by Lange, Artie
This was, I can say without hesitation, the worst in a long line of bad shows. “Art, come on, man. Get it together, brother; you’re ruining this,” Scott DePace, the director of Howard TV, said to me during a commercial break. Scott was one of my very favorite people in the Stern family and he would have understood if I’d been honest, but why would I ever do that?
“Scott, I know, I’ll get it together.” I was bullshitting wildly, just looking to get into the next conversation. It could be about anything, it could be with anyone in earshot so long as it wasn’t about me and my behavior.
Howard didn’t know how to handle me that day and neither did Gary or Robin because I’d gone to another level. Everyone just kept shaking their heads because I was that far gone. Then, in the middle of the show, Tim Sabean asked me to leave.
“Art, just go home and get some sleep—you need it,” he said.
The only time I’d ever been asked to leave was after the fight with Teddy. I understood it then, but I didn’t see what the problem was today. And since I didn’t leave after the fight with Teddy there was no way I was going anywhere. I just really hate being told what to do, especially when I’m fucked up.
“No, man, I’m fine,” I said, slurring a bit. “I’m staying here for the whole show. That’s what I get paid to do, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll sleep after.”
I stayed for the whole show and I felt like I’d won a victory; I felt like I’d proved something. All that I’d done was seal my fate by confirming everyone’s suspicion that I was in desperate need of help. My family had heard me that morning too, and so did most of my friends. After the show ended I went to Newark to get more pills, probably at the same time that the Stern producers were on the phone with my mother and sister, all of them very concerned and unsure what to do about me.
I got back to my apartment, snorted a bunch of whatever I’d gotten, so I was good and buzzed when Tim Sabean called.
“Art, why don’t you take a week off and consider going to rehab again,” he said. “We want you to be okay more than we care about having you on the show.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Is this an order? I’ve been fine. I was on time today.”
“It’s not an ultimatum, Artie, but it’s what we’d like you to do.”
“That’s fine.”
My mother’s call came in next, and only when I heard how upset she was did I realize that yes, finally I really needed to get some help. I told her I’d check myself in somewhere, then called the Stern Show and told them I was doing it, I was definitely going to rehab, which they were thrilled to hear. I was really disappointed that I was going to miss Howard’s Christmas party, though, because he was throwing a big one, which he’d never done before. I’d bought Adrienne a dress for it and now, because I wasn’t able to hold it together, I’d be in rehab instead of there with her in that beautiful dress. I kept telling myself that it would all be okay, though, because this would be a quick trip. I’d do what I’d done in the past, just get clean while making a lame pass at participating in the program. I’d return and be better than ever, as if I’d spent a long weekend away in the Poconos. Hopefully this place would have colonics like the “spa” in Florida I’d detoxed in. Instead, December 9, 2009, was my last day on the Howard Stern Show, and that quick vacation? It lasted two and a half years.
I’ve thought a lot about how to explain just how much my time on Stern means to me, but I still can’t find the right words to do it justice. There are so many memories, so many upsides, that the way I left was even more of a fuckup. It was also just so me. It reminds me of a Springsteen lyric from the song “The Wrestler”: “You know me, I always leave with less than I had before.” I’ve always been self-destructive and most of the time I have left with less than I had before, whether we’re talking about a relationship, a job, or chips at the blackjack table. I left a decade of being a lead cohost on the greatest radio show ever made in the worst way I could imagine. It’s up there with the day my father died as one of the two worst days of my life. I miss everyone at the Stern Show so much. I miss having fun and I miss the fans. And I thank God for those fans too. It’s because of them that I still have a career. It’s because of them that I’m still alive, because having people out there, in need of entertainment, keeps me going. And I’ll never take it for granted.
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I’d agreed to go to rehab, but like all of my other promises, I had no intention of following through. I loved talking about rehab, I loved talking about making changes—all that talk was so exciting that I didn’t feel I had to actually do anything. This was great because I might have been lying to everyone else, but I’d come to a conclusion, once and for all, that I kept to myself: I was never going to rehab—ever! I didn’t need that shit, because I didn’t want to be clean—ever! I would keep bullshitting people forever! I’d agree to everything and never do it! This wasn’t much of a plan, but I was enthusiastic about sticking with it.
That kept things the way they were until the night Adrienne found drugs on me while I was passed out and called in the cavalry. When I woke up, my mother and sister, along with Helicopter Mike and Joe the Cop, were there and they took me to a rehab on Long Island. I claimed that I had no problem with this, but it was inconvenient because it was happening earlier than I’d planned to go—yeah, because I never planned to go. That same day, on December 12, 2009, Adrienne packed her things and moved out of my apartment for good. We blew a kiss to each other as the front door closed and I didn’t know it at the time but I wouldn’t see her again for over two years. That moment and that image of her is always on my mind, and it makes me sad every time I think about it, much more than all of the tragic moments that lay in store for me put together. Adrienne was such a positive light in my life and things between us ended in a truly awful way. I dragged her down into the shit I was determined to make of my life. It’s something she didn’t deserve and something I couldn’t help.
The rehab was in eastern Long Island and if I’d wanted to be there, even just a little, it would have been a nice place to be. But I didn’t, so I fucking hated everything about it, nearly as much as I hated everything about my life at that moment, from me to the people who cared enough to bring me there. My roommate was a cool enough guy, probably because he wasn’t really an addict. He’d gotten a DUI and was headed to court and thought that it would look good to the judge if he checked himself into a rehab facility. He was such a positive dude in addition to being one of the most organized people I’ve ever met in my life. He was the kind of guy who would see you making your bed and come over and help you, showing you how to do it better, but never in a bossy or superior way. Trust me, most people you meet in rehab aren’t like that.
Most people you meet in rehab are a lot like me: addicts who haven’t grown up, who can’t control themselves, and who have fucked up their lives so much that getting sober is their only hope. I met a lot of guys there who I understood immediately and we shared a lot of laughs, usually at the expense of other people in our group therapy sessions. There was one girl who bore the brunt of it more than anyone else. She was probably about forty years old and I swear to God, she looked exactly like Flavor Flav. I remember sitting there thinking that the first time she got up and spoke in group, but before that thought was even complete, two of the guys next to me shouted out, in perfect homage to the guy: “Flavor Flaaaav!” I felt like an asshole but I couldn’t contain my laughter, and I busted up for about two minutes straight while the poor girl told us how she’d lost her babies to the state foster system. The release I got from laughing at pretty much the most juvenile joke anyone could have made at her expense was definitely the most constructive thing I got out of group that day. The problem was that the joke didn’t die because this girl liked to get up and talk about the many horrible things that had happened to her because of drugs at every opportunity she got. It didn’t matter how bad her confessions ever were: the moment she stood up, just like clock
work (clockwork—get it? Flavor Flav wore a clock!) me and the two other guys would shout, “Flavor Flaaaav!”
That was about as entertaining as things got there, which didn’t ease the pain of being in rehab when I could have been at Howard Stern’s Christmas party. My first night was terrible and sleepless, because when you come out of a drug haze you start to see how all of your actions caused reactions. I’d disrespected the Stern Show, and I’d disrespected what was becoming a very loving, real relationship and managed to fuck myself out of everything good in my life once again. The worst part about this realization was that I still had no idea why I had done those things and why I kept doing them over and over. I had no answers, only questions—and more feelings than I could handle. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from coming, so I curled myself into a ball and cried as hard as I ever have. My body shook and tears ran down my cheeks as I tried in vain to hold it all in. I didn’t want my roommate to hear me, but it was no use, so I pulled the covers over my head and stuffed my face into the pillow and sobbed harder than a mama’s boy does on his first night at sleepaway camp.
At least I was consistent: after the physical detox was over for me eight days later, I checked myself out of there, because I considered rehab a detox where you were given free pajamas with the price of admission. For those who don’t know, if you voluntarily check yourself into a rehab you can voluntarily check yourself out at any time. If you’re committed to one by your family, legal guardian, or the state, however, it’s a whole other story. Once I decided I was done, I was back home in Hoboken by December 23, and within an hour of my arrival was taking healthy swallows from a liter of Jack Daniel’s. Soon enough I remembered that I’d stashed a handful of Vicodin where Adrienne would never find them and in no time they were smashed up into lines, ready to be snorted up my nose. I did everything I had at once, and boy, did I feel fucking fantastic—sad, pathetic, and lonely, but fucking fantastic.
I missed Christmas Eve and I missed Christmas Day because I spent both of them locked up in my apartment by myself, getting high on pills and booze. I didn’t shower and I barely ate. I didn’t have to—I got most of my calories by drinking, as the days slipped by, carrying me away on an ocean of whiskey.
My shrink—the same one I had been seeing for a while—had put me on an antidepressant called Lexapro back in September, and I’d started abusing that as well, because for some reason I thought taking them in high quantities would get me high. Since antidepressants regulate serotonin you’re supposed to be careful about mixing them with drugs and alcohol and you’re supposed to monitor how they make you feel on a regular basis. I didn’t do any of that; I just treated them like another pill despite the fact that I’d never heard (and still haven’t) that they get you high when abused.
By the time I ran out of Vicodin on New Year’s Eve I’d lost all reason, so it made sense to me that a handful of Lexapro, rather than the one a day I was supposed to take, would make me sleepy—which was the only effect I was trying to achieve. I couldn’t bear the thought of just getting tired, or even worse, having my thoughts keep me awake until the sickness of the drug withdrawals took over. I had to lose consciousness and give my exhausted, wired mind a rest because I’d had enough of this holiday binge I’d arranged for myself. I hoped that I’d sleep for a week, I wanted to sleep for a week. By New Year’s I’d had enough of my own binge. I could only keep a bender up so long before reality seeped in. I hated that so much: even if I was still getting a high from the drugs on day five, my mind would be so filled up with all of the thoughts and feelings I’d been trying to escape because, like anything else, you can run but you can’t hide. That’s where I was by New Year’s, so at that point the only escape from what I didn’t want to face was sleep.
Like I said, sleep wasn’t going to come easy because opiates, in addition to satisfying my addiction, also made me peppy and perky. It didn’t help that I was stressed out and depressed, both of which also kept me awake, just staring at the ceiling at night. It was torture to be that exhausted and miserable, knowing withdrawals were coming a few hours later, and unable to just fade to black. Heroin was always so great for that: it gives you the most incredible feeling of falling into an abyss. Nothing else matters, all your problems are gone and you’re on your way to passing out into blissful sleep before you know it.
I didn’t have any, so I figured that twenty-three antidepressants washed down with whiskey would do the trick. That’s exactly what I took, then lay back on my couch, waiting for that sway to come over me and take me off to dreamland. I wanted that knocked-out opiate rush and was willing to get something close to it however I could. Well, here’s what I found out: ingesting twenty-three Lexapro does not make you sleepy, not one bit. It makes you fucking psychotic. I started twitching, hallucinating, got incredibly paranoid, and heard strange sounds including a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Not long before this I’d gotten so paranoid that I believed—truly believed—that people were out to get me. I’m not talking about my family coming over for an intervention, I’m talking about people coming to murder me. I had gotten so sloppy with gambling that I wasn’t sure if I owed people money and I started believing that I did and that a few bookies would be sending hit men to collect. Whenever I heard someone in the hallway I’d get down on the floor and peek through the crack at the bottom of the door trying to see who it was while trying to be as quiet as possible. I started keeping a bat near the door, convinced, every day, that today would be the day it might save my life from the murderers in the hall
I spent New Year’s Eve in bed, in the dark for the most part, shaking, believing I heard someone in the living room every five minutes. My apartment has a beautiful view of New York City, and I remember looking out at it as the clock struck midnight thinking about the people having fun over there as I sat cooped up and alone, by choice. New Year’s Day is also Adrienne’s birthday, which made me feel five thousand times worse. I was so sad that we weren’t together, and I missed her so much that I began to shudder uncontrollably all over my body. It felt like every inch of my body, inside and out, was whimpering and crying. The events of the last year kept spinning through my mind and as I went over them, I became so desperate, realizing that I’d had it all and had let it go simply because I had no self-control and seemed to like tearing things down more than I did building them up.
I remembered that I had another bottle of Jack stashed in a closet, so I went and got it and started chugging. I started scouring the place for extra pills, and when I found more antidepressants and a few sleeping pills I threw all of them down my throat at once. After half the whiskey was gone I finally got sleepy. Eventually I passed out.
I slept through most of the next day, straight through to four a.m. on January 2, 2010, when I awoke completely and sat bolt upright in bed because I realized that I was out of booze and drugs of any kind. Ingesting anything else would have been like throwing gas on a bonfire because the ludicrous mix of drugs I already had in my body was making me acutely anxious. My thoughts were a mess: just a stream of consciousness that I couldn’t stop, most of it terrible. I realized very clearly that I was a lost cause, just like my high school guidance counselor predicted. No matter how successful I’d ever be, no matter how many impossible goals I achieved, I thought to myself, I’ll always be a loser. I’ll never get off drugs anyway, so there is no point in trying to stop ever again. It made more sense to me to keep at it until it killed me. The way I was living was no way to live. It was a ride with only one way out. That’s what was going through my mind.
Thoughts of my father came to me too, over and over, as did the fact that I was exactly the same age he had been when he’d fallen off that roof and become a quadriplegic. I’d always feared turning forty-two because of what happened to him, as if the same thing lay in store for me just because I’d turned forty-two. In my mind, the fact that all of my struggles were coming to a head was a sign. I’d become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way, because I could still w
alk around, but in every practical way I was as crippled and incapable of changing myself as my father had been when he’d become a quadriplegic.
I sat on my couch, unable to sleep, unable to make my mind stop, wishing I could just feel high. I wanted heroin. I wanted to forget life and nod in and out until I found some rest. As I watched the sun rise over Manhattan, I started shaking (it had to be the antidepressants) like a leaf in a hurricane. My entire body was vibrating uncontrollably and there was nothing at all I could do to stop it. I wasn’t hot, I wasn’t cold, I was just uncomfortable and trembling. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise from my shaky hand. I stared out the window at the most beautiful view, not knowing what to do with myself. I figured I’d need to go to the hospital to get the nodded-out feeling I was after; I’d need to be admitted for something in order to get an IV of downers.
I didn’t want to die; that thought never crossed my mind. I just wanted to feel. I wanted to float away on a high and fall asleep, away from the thoughts that wouldn’t leave me alone. That is the seduction of opiates: a false sense of security and the promise of a good night’s rest. I wanted that bliss—not the shakes, not the comedown or withdrawal, just the high and a long day’s sleep. I started to think about how I could simulate it since I didn’t have the drugs to make it happen and could in no way leave the house to get them. I didn’t check the bottle of Lexapro, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t advise taking twenty-three at once under any circumstances.