Authors: Artie Lange
Adrienne didn’t know what to do. She had moved in full-time because she was worried. And she had reason to be: I blacked out a bunch of times that month and I’d wake up in the bathroom or in the middle of the living room floor and she’d tell me that I’d been doing the craziest shit. One time I told her I was going to take the trash out and instead of taking it down the hall I put it in my bathtub, where she found it when she went to take a shower the next morning. That kind of shit became ordinary. I became so freaked out from mixing and matching all these drugs that I started really scaring the hell out of her. She hadn’t asked Santa Claus for a paranoid addict for Christmas that year. She didn’t like being around me, but she was afraid not to be around me. She cared for me and was convinced I’d die if she wasn’t there to make sure I didn’t overdose.
She tried to curb my abuse by hiding whatever pills or powders she found in the apartment or in my jacket, but I always had more stashed because there was no stopping me. I had regular appointments with various dealers, so I’d leave every morning about seven a.m. then again at seven p.m. for a few days in a row until I was good and stocked up. I’d make some dumb excuse about where I was going that I shouldn’t have bothered with because Adrienne knew exactly what I was up to. One night when I guess she’d had enough she insisted on searching my pockets when I came back. When she found my drugs it didn’t go over so well and we got into a huge fight that ended in a wrestling match over the drugs. It’s embarrassing, but it’s true, because at that point nothing mattered more to me than what was in that bag. I ended up getting the bag from her in the end.
“Look,” she said, watching me gripping my stash the same way
Earl Campbell gripped a football whenever he dove for a first down, “I can’t do this by myself anymore. If I find drugs on you again I’m calling your mother or Helicopter Mike or somebody else and they’re going to come over and you’re going to have to go away.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I know. But I can’t fucking do that now. I’ll do it in the new year.”
As I always had, I reacted by procrastinating and getting angry. I’d say I knew what had to be done but people had to let me do it my way and if they didn’t want to they could fuck off. The truth was that “I’ll do it in the new year” had been my excuse for years, and everyone who knew me was getting pretty fucking tired of hearing it.
I can say
without any hesitation that December 9, 2009, was and will always be one of the saddest days of my life. I spent the early morning of that day drinking whiskey and snorting twenty painkillers over the course of seven hours before going into work at the
Stern Show
—and making it there on time. It was yet another instance where the lights were on but no one was home because I was in a full blackout on the air. I’d started making my driver stop at this deli down the street from the studio where I’d buy a few bottles of Smirnoff Ice that I’d put into plastic cups and pass off for soda that I’d drink all through the show. So I’d basically resigned myself to being drunk at work, live on the air, which I’d top off by taking whatever pills I had on me every time I went to the bathroom.
That’s how I was operating that morning and I was pretty far gone when I got there. But I kept at it, getting progressively sloppier over the first few hours of the show. I spilled drinks and ate an eight-thousand-calorie breakfast burrito and a few cupcakes. I yelled, I interrupted everybody, I acted crazier and with less sense than ever. Benjy Bronk, my friend and
Stern Show
writer, sat next to me the whole time trying his best to contain the collateral damage. He kept saying, “Art, are you okay, man? You’ve got to calm down and just get through this day. Get through it, get home, and get some sleep.”
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.
————
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 clockwork (
clock
work—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.