Free Crash and Burn by Artie Lange Page A

this happening in slow motion, and I really didn’t give a shit. I was too happily preoccupied with the money I was making and all the drugs it took to get me through the night. The affirmation I felt onstage some nights, when the people cheered, was a bonus. I refused to see that as anything real. The same went for friendships: whomever was or wasn’t my friend was about as important to me as following women’s college lacrosse.
    Just getting through my professional engagements took all of my energy, so what most people concern themselves with, all of those things that make up what anyone considers an average, functional life, were annoying to me. I was like a hair metal band in the ’80s demanding a straight line from the limo to the backstage door: my line went from the Stern Show to my weekend moneymakers to my drugs to my bed, wherever that bed may be. Anything else was a problem, anything else got in the way, and I hated anything else. If I ever got lonely or horny I called a whore, but between my six-a.m.-to-eleven-a.m. on air schedule during the week and my nocturnal stand-up and opiate weekend netherworld, I barely had the time or taste for them anymore.
    I was in the worst health I’d ever been, just a drug addict limping through life, yet somehow I got more done in 2008 than in any other year I’ve spent in show business. All of my achievements came with a price, though. I was nodding off on the air, which is fine if your radio show is being heard by twenty-five people in Ossining, New York, at three a.m., but I was one of the main players on the Howard Stern Show , where six million people listened to me snore every time I “dozed” off (which was a hell of a lot). That wasn’t enough for me either, so I stayed on the comedy circuit, playing Vegas, Atlantic City, and all points that paid well in between, raking in the cash and snorting up the drugs in places far enough away that I could evade the eyes of those watching me back at home. I had it all worked out, and even when I saw it was a sham, I kept pushing until it all fell apart.
    It was perfect timing too, because I’d finally gotten my close-up, thank you, Mr. DeMille. The success of the book earned me repeated spots on Letterman , Conan , Kimmel , too many live radio shows to name, and just about every local TV entertainment show in America that I cared to do. I’d have the publisher organize book signings and press wherever I did stand-up, meaning that every single hour of my weekends away from Stern was occupied. I’d do press in person or on the phone when I got to wherever I was playing and after I got offstage I’d sign books at a bookstore or at the comedy club until every single person who showed up had bought one, gotten their photo op, and had me sign their copy. Some nights I’d be at a table in some bookstore after a gig until four a.m., and so long as I was kept well lubricated and was allowed to smoke, I would have stayed there signing and greeting my fans until I passed out.
    Take a look at any picture taken of me during my book tour—I look near death. My skin was gray, I was heavier than usual, I wassmoking and drinking like there was no tomorrow, and I wore the same clothes every day. If I had to describe myself I’d say I looked like a guy whose skin was uncomfortable with having him in it. And I wouldn’t be wrong, because my body was starting to give out. You know you’re not healthy when your face matches the yellowish-gray stack of newspapers in the corner of your apartment.
    As I wrote in the paperback edition of my first book, I completely short-circuited the day I was scheduled to participate in Comedy Central’s roast of Bob Saget because I’d been playing Russian roulette with my opiate addiction and I’d finally chambered the bullet. I was sick, going through serious heroin withdrawal because I’d been abusing a drug called Subutex to get me from my weekend benders into my somewhat “sober” workweeks. The