Crash and Burn (25 page)

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 walk 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.

What I’m about to tell you is going to sound psychotic. Believe me, I’ve gone over it many, many times and it still makes no sense. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever done or ever even heard of, but trust me when I tell you that it made sense to me at the time. In that moment, that moment of desperate need, I logically believed that what I did next would get me where I needed to be. I believed
that my actions would make the physical discomfort stop and that they would also give me a brief sense of escape followed by the peace of sleep I was desperate for.

I got up off my couch, went to the closet where my maid keeps her supplies, and got a bottle of Clorox bleach. I went back to the couch, sat down, removed the cap, and took a swig. I did this four times, thinking that bleach was so toxic it would get me high then make me pass out. Yeah . . . not exactly. Instead I threw up violently, everywhere. I vomited like a fountain, all over the couch, all over the carpet, and all over myself. I fell to the floor and kept vomiting. I got up, slipping and sliding in the puddle of puke, as I stumbled to my terrace to get some fresh air. I vomited all over the terrace and terrace door as bleach, blood, booze, pills, and whatever food I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours came out of me.

I fell again, hitting my head so hard on the living room floor that I almost passed out. My body stopped convulsing once there was nothing left to throw up and for a moment I came close to sleep, until one involuntary jerk woke me again. I couldn’t take it because I felt sicker and more horrible than ever. I had to get that passed-out feeling but I didn’t know what else to do. I was too sick to run into a wall or try to knock myself out (but I thought about it), so the only thing I could think of that would make me faint was losing blood. I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to lose enough to lower my blood pressure. Then I’d faint, fall asleep, and finally get some rest. This seemed like a logical thing to do at the time. I didn’t even consider what would have happened after I fell asleep, after losing that much blood. None of that mattered, only finding the falling feeling. What can I say, I’ve never been good at planning ahead.

I went to the kitchen and got the biggest chef’s knife I had. Then I lay down on the couch and cut into my stomach. I’d stab it a bit, then slice into it, and then squeeze the wounds to make the blood run out faster. I continued to do this—a stab followed by a cut—as my blood flowed. I watched it run down my legs, onto the couch
and floor, just staring at the color of it. I didn’t feel any pain after the first few cuts, just the strange invasion of the knife, but after a few rounds of stabbing I got used to it. I started to dig the knife in deeper and slice into myself harder. In the hospital they counted a total of nine wounds, three of them deep enough to really make the red run. I started to feel light-headed and woozy, which made me want to lie down in my bed. I’d get some sleep after all.

I got up, my head spinning, and shuffled through the pool of blood, vomit, and bleach on the floor. My hand left a trail of red along the wall as I made my way to the bedroom and since my blood had been running out at a steady rate for some time, I began to feel faint. I made it to the bed, lay down, and began to nod in and out of consciousness. It was what I’d wanted to do for hours.

Sometime around nine a.m. my mother called me to say that she wanted to come over and talk. I vaguely remember this.

“I guess,” I said. “Whatever, I don’t care, come over.”

“Art, are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I can answer a call.” Whatever that meant.

I lay in my bed watching the red puddle spread slowly across the sheets. As I went to put the phone back on the nightstand I fell out of bed onto the floor but was too weak to get up. I lay there watching my blood—and my life—stream out of me, lost, detached, feeling myself starting to slip away.

I only remember a few more things. I heard the door open when my mother arrived. And I heard her screaming as soon as she saw the blood. I remember seeing her face above me, which is a horrifying image that I will never forget, and one that causes me more guilt than I can ever express.

“Artie! Stay with me, Artie!” my mother shouted. Her face went blurry and her voice sounded very faraway. “Don’t you go away from me, Artie! Don’t you go!” She was crying, sobbing, pleading. It looked like I was seeing her through water, as if she were in another world.

I reached up and she grabbed my hand as she dialed 911 with her
other hand, and I remember the frantic tone in her voice as she yelled into the phone.

“My son has stabbed himself! Please hurry, he’s stabbed himself!”

That’s what I’ve put my poor mother through. That’s how I’ve taken care of her. I may have given her money, a house, and a car, but nothing material can take that pain away.

My sister came running into the room at that point, which I remember thinking was odd, because she should have been at work. What I found out later was that they had planned a formal, full-court-press intervention featuring Colin Quinn, my two uncles, a cousin, and another close friend, all of whom were waiting downstairs in the lobby of my building. My sister and my mother held me in their arms, stopped the bleeding the best they could, and made sure I stayed awake. I went in and out of consciousness, but I remember my sister calling Colin downstairs to tell him how they’d found me. Then she turned to me with tears in her eyes.

“Artie, why do you want to die so badly?” she asked me. “Why are you so sad? You can’t die! We love you too much.”

The simplest of sentiments are the most true, and Stacey had said it all. How could I ever forget that? How could I ever go back? How did I ever let it come to this?

I heard the sirens in the distance and I heard a group of official-sounding people come into my apartment. The paranoia was still with me, so my first thought was that they were cops, but I didn’t worry because I knew I’d done every single drug in the house by then. The EMTs stopped the bleeding and put me on a stretcher. And as they wheeled me out I saw my mother and sister crying, holding hands, hovering over me.

“Don’t leave us, Artie,” my mother said.

“Don’t close your eyes, okay?” my sister said. “Stay awake.”

I tried to do that as long as I could, but my eyelids weighed a ton. I let them drop, and as the noise faded away and I slipped into the black, I finally found some kind of peace.