by Lange, Artie
I was so full of rage and had no outlet for it. I stomped around the room, like a caged animal. I kicked over the furniture, I broke a glass coffee table, and then I went to the minibar and began to empty it, bottle by bottle. It was the first time I’d felt calm since our plane took off from Newark. I’ve emptied minibars on my own many times in my life, so I consider myself an expert on what I’ve come to refer to as a Noah’s Ark drunk. A minibar, you see, is the Noah’s Ark of little liquor bottles, because, like the ark, it’s a structure that contains two little bottles of every liquor known to man. If you consume the entire minibottle ark, the insane variety of liquor creates a very specific type of buzz, and it’s not pretty. It’s a Noah’s Ark drunk. If you’re doing that in the first place, it’s safe to assume that you’re not doing it for pleasure, which means you’re probably going at it the way it should be done: downing the wine like it’s water and putting away the Pringles and M&M’s while you turn the inventory into a pile of little plastic empties. All I can say is that the mixed booze and all the trimmings make for one Biblically out-of-control drunk once the sugar, salt, and alcohol collide. Just hope you don’t puke, because it is no fun coming up—I can tell you from experience.
So like hanging out with the worst kind of old friend, that’s how I dealt with realizing I’d fucked up the night before, which was a terrible idea. I’m not sure of the timeline, but at some point soon after I started sailing on Noah’s Ark, I know that Anthony and Dan came by to make sure I was okay, both of them hoping I’d gone to sleep. Nope! The found me in full rage mode, stalking around the room. After I told them to fuck off for the tenth time and threw bottles at them, they left, leaving me to destroy everything in sight, from the one remaining coffee table to the bathroom door. When there was nothing left, I got to work on the mother lode: Adrienne’s suitcase.
I knocked it on its side, opened it up, took armfuls of her clothes to the balcony, and threw them onto the street below. We were staying in this particular hotel because Bill Murray, who is one of Dan’s close friends, had recommended it. He’d told Dan that if anything went wrong with me, if I fell off the wagon or otherwise misbehaved, the staff there would take care of everything and no one would be the wiser. I can’t even begin to tell you how right he was. When I threw Adrienne’s clothes off the balcony, the bellboys looked up and without a word began to catch what they could and fold it. They waved up to me a few times as if what I was doing was one of the amenities in the brochure: Throw your girlfriend’s clothes down to one of our doormen and they will fold them and bring them back upstairs to you!
That’s the least of how cool they were if you think about it. I’d just come in like a maniac wearing a hospital robe, smelling of prison, and within an hour I was drunk again, throwing my girlfriend’s clothes out of our window as I screamed every obscenity known to man at the top of my lungs. If that’s not cause to call the cops, I don’t know what is. But they didn’t. Instead the doormen and bellboys picked up her stuff as it landed, some of it in traffic, some of it on the median in the middle of the road, all of them smiling as if it was just another day on the job. During a brief moment of clarity I realized I’d probably be arrested again and if I were it might cost me my job, and at that point I stopped. When my phone rang I figured it was the hotel and that I was fucked, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was the front desk, but instead of threatening me, they’d just called to ask when I’d like to have Adrienne’s belongings brought back up. I’m telling you, this place is a dream hotel for fuckups. By the time I was done, there was smashed glass all over the floor. I’d destroyed two end tables and the coffee table, ripped the bathroom door clean off its hinges. At some point I passed out on the floor, between the two mattresses that made up the king-size bed. When I woke up, it was like magical elves had been there: the coffee table was cleaned up and replaced, the door was fixed, and all of Adrienne’s clothes were in the drawers.
I’m ashamed to say that it took a couple more days full of manic fits of drunkenness and anger before I got control of myself and sobered up completely. As I mentioned before, my AA sponsor Don was on the trip, but he was staying in a different hotel, so, like a true addict, I made sure I got wildly drunk—and irrational and crazy—whenever he wasn’t around. Then I’d spend time during the days with him without any of the others around and I’d act like nothing was wrong. After my emotions ran their course I began to get control again and truly calm down. I knew we’d flown out there with problems, but I’d had such high hopes for Adrienne and me on this trip that when it didn’t happen I literally lost my mind. After my friends told her that I was doing okay and that I seemed somewhat back to normal, Adrienne agreed to talk to me, so long as the guys chaperoned our meeting by waiting outside of the room. If things got heated, they’d hear it, and if it got out of control they’d step in.
The two of us went into the bathroom and she sat in the tub, looking as beautiful as ever, wearing a little flannel shirt like you’d expect to see at a Nirvana concert in 1991, just so gorgeous. And there I was in Paris with her, the love of my life, the woman I’d planned to ask to marry me, as I realized that anger, resentment, jealousy, and everything else had probably ruined us for good. Those drives within me always ruin everything I care about.
I got into that bathtub next to her and the two of us cried.
“Maybe you’ve got to move on,” I said.
“Maybe I do.”
She went back to her hotel, and she still wouldn’t tell me where it was. She wouldn’t live with me there or anywhere else anymore. She even changed her flight because she didn’t want to be on a plane with me. I’d been so crazy that she didn’t feel safe around me and she worried that if we got into a fight on the plane I’d be arrested in the States, which would have ended my career with my employers at DirecTV. So I left Paris without my baby; she came home a couple of days later. That wasn’t the end of the drama between us. A few more crazy events happened and after those we decided that there was no way she and I could possibly work. Adrienne was still so very mad at me and that wasn’t going away. She told me, to my face, that she couldn’t see me anymore, that she couldn’t have me in her life in any way at all. Her parents and her family agreed—actually they insisted, and I couldn’t argue with their point of view at all because they were right.
And so we had another awful, gut-wrenching good-bye. For me this one was the worst of them out of what I must say have to be some of the world’s most horrible good-byes. We got that Paris trip in, but instead of it being the romantic adventure we’d dreamed of, it was a train wreck. We had a couple of moments—and those I’ll never forget—but it could have been so much more. We had one insanely romantic night during the trip, and that gave me great comfort. It still does—no matter how things ended, at least Adrienne and I had one night in Paris. We had one night where things were great, one night where we were the way we used to be back when we first fell in love, back before everything else got in the way. Paris is where we always dreamed we’d go, but that’s where we ended too, and it’s sad. Due to my self-destructiveness, my anger, my resentment, and my self-hatred, I lost the light of my life. I lost that smile. I lost those beautiful eyes, the eyes that were going to show me the path to happiness. I lost all of that because of me.
————
We didn’t speak at all for a couple of months, but that wasn’t the start of a slide back into drinking for me. Instead it was a wake-up call that my feelings could throw me off. Paris was a misstep fueled by—you guessed it!—anger, resentment, and the rest of it. I was strong enough to see it for what it was and not let it take me over. A couple of months passed and then Adrienne and I got back in touch. She texted me: “I want you to know that I don’t hate you.” Just more proof of how big her heart is. “I hate the things you’ve done,” she wrote. “I’ll never understand them, but I want you to know that I don’t hate you. I miss you, but I can’t have you back in my life.”
It wasn’t what
I wanted to hear, but who could blame her? Not me. As of now, as of the writing of this book, I’ve respected her wishes. I’ve stayed out of her life although I don’t want to. I want to be in her life, and it seems that I stand a chance of getting there. I hope so. I hope this isn’t the last paragraph of the last chapter in the story of my life with Adrienne. I hope I’ll write that last paragraph forty years from now, just before I prepare to enter the next life, where I’ll wait for her to join me. That’s what I’d like, but I don’t know if I’ll get that. Whether I deserve it or not is another story, and it’s not one I’m discussing here. Let’s just leave it alone and let me hope for the best, okay? For now I’m respecting her wishes, I’m staying out of her life, and I’m happy knowing that she’s all right. It was so sweet of my baby doll to text me to let me know that she doesn’t hate me and that she misses me. That meant more to me than she may ever know.
————
So that was Paris. A classic Artie Lange self-destruction tour, international edition. Jesus, the minute I think I’m out of that cycle, it draws me back in! There’s never a dull moment in my life and I guess I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that the good is always mixed in with the bad in equal doses. I’ve realized that my job is to keep the bad from taking over—which is a hell of a lot harder than saying it out loud or writing it down here or anywhere. Admitting it is important, but that’s just the first step.
I know a lot of you reading this admire me, so let me tell you something: your admiration and appreciation is what keeps me going. Please hear that and know that I mean it in every possible way, but also know that I’m more flawed than even you think, and if you’ve followed my life story this far you know we’re talking pretty flawed. Seriously, though, I’m more fractured, more twisted, confused, and dark than these pages and the book before this could ever do justice. I don’t want any of you to see me as a role model, I don’t want any of you to think that my story is something to aspire to. My way of living is no way to live. It is what it is, and I couldn’t help it because I can’t help who I am. But if you can? You should. Please, for my sake and for the sake of those in your life, do.
As much as all of you fans love me and as much as I love you, I think if you got to know me personally the way those closest to me like Adrienne have, you’d see someone else. I think you’d see that I’m not the guy you think I am. You’d discover, unfortunately, that like most people I’m just a jerk-off. And some of you would really hate to learn that, I’m a jerk-off with a very sentimental side that, dare I say, borders on the romantic. Call me a sissy, call me a pussy, call me whatever you like, I don’t care. This sentimental jerk-off has something to say: I love you all. And more than that, I’ve got to say something I should have said a long time ago. Fuck it . . . Okay, here I go. . . . I’m sorry, Adrienne, and I love you.
————
What you just read was written many months before this book went to press, and as usual, a lot happened in my life. I’ll tell you why this book didn’t get out there to you in a more timely fashion at a later date: right now we’re talking about Adrienne. After Paris, when I wrote the words you just read (which was several months later), I believed with all my heart that she and I were done forever. When she and I were together, I saw the possibility of being another Artie, and I’d like to think being with me allowed her to be who she really wants to be. Whatever it was, when we were together and things were good, I felt deep down in my soul that I’d finally found my girl, the one I wanted to be with forever. When she was on my arm I felt like I was doing something right.
There’s a theme to this memoir that the learned scholars among us have probably picked up on by now. For the stoners in the back of the class who don’t even know their names, let me fill you in on a concept we’ve touched on repeatedly in these pages: hitting rock bottom. Did you guys get that at all from this book so far? It’s cool if you didn’t, I’m known for my subtlety. What I’m getting at here is that Paris was rock bottom for my relationship with Adrienne. Luckily, I learned from it. I didn’t walk away from that drama and deny it, I didn’t ignore it and I didn’t blame what had happened on her and pretend it didn’t matter. I saw the writing on the wall, and it made me realize that I’d lost her and getting her back was a cause worth fighting for.
So that’s what I did. It took a long time because I’d done a lot of damage and our bond had been put through the ringer. But I kept at it, and slowly, over time, I showed her that I’d learned my lesson. We didn’t talk for a while, but slowly we started talking again, and step by step, she saw, through my actions, that I was worthy of her trust. She understood that, going forward, I wasn’t going to lie and tell her that everything was fine when it wasn’t—the way I had in the past—and she was okay with that. I told her that every day was a struggle for me but that I wanted to struggle if that meant I could have her in my life. We started spending more and more time together and she saw that I meant what I was saying; I really was trying. Eventually we got back to where we were, and it hasn’t been perfect every day because nothing is. Having her back is a blessing I never thought I’d have, so when the time was right, I did what any sensible man who values the woman in his life should do: I asked her to marry me. And lucky for me, she said yes. As of this writing we’re engaged and I’m the happiest, luckiest motherfucker in the world. So there it is.
CONCLUSION
IT’S TIME TO SAY GOOD NIGHT
This book is mostly about the darkest time of my life. That’s saying a lot because my life has seen a lot of darkness. I’d like to make it clear that those dark times were caused 100 percent by my own fuckups, because I wasn’t born into hell. My life hasn’t been the male version of Fantine’s from Les Misérables. I created my own misery and I know it. And this misery was pretty much completely brought about through drug abuse. Booze was in there too, but dope is the thing that really fucked me up—opiates, heroin.
I realize that to some of the people reading this what I’m about to say is a utopian goal, but please, do yourself and the world a favor and try to avoid drugs. There’s nothing romantic or cool on any level about drug addiction. It’s pathetic, plain and simple. Drug addiction isn’t feeling euphoric and being insanely creative. It’s crying like a baby when you need more drugs. It’s needing people to take care of you as if you’re an infant. It’s your skin turning green or yellow from abuse or withdrawal. It’s just flat-out embarrassing, and there’s nowhere to hide.
When you are truly down and out the way I’ve been, you really find out who has got your back . . . and whose friendships have been nothing but a steaming pile of bullshit. I’m happy to say that ninety-nine percent of my friends were amazing, all truly great people who helped me in ways I can’t describe and can only hope to pay back. But there was also one percent who were the opposite. I won’t name them here because I plan to let them know sometime in the future, in a more surprising and more hurtful way. These people treated me so badly that their behavior could have only come from a place of insane hate and jealousy. Now, I know when you look at me it has to be hard to believe that someone could be jealous of me for any reason. Don’t ask me how, but these jerk-offs found a way. They treated me as if my career, and my life in general, were completely over. I might as well have been dead and buried. On the one hand, look, who can blame them? They were just playing the odds, and I was in bad shape, so if you hate me for some reason, why not pile on?
In the end they lost, because with the help of the ninety-nine percent who were good to me, I made it. I’m back, I’m not going anywhere, and my hatred for that one percent runs deep—very, very deep. As a matter of fact, if it were legal I’d have them killed. Don’t worry, I’m not going back to the joint for one of those dirtbags, but if I were sure I could get away with it? Yeah, I’d make a phone call or two and rid the world of those scum-fucks forever. However, that is not the case. I know for sure there’s no way to get away with it, so this is the last I’ll speak of it beca
use I’m not going to do anything to get in trouble—I’ve had my fill of it.
I’m guessing a few of you are reading this and thinking, or saying aloud if you’ve chosen this book as your children’s bedtime story, “Christ! Artie, what the fuck did these people do to you?” If I were you I’d be asking me the same question and I’d be disappointed when I didn’t get a straight answer. This is all I will say here: what they did was serious and devious. The kind of things that trigger the level of anger that gives you the chills—and they did them to me at my very lowest point. They know who they are. They range from being very wealthy and successful, to flat-out broke drifters, and at least two of them have names that you, the general public, would recognize. It sounds so childish, but one of my biggest incentives for staying clean and in showbiz now is to prove them wrong and stick it in their smug, giggling asses. To that one percent who screwed me over, when you get a chance, do the world and me a favor and go fuck yourselves.
Glad I got that off my chest.
Let’s not end a dark tale on a dark note, shall we? Let’s try to stay positive, so please allow me to take this opportunity to thank a few of the good people in the ninety-nine percent who helped me and who can’t be thanked enough. My mom, my sister, the great Colin Quinn, and obviously the rest of my family; Adrienne, who has proven to be an angel; Norm MacDonald; DirecTV’s Chris Long, who is truly a stand-up guy, and the great Howard Stern . . . thanks, guys.
————
If there is anything I’ve learned from my life and if there’s anything I hope to impart to anyone else who cares to listen to my story, it’s that addicts are not like other people. I’m not saying we are better or worse, worthy of praise or ridicule, I’m just saying we are different. A normal person could have a bad day and come home and have a drink because of it and not have another drink for two months. A normal person could also have a drink every day and not have it affect their life. An addict like me needs chaos. I need the action, I need the juice; it’s like gambling to me, except that I’m gambling with my life and the lives of those I love. But I love the risk, no matter what the odds. And that’s an urge that is never going to leave me.