1.
Young: Junkies have the best stories. Junkies
are storytellers.
2.
Stahl: It comes down to the fact that junkies
are liars. They have to be professionally. Back in my journalism days, I
interviewed Samuel Jackson and I asked him how he became such a great actor,
and he went into this story about how he used to smoke crack or whatever, and
he learned how to read people and say either what they needed to hear to give
him what he wanted to get, or what they didn’t want to hear that would still
get him what he needed to get. That’s the definition of junkie storytelling.
Embellish, steal, cajole.
3.
Young: But then they end up weaving a mythology
about their own lives.
4.
Stahl: There is that. Junkies will always engage
in one-upmanship, like: “I lost a foot shooting into a vein.” “Well, I lost my
leg.” You just can’t win.
5.
Young: My dad is a social worker, and he used to
work exclusively with junkies, Lower East Side in the early ‘90s. There was one
woman who would beg on the subway and stuff her shirt so she looked pregnant
because she would get more money. One day she was in Central Park taking out
the stuffing and someone from the train saw her. Even when she was discovered,
there was another level of lie she immediately came up with on the spot.
6.
Stahl: That’s kind of a beautiful story in
itself. Did your dad bring all that stuff home to you, these tales of woe?
7.
Young: He took me to work with him.
8.
Stahl: There should be a 12-step group just for
guys like you, who got dragged to work by their fathers who worked with
junkies.
9.
Young: [laughs] Let’s talk about junkies versus
other forms of addiction. What’s the difference, let’s say, with alcoholism?
10.
Stahl: Well, the traditional dictionary
definition of the difference is that an alcoholic will steal your wallet in a
blackout, come to, and apologize for it. A junkie will steal your wallet and
then help you look for it. But ultimately I think all addictions boil down to
just not being able to be with yourself for any long degree of time. You need
an entire drama to construct your life around to avoid living it.
11.
Young: When does that get dark?
12.
Stahl: That’s a great question. For some people,
I guess it never gets dark. You can just live your life that way. But speaking
for me, it’s when you realize you’re doing things you don’t even want to do
anymore. But you just have this inability to stop doing them.
13.
Young: Do you think being a junkie is more fun
than being an alcoholic?
14.
Stahl: Probably depends on the era—[whether] you
were a junkie in an era when being a junkie-chic idiot worked for you. It never
worked for me because I was never very chic, but I suppose that could be cool.
Then back in the Thin Man era, when everyone had their martinis, I suppose that
was the optimal time to be an alcoholic.
15.
Young: What happened to those people? Are they
all dead?
16.
Stahl: I always figured I myself would never be
lucky enough to die, I’d just live on and on in this increasingly dreary
spiral. For me there was never a lot of glamor involved in being a junkie, it
was about trying to hide the puke and bloodstains on my shirt.
17.
Young: Frankly, I don’t really understand where
that glamour comes from, because when you see it up close, it’s really not.
18.
Stahl: Yeah, I think there’s a phenomenon of
people who want to be around something that seems “dangerous.” It makes them feel
more real.
19.
Young: What do you think is more pathological:
to crave being around that or to actually be using?
20.
Stahl: You can’t really compare hells. But I
suppose the hell of being strung out on another person’s addictive behavior is
its own special thing. I also don’t want to come off as Johnny Junkie Scholar.
21.
Young: What happens when you live your life with
this constant need?
22.
Stahl: Essentially all your problems disappear
and you only have one problem, which is getting heroin. Your life is pretty black
and white because you really can’t do anything until you take care of that.
Minor things like mortgage, relationships, jobs, feeding yourself, they all
sort of pale before the giant consuming need to get more drugs. When you get
clean, ironically, life becomes more difficult. Suddenly you have to deal with
all these real-life problems without the luxury of just having one big-ass
problem.
23.
Young: Well, that’s part of the escape of it.
24.
Stahl: You’re right. I didn’t realize that when
I was in it. I didn’t realize why I was using. Every year that I’m not, I
realize why I did.
25.
Young: Could you explain that a little bit more?
26.
Stahl: It’s like the farther you get away from
your childhood, the more you realize what was really going on. Whether that is
wisdom or time. You’ll just see remnant of that behavior, the reflexive
manipulation, the suspicion, that sense of having something you need you’re not
getting. It’s a whole way of thinking that even when it no longer applies, it’s
become psychic muscle memory. You find yourself thinking like an addict and
that can be really horrific. If you’re an asshole, you have an excuse for being
an asshole because you’re a junkie. But then once you give up the drugs, and
you’re still an asshole, that’s problematic. [laughs]
27.
Young: [laughs] But at the same time, I feel
like there are certain parts of being an addict that must serve you even after
you stop using.
28.
Stahl: You absolutely learn how to get what you
want. You develop very quick hand eye coordination.
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