corner of your soul to a stranger?
“What on earth does this preposterous activity have to do with quitting drinking?” I asked Stan.
“If you don’t haul the garbage out to the curb, your house is gonna stink like holy hell. And that rotten stench always leads back to using.”
And so for the next five hours I recounted to a friendly neighborhood priest (hardly my person of choice) the resentments I held against essentially every person I’d ever met, everyone from my mother to the mailman. But even as I recalled some of the most embarrassing and horrific episodes of my life, he never once flinched. And when it was over—my depleted body and exposed soul having been turned inside out—he left me with just one question.
“Are you ready to let all of this go?”
“Yes.”
“Good. For the remainder of the day, I want you to refrain from speaking to anyone. Find a quiet place. Reflect on the work we’ve done today. And when you’re ready, ask that these character defects be removed.”
I knew just the place to spend a quiet day. Hopping in my car, I headed west to Cannon Beach, a small weekend getaway of a village nestled along Oregon’s rugged and barren Pacific Coast. No radio, no music. Just me and my thoughts. When I arrived in this salt-stained postage-stamp hamlet, I parked along the blustery shore and made my way down to the beach. With the sun and tide low, the beach was expansive, the orange glow of dusk casting long shadows across the glassy sheen of the flat wet sands.
Barefoot, inventory in hand, I walked the beach until I found a private spot. And for a long while, I just sat, taking it all in as I pondered not only the events of the day but all the decisions, emotions, and actions of my decimated past.
And when I was ready, I did the unthinkable. I prayed. Not to the Sunday school God of my youth. Or to the God of any church I’d ever visited. Instead I prayed to a God purely of my own understanding, asking that I be delivered from the character defects that had precipitated my demise.
Then I took out a match and, just like that, burned my inventory until all that remained was ashes in the sand. No, I didn’t just “haul the garbage out to the curb.” I incinerated it. Finally, I let it all go.
To this day, the funeral pyre of ashes that was my inventory sits in a Tibetan singing bowl on my bedside nightstand as a constant reminder of that day that set in motion a new way of living.
One of my most profound realizations in this process of baggage purging was discovering I no longer harbored any anger or resentment toward Michele, or a sense of victimhood with respect to the marriage that never was. Miraculously, I could now see that it was I, rather than Michele, who’d caused our relationship to falter, that it was I who set in motion every event that culminated in that mockery of a wedding. I was the selfish one. I was the one who repeatedly lied, who strayed from being faithful when under the influence, and who abused her trust until it faltered altogether. Looking back, it’s amazing she permitted the relationship to last as long as it did. Liberated from resentment, I now see her and our relationship with nothing but love.
I have come to appreciate that great beauty lies in destruction. Looking back, it is undeniable that the wedding that almost destroyed me was necessary to my ultimate salvation. And for this, I am—and will always be—eternally grateful.
It was September 1998 when I left Springbrook and somewhat uneasily began to find my way. I knew with certainty one crucial fact. Big corporate law firm life was not for me. Nonetheless, I returned to my job at Christensen—I owed Skip at least that much. But during that time, sobriety was my career. In fact, my life outside the office was completely consumed by recovery. I attended three meetings a day, followed by meals with new sober friends.
Ultimately, the new clarity I was enjoying told me that I needed to make a choice about my career. I could continue to pursue what was expected of a man of my education, a path I’d seen many follow, but which I now knew all too well would lead back to despair. Alternatively, I could choose to believe that my life was worth more than the name of my firm or the car I drove, and have faith that something more meaningful awaited if I could summon the courage to break free. I desperately wanted to believe in the alternative, and finally, with the help of others, I found the courage to take the leap.
“I’m not going across the street for more money,” I told Skip, breaking the news. “I don’t have another job. I just know I need to do something else with my life.”
Surprisingly, Skip was remarkably unfazed. “Well, it’s too hard if you’re not having fun.” Having fun? Who in the world finds this stuff fun? Apparently, Skip does. More power to him. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea.” And that was the truth.
I’ve never felt more free—or more terrified—than I did that day.
And yet an opportunity did arise, almost immediately: part-time legal work on behalf of an old Christensen client. Hardly ideal, but a good baby step. It was soon followed by calls from friends in the entertainment industry seeking counsel on this deal or that. Faith, it seemed, was paying off.
It was around this time that I began taking yoga classes. And one day, there she was. Julie.
Standing out among the many beauties who crowded the bright and airy Brentwood studio, she had my eyes riveted on her olive-toned skin as she flexed her lean arms to the rhythm of the poses. Her long dark hair with its groovy orange and blue extensions flowing in sync with the soundtrack. What most captivated me, though, was her warm, inviting smile and the sparkle in her eye that captured the focus of the few straight men bold enough to show up at a yoga class.
It would be weeks before I’d summon the courage to even speak to her, but nonetheless, I boldly announced to my friend Mike Minden, “I’m gonna marry that girl.” I don’t know where my sense of conviction came from. But in the same way that I knew leaving Christensen was the right move, I just knew. It wasn’t hope, or some throwaway comment. It was fact.
Sure enough, a few months later I found myself on a yoga retreat in Ojai, kissing Julie for the first time, in the kiva, an underground cave-like sanctuary reserved for spiritual ceremonies. We’ve been together ever since.
I had assumed that my next girlfriend would be much younger than I was—living a simple life and unencumbered. To borrow a pejorative term, no baggage. But love doesn’t work that way. Newly divorced and more than four years my senior, Julie happened to be a mom to two young boys—Tyler, age four, and Trapper, three. Hardly a simple setup. I would never have imagined that I’d insert myself into such a complicated equation. And let’s be honest, I was hardly without my own baggage. Tread lightly, more than a few friends warned me. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and I wanted Julie.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. But what I fell in love with went far beyond her beauty. She was strong, opinionated, and wise, to be certain, but she never took herself too seriously. If someone asked how long it had taken her to paint a gorgeous canvas, her reply was always “My whole life.” And she seemed free from the fear that for too long had controlled my path. A master of many trades, she’s an artist, yogi, sculptor, musician, builder, designer, and healer—in other words, a powerhouse. To this day she’s the coolest woman I’ve ever met.
> Within a year we were living together. Professionally, I’d begun—without any grand design—building my own solo entertainment law practice. And I was finally having the fun Skip talked about, representing screenwriters, directors, and producers in their various transactions in film and television.
Around this time, Julie decided to take a huge risk and outright buy a three-acre parcel of raw land in rustic and beautiful Malibu Canyon—a move many cautioned against. We took out a large construction loan and, over the next three years, put absolutely everything we had into building our dream home.
Everything seemed to be clicking into place. And soon Julie became pregnant with our first child. With construction on our home finally complete, we celebrated by getting married on our land. Upon a backyard stage adjacent to a tepee that had been our winter abode, we hosted a veritable world music concert for one hundred of our closest friends and family. The event featured gospel singers, West African drummers and dancers, and rock musicians, including Julie’s brother Stuart, a professional guitarist. Aside from the days my daughters were born, it was the happiest day of my life.
I was finally sober, and while I was hardly a poster child for recovery, I was a far cry from that shattered soul who’d arrived thoroughly soused at Springbrook just a few years prior. Too, I’d learned what it meant not only to love, but to receive love.
* Personal names in this chapter all changed to protect anonymity.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MY SECRET WEAPON
Power in Plants
It’s 1984, a Tuesday, 7:15 A.M., and two high school students stand in line at Montgomery Donuts, out Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda, Maryland. Marking time, my swimming buddy Brian Nicosia and I consider the merits of ordering chocolate-covered custard versus jelly-filled with powdered sugar on top. In the end, we split the difference: “Six custard-filled, six jellies,” I say, and Brian forks over some crumpled bills. We tread lightly across the icy parking lot, eating mouthfuls of doughnut as we make it to Brian’s car. Brian starts the engine, and as the car warms up we devour our super-high-calorie meal like lions lunging at prey, interrupting ourselves only to share a laugh over whatever just came out of Howard Stern’s mouth on the radio.