Crash and Burn

by Lange, Artie

  “Come on, Art, get up!” she’d say. “I’ll make you breakfast. Come on, it’s a beautiful day.”

  Just about every single morning I’d hardly respond. She’d try again a couple of hours later, all morning, into the afternoon—one o’clock, two o’clock. I’d try my best for her, but most of the time I couldn’t do it. When one o’clock hit I’d feel like it was okay, because now I was into the day. One o’clock meant it was afternoon, which meant everyone was already out living their life, so if I were too depressed to get up, I’d be given a pass. That idea also usually made me even more depressed, so you can see how there was no winning for me. Being in bed on a beautiful May day, hearing my uncles come by to help my mom with one thing or another or hearing her on the phone scheduling stuff the way normal people do all the time—those simple everyday things were torture to me. I began to believe that I’d die forty feet from my mother, in that bed, in that house, if she didn’t die forty feet from me first. One of us was going in the next fifteen years if we continued living that way. We’d leave my sister to clean up the mess and then die without any family, all alone in this world. And all of it would be because of me.

  My mother would sit on the edge of my bed each night and tell me how she prayed for me every day because what I’d done was forgivable, so God wasn’t going to punish me. I just had to be strong and get through this trial.

  “There will be people who will always be upset with you, Artie, but that’s life,” she said. “Your friends will always be there, your business will always be there, and that’s because you’re talented. You have so much more to do.”

  She said things like this over and over again; it was the constant sound track to my fourteen months in bed, and mostly I believed none of it. There’s an old saying that you hear in AA meetings, that alcoholics love to wallow in their misery. They say that if a normal person falls down a large hole they start screaming for a ladder, but if an addict falls down a large hole they scream for an interior decorator because they plan on staying awhile.

  ————

  Entertainment media is so powerful and strange that I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the story I’m about to tell you happened, but I still am. One night my sister came to the house to eat dinner with my mom and me, so I managed to get out of bed. I doubt that I showered or shaved; it was hard enough just to show up. My sister had brought a guest with her whom I hadn’t known about, a girl named Christine who was Robert Downey Jr.’s assistant. Christine had read Too Fat to Fish and in the extra material in the paperback we actually mentioned Robert as someone who had beaten his demons and bounced back better than ever. He and Christine had met when Robert was in recovery and she had been an essential influence in keeping him clean and helping him take his career to the incredible heights he’s achieved since then. When she read my book she got in touch with my sister because she wanted to help me out, almost as if it were a mission for her. She had been a lifelong Stern fan, but what struck her the most and what Robert felt after he read the book was that they both really felt like they knew me. It was more than just being familiar with the substance addiction side, it was that they felt like they understood me and could help.

  I was really touched because no one had made more enemies, fucked more people over, or gotten more far gone than Robert Downey Jr. in his heyday. Christine really believed, and Robert apparently agreed, that she could get me on track. I guess the timing was right, plus the fact that these two people who were a part of a career so far from and so much more important than my little world, would take the time, or even care about me in any way, really moved me. I can’t pinpoint it better than that, but for the first time what Christine was saying seemed like an option to me. Anything was better than what I was doing with my life, that was for sure. I agreed to try, that was the best I could do. A week later Robert called my sister to give her a pep talk because he said it was going to be a long road. I thought that was awesome of him to do because God knows she needed it. My wanting to try may have been a ray of light, but it was so far from the end of the tunnel. Christine had lit a path for me to follow, but I was still too fucked up to make any real kind of life change. I hadn’t even tackled the real problem of still being very much on drugs. But that’s when the great Colin Quinn stepped in.

  On April 3, 2011, Colin and two huge Irish guys straight out of Brooklyn (and Central Casting) came over and got right to the point.

  “Hey, Art,” he said. “So you’re going to detox, you’re going right now, and there’s no discussion unless you think you can take these two on.”

  “Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” I was stubborn to the end.

  He’d brought a guy named John Moriarity from Sunrise Detox Center in Stirling, New Jersey, with him, and everything was already arranged. This wasn’t an intervention, it was an ultimatum. Actually it was an abduction, which was exactly what I needed. My mom started crying as they dragged me, literally kicking and screaming, out to a big Cadillac and stuffed me in the backseat. I kept thinking about The Godfather: Part II, Goodfellas, and every mob movie where a guy gets into the back of a Cadillac and never returns. I was too pissed off to make jokes about leaving the gun and taking the cannoli.

  I was also so far past my expiration date when it came to drugs that the seven days the doctors predicted it would take to get me fully detoxed stretched to twenty-two days, which must be some kind of record at that place. I needed it so badly. I was so miserable, sick, and desperate, but the staff at Sunrise saw me through and were unbelievable. I walked through those doors bitter, hating everyone, talking shit nonstop, not wanting to be there, as I’d suddenly decided that the dark and my bed were a much better life, but no matter what I said or did, they were all amazingly patient with me. Their dedication and compassion led me to do what I’d never even come close to doing before: I surrendered, and this time I meant it. They got me off the shit physically and then, when the mental part had to begin, I was able, for the first time in my life, to take it seriously. There was a lot of work to do, so after twenty-one days, once I was physically clean, they moved me over to Sunrise’s partner facility, Ambrosia, where I started working on my mental health and facing things I’d barely been able to wrap my head around before. The name of that place is very misleading, by the way, because Ambrosia, though it’s on Singer Island, about thirty minutes from Miami, Florida, is one hell of a hard-core rehab program. Ambrosia is supposed to be the food of the mythological gods, and I’m pretty sure this place is not what they had in mind. I hated the hot, humid climate and I hated the fact that I had so much left to work on, so I made a huge fuss, pulled whatever celebrity card I had, and managed to get my own room. And still, the people there could not have been nicer.

  Now, like I said, considering that I blew past the seven-day prediction, it should be clear that not one step of this process was easy or pleasant. And when I say that I was dragged there, I really was dragged there. As much as I liked the idea and was inspired by Christine and Robert’s influence, that didn’t mean I was ready to really do the work in any way, shape, or form. I only went to get everyone to stop nagging me, and I intended to do what I’d always done: get somewhat clean then fake my way out of there. Not this time.

  I had a counselor named Danny, who was a solid guy who let me spend my first two weeks in bed, basically in protest that I was there at all. I remained depressed and uncooperative, just completely stubborn in every way I could find. I’d committed to two weeks in the program, but in the end, I stayed two and a half months, because they got under my skin and figured me out. The staff were such good counselors that they broke down my walls and got through my bullshit and found a way to help me finally help myself, which no one else had ever been able to do.

  Here’s what they showed me. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking or radical. It was just honesty, and honestly it was just me being ready. But if I can boil it down to one simple fact that can not be denied it is this: the more time you spend away from t
he drug the more you will understand who you are. Also that you can’t do that in a vacuum. They made me realize that every day that I got further from opiates and the rest of it was what I needed to do, but I couldn’t do it in isolation. I needed time away from the drug, but doing that in my mother’s house—if I’d been able to do that completely—wasn’t going to be enough. I needed to be out in the world and to realize that I could exist socially without the drugs. I needed to be around people who were sober too, because only then would I realize that there was a world out there to experience. It makes sense—if you’re not used to being in the world sober, how do you know that that world even exists? The longer I was drug-free and interacting, the better I became. It was that simple. Even though I was stubborn as hell, eventually in an environment like that, one day I just got better.

  After I got through my first two weeks of detox I was given a roommate we’ll call Tommy, who was a great guy in a lot of ways. He was a cop, and though I didn’t think of him this way at all at first, looking back, the guy was a godsend. He motivated me, he kept me from retreating into my darkness, and he got me out to meetings, which I did very reluctantly at first. But then something clicked in me and I don’t know what it was, but I started engaging and I started getting better. I started wanting to engage and get better, and that’s what it really takes to change. After a little over a month I just woke up and felt different. Everyone there told me that the longer I stayed away from opiates the better I’d become; the depression would lift and I’d be able to think clearly. That really is what happened, and I was in an environment that supported that and also reinforced it with positive experiences. What had seemed too depressing to comprehend wasn’t so bad anymore. All of my mistakes weren’t erased but for the first time I felt like maybe I could do something to make up for them. I wasn’t just going through the motions at Sunrise and Ambrosia. I wasn’t just trying to get the hell out of there so I could get to the first liquor store, then the first drug dealer I could find. I wanted to be there. I was doing it because I wanted to. Tommy was a huge part in getting me social again, getting me out of the room and to meetings. All of these people and all that happened there worked to get me to realize that my life is worth living.

  It’s a no-brainer that I’d never thought applied to me, but I began to think more and more clearly the longer I was off dope. And I liked it! I did worry about what came next, though, because I had a support system at Ambrosia, but what was I going to do on the outside? I began to make a list of the comics and friends I knew who were either sober or had never had a problem with drinking and drugs, and they were all right there: Colin Quinn, obviously, and Dave Attell were sober and close friends I didn’t have to feel funny in front of, and Nick DiPaolo was a guy who had been there for me through all of this. I just had to reach out to them and for the first time in a year and a half I wanted to. I started to think that maybe my career would still be there if I got myself back out into the world, and I started to think I could handle the pressure without the crutch of booze and drugs, maybe if I had guys like that in my corner in one way or another.

  Ambrosia is an institution very much based in the Alcoholics Anonymous program and a big part of participating in your rehabilitation is going to group meetings every night. I started to go, for the first time by choice, and during my time there I really understood the ritual, the enjoyment, and the support you can find there. I got the feeling for it and realized that would be a big part of my socializing when I left, and it didn’t feel shameful to me at all. I was finally able to admit to myself that it was what I had to do. I realized and was able to vocalize to myself that if I wanted to live my life to the fullest that I could, I’d have to fight, every single day, to stay sober. That was the only way for me if I planned to never let those gifts life has given me get away again.

  The night I met Bruce Springsteen at that funeral, I also met a guy named Don Reo who was working with Clarence Clemons on his book, Big Man. Don knew how much of a fan I was of Clarence and Bruce and the band, so he asked me to write a blurb for the book jacket. I was beyond honored, because I was in what I’d call very good company under any circumstances, the other two blurbs being by Bill Clinton and Chris Rock. How could I not do it? The biggest problem I had was having so much to say about Clarence and limiting myself to a paragraph. I thought about it for weeks, and then it came to me clear as day when I was at the Four Seasons in LA, getting ready to jump into a car to go promote the Too Fat to Fish paperback on Jimmy Kimmel. Here it is: “The feeling I get watching Clarence Clemons slowly walking to the center of the stage to play saxophone must be close to the feeling a Yankees fan got in the 1920s watching the Babe slowly walk from the batter’s circle to home plate. A Big Man was about to do something to make you cheer louder than you ever had before.”

  Clarence loved the blurb so much that he wanted to have dinner with me, and I was overjoyed because I’d met a few members of the E Street Band, but never him. We made a plan, set a date, everything, but I was too fucked up at the time to show up, so I made some stupid excuse. It was worse than that: I told a mutual friend that I’d gotten into a car accident and asked him to tell Clarence. A car accident is hands-down the worst excuse you can make, because how the fuck do you fake that? That’s the kind of excuse you make when you’re a drug addict, because drug addicts just lie. We lie and we don’t care how big or how often we do it, because that’s just what we do. And usually we think we’re getting away with it and always act like we have no matter how extravagant the lie, because see the sentence above where I mention that we just don’t care.

  Clarence had a home on Singer Island, where he lived most of the year, less than a quarter mile from Ambrosia, which is where I was the day that he died, June 18, 2011. It is a small community down there and Clarence was by far the biggest celebrity resident, so you can imagine how big of a deal it was. As a part of the program we didn’t see too many newspapers in rehab, but somehow I spotted a headline that he’d passed away. To say the least my heart cracked in two. I went to group meetings all day, until every single person in the place heard how sad I was that drugs had prevented me from meeting him. I’d had the chance, I’d fucked it up, and Clarence had died while I was in rehab, so that was a chance I’d never get again.

  A few months before, a setback like this would have triggered a return to bedridden darkness. Instead, for the first time, it did the opposite: it became a reason to never let drugs stop me from missing out on the kind of experience I would have cherished for the rest of my life. That was my moment, that was when I made up my mind: Clarence had died nearly across the street and drugs had kept me from meeting him. It made me mad at the drugs I craved—more mad than any other feeling, which was a first for me. Anger became the emotion that pushed me forward because I’d needed to get mad at my addiction in order to step into the light.

  Three weeks later they released me from rehab because by then they were satisfied with my progress. I’d gladly participated in every group meeting. I’d done my chores, from picking up garbage to cleaning bathrooms, to making breakfast. I’d become social; I’d help wake people up in the morning, making friends and greeting new patients. I made a friend named Gary, and he and I became pretty tight during the last part of my time there. About four months ago I found out that after he left Gary relapsed and died of an overdose. Rest in peace, man.

  Heroin and opiates have taken so much from me: money, love, women, friends, family. Heroin took the Howard Stern Show from me and nearly lost me Howard’s friendship; heroin kept me from Clarence Clemons. I’d started to think that heroin would take me too—and that it deserved to. But after my detox and rehab, after four institutions in fourteen months, for once I thought my mother was right. Maybe the past could be the past. Maybe everything would be okay. I didn’t know what the future held for me career-wise, but at least I was back. I felt like a human being, and it had been years since I’d been able to say that. I knew I had more to offer as an entertai
ner, and for the first time in over a year I wanted to. I really wanted to. And I knew that all of the people who had come together and gathered around me would be there for me. I needed them to still be there if I stood a shot at doing this. Because most of all, more than anything else I didn’t want to let them down again.

  CHAPTER 9

  UP FROM THE DEPTHS

  If I ever needed proof that God exists, and there have been plenty of those times, I don’t anymore. All my doubts are gone. The fact that I made it out of my mother’s house alive, the fact that she didn’t die from worry while caring for me, the fact that I’m here, still in show business, functioning the best I can and living as normal of a life as I’m capable of isn’t the parting of the Red Sea, but it’s a miracle in my book. Alcoholics Anonymous’s program is based on a fundamental belief in a higher power, and all that talk sounded cheesy and corny to me in the beginning when I didn’t want to hear it, but once I got over myself, once I got my mind clear and less self-involved, it didn’t sound so cheesy anymore. A lot of intellectuals that I truly respect love AA with all of their hearts, and that went a long way with me. Once I took the program seriously and started to get into it and really engage, I began to ask those same friends about it, and all of them more or less told me the same thing: none of them know why AA works, they just know that it does if you give yourself over to it. That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone or that it’s the only solution, but if you have issues even remotely like mine and anything about the AA philosophy appeals to you at all, it will improve your life if you let it. AA preaches a higher power and a twelve-step path to sobriety, and that’s the path I followed out of the darkness. And it worked, it really did. So I’ll never indulge in a crass moment of cynical disbelief about it again because I know there’s a higher power in this world. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I won’t be crass and cynical about everything here on earth. I’m not sure I’m capable of that kind of control. I’m only human.