I had no choice but to deal with waking up and living minute to minute in a sober state deprived of the substances I’d been using for years. At first, time stood still—very still. I had no concept of time—only that I wasn’t getting what I wanted. After what seemed like an eternity, I began living hour to hour. Eventually, I made it to day to day and that’s when I started to make progress. I didn’t appreciate the dormitory-style accomodations. I was sleeping in a twin bed and sharing my space with a twenty-five-year-old male roommate, but I accepted it.
I also accpeted the fact that the routine of individual and group therapy sessions was helping. After attending several group discussions and sharing stories, there was no doubt that my degree of drug intake and all the other insane shit I did topped them all. But I was progressing, learning how to make it through the day without drugs and alcohol. I returned to reading, a lifelong passion, which I had made no time for in the past four years.
I soon befriended an anesthesiologist from Chicago who was serving time in rehab for getting caught with his hands in the hospital’s medicine cabinet. Early every morning, before it became too hot, we’d run for an hour on the track, talking about life and how we both ended up at Betty Ford. It was both intellectually and physically therapeutic. Within a month I lost most of the weight I had recently gained, was able to fit into my old clothes, and was generally feeling okay without drugs and alcohol. I was conscious about my diet and growing physically stronger each day. The anesthesiologist graduated from the program and returned to Chicago to resume his practice while I continued to run each morning alone, contemplating what had gone wrong in my life—a life so promising—fifteen years earlier when I was a young man of thirty.
Then one day Andy Gibb checked himself into Betty Ford. When I met Andy at Studio 54 in the early 1980s, he had been consoling himself with liquor and cocaine, heartbroken over his breakup with actress Victoria Principal. While I was happy to see him again, our conversations took me back to the worst parts of my cocaine and alcohol binges. Andy was a sweet, fun, good-looking guy who had been an occasional member of the Dawn Patrol at Studio. He would show up at my office from time to time, and occasionally at my apartment, and we would do coke together. He really loved cocaine, and every now and then he’d ask me to buy some for him, which I would.
Seeing Andy at Betty Ford reminded me of a day back in early 1983 when I received a call from a panicked Zev Buffman, the producer of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Broadway musical that Andy had secured a starring role in. It was just a few hours before his evening performance and once again, Andy was nowhere to be found. He had missed twelve performances since his opening night a few months earlier. I put out feelers to some of the night people asking where he might be, but no one I knew could find him. He never made it to the theatre that night. Buffman sacked the twenty-four-year-old heartthrob. It was a decision he did not take lightly. Buffman was a fan of Andy and enjoyed being around him, but the fact is, Andy didn’t show up enough and audiences were buying tickets to see him, not his understudy.
Andy was blackballed from Broadway as a result. I imagine this only served to speed up his spiral deeper into depression and more drugs. It was a shame because had he remained in that production he would have earned an enormous amount of good press, which would have led to other projects. I believe the routine and self-esteem earned from such rewarding work would have saved him. “Of the five Josephs we’ve had so far, Andy was definitely the best actor,” conceded Zev Buffman.
Fast-forward to April 1985. Andy showed up at Betty Ford only to walk out of treatment after just three days into the six-week program. The counselor predicted he’d be dead soon—and sadly, within a few years and just five days after his thirtieth birthday, he was.
After four weeks I decided I’d had enough and made plans to leave the Betty Ford Clinic. I wanted to continue to improve but I felt I had learned everything there was to learn from the therapists and counselors during my stay so far. I didn’t think I had the same level of psychological problems to tackle as the other patients. To this day I believe that it takes a lot more than drugs to make you a drug addict. It’s a mental thing. I acknowledged the benefits, but I didn’t find most of the therapists to be inspirational role models. They sat around all day drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, appearing to have their own issues with unhealthy addictions to nicotine and caffeine. And that didn’t work for me. But I had to admit, even though I questioned their personal addictions, they forced me to face some important truths about my own.
I was bullshitting myself, and the therapists, when I told them that my drug use was a part of my job at Studio 54 and that it was expected of me. During group therapy sessions, we discussed the timeline of my drug use, and it became clear to me that my drug abuse started years before Studio 54. I started drinking in college at Cornell, and then took it to another level while running the officers’ club in the navy. I jumped in, drinking from noon until closing, and became accustomed to a constant buzz. I could have handled it differently, but I didn’t. It was more fun to drink with the officers and other guests. It never occurred to me to request that the bartenders water down my drinks. When I first started to smoke marijuana, it inspired creativity and sharpened my perception. It relaxed me and helped me focus. I drank less and told myself—that’s good. Smoke more, drink less, avoid hangovers. So, I started each day with a huge joint and continued smoking throughout the day and into the evening. I abused it. I was operating in a haze of pot, and getting away with it.
Tripping on acid can be a powerful learning experience, as documented by many doctors of the 1960s. It can be a path to unlocking the mysteries of the subconscious when taken with guidance and respect for its mind-altering effects. I abused its positive powers and took it way too often. I was a thirty-year-old whiz kid in the late 1960s, on a journey enhanced, I thought, by the wisdom gleaned from my experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. I was young and rising fast; the early success went to my head, leaving me to conclude that I could do no wrong. Being stoned and tripping your brains out is not conducive to success on any level—certainly not when you’re at the helm of a multimillion-dollar company and calling all the shots. I took unnecessary risks in business. I told myself that my mind-expanding, mind-altering trips imparted so much knowledge and wisdom to my psyche that they alone would guide me and ensure my success. What a crock. It derailed me.
Then there was cocaine. I did it seven days a week, twelve months a year, for nearly four years at Studio 54. Looking back, I could have kept my drug use under control but I chose not to. I jumped into the party life with reckless abandon. I spent four years of my life doing coke every night and every day, plus Angel Dust, ketamine, Quaaludes, cognac, vodka, scotch, whiskey, and then Valium to go to sleep. That was the routine—day in and day out. People have often asked, “Mark, why did you drink and do so many drugs?” The short answer is, “Because I could.”
I blamed everything on Studio 54. I didn’t remember, or I chose not to admit, that I was heavily into cocaine long before Studio, particularly in the Virgin Islands. There was a positive and a negative effect to Studio 54 that everyone who worked or hung out there had to deal with. Some people set curfews and imposed limits on their alcohol and drug consumption while others gave not a moment of thought to any of it. It was a dream come true—with celebrities, great music, exotic drugs, dancing all night, beautiful people, and being in the moment, even if the moment is 5:00 a.m. and you’re expected in the office at 9:00 a.m. We all had to choose, “Do I stay, or do I go?” I chose to stay.
After four weeks at Betty Ford, I was detoxed and feeling reasonably fit. I was in a better place emotionally and starting to feel a familiar optimism and can-do attitude. Then word reached me about problems at Water’s Edge—a restaurant built on a barge on the East River in Manhattan, which I had optioned while looking for a high-profile project to follow my run at Studio 54. I was suppos
edly actively operating it under a management contract. I had acquired an option at Water’s Edge during negotiations at an all-night cocaine marathon in a law office. Many of us participating in the negotiations, including my attorney, had spent much of that night on breaks in the bathroom blowing magic up our noses. I had been so far out there—I was negotiating from another planet and from that perspective it appeared to be a good deal. But the next day I woke up and admitted I wanted nothing to do with it. I hoped the deal wouldn’t go through. But it did, and I was stuck with a major responsibility. I thought I could recreate the famous River Café on the Brooklyn waterfront that Buzzy O’Keeffe opened a few years earlier, but I was in no shape to do anything of the sort.
Water’s Edge had been opened a year earlier by an inexperienced restaurateur and did well at first because of the great view of Manhattan. That was until the famed New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton gave it a seriously bad review, and people just stopped going. You can see why a deal like this would attract me, as I’d already brought numerous businesses back from the brink of death and normally enjoyed a challenge of this nature. However, at this point in my life, I, like Water’s Edge, was too far gone.
My former publicist and friend, Ed Gifford (and his wife and partner, Michael), who had exited my life five years earlier because of my association with Steve and Ian, came back and agreed to represent me at Water’s Edge. We hired a chef who had been a sous-chef under acclaimed chef Jean-Jacques Rachou, owner of La Côte Basque. Ed was a real foodie who immediately connected with our chef, but all of this wasn’t enough to save Water’s Edge. My concentrated involvement was essential to any chance of success, but I started drinking heavily from the moment I signed the deal and assumed management control in January 1985, before I went to Betty Ford.
Each working day began with a drink at 11:30 a.m. when I arrived at Water’s Edge. I’d walk directly to the bar and waiting for me would be a gorgeous, perfectly chilled, straight-up vodka martini in a large glass with three olives. And then I’d drink throughout the day. I was so out of it from drinking day and night, and playing with the Whippets as often as possible, that I did something very foolish. I forever ruined my friendship with Christie Brinkley. Just after I took over the restaurant in March 1985, I booked the wedding party of Christie and Billy Joel. Even though I should have known that Christie would not want me talking to the press, I gave Cindy Adams a scoop when she called me for a story to put in her column. I gave her Christie and Billy’s menu for the wedding reception. After it appeared in the New York Post, Christie, who wanted no prepress and deserved that courtesy, was furious and almost cancelled the event. No apologies I made could have satisfied her, as she trusted me to protect her on her wedding day. It’s difficult to say whether the Water’s Edge would have succeeded had I been up to the challenge. Despite its glorious view of the Manhattan skyline at its mooring in Long Island City, and the Giffords’ best efforts, the simple fact may be that Sheraton’s original scathing review had been its death knell and I should never have bought it in the first place.
Even though I’d arranged for my father to look after the restaurant operations for six weeks while I was in treatment at Betty Ford, he called me after only four weeks and announced that he was tired of dealing with my problems, and that I should return home and solve them myself. Wracked with guilt about how I had let him down, behaving in such an inappropriate way with my out-of-control behavior at age forty-five, I told my counselors that I had no choice but to return to New York. They were disappointed and tried convincing me to remain, explaining that because the blood test taken when I first arrived showed such a variety of drugs in my system, I would benefit greatly from the full six weeks. The counselors predicted that if I left early, I would slip just like Andy Gibb did. As it happened, they were right, but I didn’t die.
Betty Ford was not my cure-all, but it did educate me about the damaging effects of drug and alcohol abuse. I admitted to how clearheaded I felt after abstaining for more than a month. And though most rehab clinics back then missed the boat by not including a serious physical fitness program, I learned the benefits of that on my own by jogging every day. Nonetheless, the real objective of any rehabilitation program is to get patients to feel good about themselves without drugs.
The counselors at Betty Ford advised me to sever ties with anyone associated with my alcohol and drug use. Once I returned to New York, that’s exactly what I did. As much as it pained me, this meant ending my relationship with my assistant, sex kitten, and enabler, Sara. She had phoned me several times while I was in rehab, but as dictated by my counselors at Betty Ford, I did not return her calls. Later on, l learned that Sara had swallowed every pill in my medicine cabinet in an attempt to kill herself, which freaked me out. She was a good person and undeserving of anything but kindness in her life. I am grateful that she recovered. The Twelve-Step Program requires that you make amends with anyone you may have hurt. I made a feeble attempt at best. Other than my mother, my father, and Sara, I honestly felt I hadn’t hurt anyone except myself. But there were others, and over time I admitted to that and attempted to make amends. I attended AA meetings occasionally, but somehow I could not wholeheartedly embrace the Twelve-Step Program.
Back in New York, I returned to work on Water’s Edge Restaurant, which was losing money. I couldn’t think of anything brilliant that would turn it around—and honestly, at that particular time in my life, the last thing I needed was to have a bar as part of my day-to-day life. So I decided to sell the option I had on the property. To do that, I hired a marine architect to create a set of plans that transformed the barge into a two-level catering establishment with spectacular views of the East River and the Manhattan skyline. Then, I presented the plans to a well-known Long Island catering company owned by Marika and Stuart Somerstein that specialized in kosher weddings and bar mitzvahs. I knew Stuart from working together as assistant stewards in the kitchen at Brown’s Hotel in the Catskills Mountains in a summer program required by the Cornell Hotel School. We shook hands on a fair purchase price of $500,000 and agreed to meet at my lawyer Irwin Underweiser’s office. I felt good—this deal meant I’d recoup the money I’d spent on the down payment and cover my operational losses. I was pleased with myself.
I was dismayed, however, when I learned upon arrival at my lawyer’s office that the Somersteins and their attorney had reneged on the deal. I was so furious that I walked out, headed around the corner to the Friars Club, and ordered a shot of 101-proof Wild Turkey with a beer chaser. It was my first drink since Betty Ford, and it wouldn’t be my last.
The alcohol calmed me down, and I returned to the law office. Irwin told me that while I had been at the Friars Club, he’d had a calm conversation with the buyers and their attorney and he had persuaded them to agree to a reduced purchase price. He said that if I was amenable to shaving $200,000 off the purchase price and extending payments, he could still structure a deal. I ended up losing money, but I didn’t care. I was rid of a situation that would bring only trouble at this juncture of my life.
I slipped, started drinking again, and just about abandoned my physical fitness regimen altogether. I also stopped going to AA meetings. But there was a positive aspect to this relapse. It was nothing like my binges in the Studio 54 days. I was more aware now. My past behavior had deeply disturbed me, and I cared that I was losing control of my recovery. At first, I craved alcohol even while I was abstaining from it. Before long I was depressed again and started drinking at home during the day. Most of the willpower I had gained from the Betty Ford experience had dissipated.
For the first time in my adult life, I had nothing to do and way too much time on my hands. Without even one project to occupy my time, I found myself sitting in my apartment all day, looking out at Central Park and wondering what went wrong. I knew that I had to find myself. To my credit, though, I was not in bed, the blinds were not drawn, and I was fully dressed. That was progress compa
red to my condition before Betty Ford.
Then, one day in late 1985, I received a visit from my songwriter buddy, Paul Jabara. He could not believe my condition and how unhappy I appeared to be. He begged me to go to Rancho La Puerta, an organic fitness center located on a three-thousand-acre nature preserve in the mountains of Baja California, to rehabilitate myself.
Chapter Twenty-Nine:
My Place in the Sun
According to the brochure they sent me, Rancho La Puerta was founded by Edmond Szekely and his wife, Deborah, in 1940 in Tecate, Mexico, an hour southeast of San Diego. The Ranch, as it’s known among its devotees, sits at the base of Mount Kuchumaa, a sacred mountain that means “Exalted High Place” in the ancient Yuman and Kumeyaay native language.
Szekely was a philosopher, theologian, biochemist, nutritionist, and historian. He was a true Renaissance-man, and an environmentalist long before it became fashionable. The Romanian-born Szekely founded Rancho La Puerta to integrate ancient ideas about health and wisdom into a modern-day lifestyle. His personal philosophy, known as the “School of Life,” sought to appreciate and protect nature and transform people’s understanding about the care and feeding of their bodies. This is a process through which we can become the “owners” of our whole being in every sense of the word. Thirty years before the Human Potential Movement, Szekely embodied ideas that espoused good health, long life, and the interdependence of mind, body, and spirit—not to mention the importance of respecting the health of the air, water, and soil on which we depend for life itself. Szekely also believed that it was never too late to reinvent oneself. That spoke to me.
Aldous Huxley, whose books I devoured during my acid trip days in the late 1960s, traveled there often from his home in Death Valley, California. Burt Lancaster, who starred in two of my favorite movies, Sweet Smell of Success and Elmer Gantry, was another frequent visitor. Although it wasn’t an official rehab clinic, The Ranch sounded like such a magical setting that I could not get there fast enough. I immediately booked a week’s stay and flew to San Diego with the intention of turning my life around once and for all.
Inside Studio 54 Page 28
