So Lars von Trier (Dogville, Melancholia, etc.) got clean this year.
Or that’s what he says. He’s just announced it after breaking his vow of silence (that followed some less-than-PC nazi comment he made). And now he’s telling the press he’s been in A.A. and staying clean. But now he’s having second thoughts because before recovery, he claims he required a bottle of vodka daily to help him enter a “parallel world” to successfully create films. This, he believes, he needed on a professional level – inasmuch as all of his films were written under the influence.
And how’s he feel about his work since getting clean?
Sigh. I get it. So thus goes my open letter:
There’s a thing about these twelve step program meetings, homie. If just going to the meetings alone are enough for you to remain clean serenely, then awesome. But if you’re going home and whipping yourself over your work being less than it was when you were taking Vodka intravenously, then maybe it’s time to reconsider options. Could you get a sponsor? Try the steps? If the answer’s no, then you don’t have to give up right away. Some people just refuse. Just thinking about doing that at all just makes them want to relapse instead. But the nature of the brain is to kick your ass back into old habits if you don’t make some new ones. So you gotta find something else that you do – not take. I’m lucky I read an article in Sci Am about this early on after nixing chemical infused pills and liquids myself. It made me force myself to take up jogging again along with other tranquilizing-DIY activities that smarter people than I have been doing for thousands of years. I get high on my own oxygen supply. Well, and caffeine. (#amillionmilesfromperfect)
But you might be thinking, “Mmmyes, and how many movies have YOU made?”
Or as it was put it in this Guardian interview: “I don’t know if I can make any more films, and that worries me,” he said, adding: “There is no creative expression of artistic value that has ever been produced by ex-drunkards and ex-drug addicts. Who the hell would bother with a Rolling Stones without booze or with a Jimi Hendrix without heroin?”
I laughed when I read this at first.
Not mockingly. But as someone who’s been there and said almost the same thing less eloquently. In an email. To Russell Brand. I may have shared this anecdote before in a previous program-related article, but it’s worth repeating because he was right. I told him something to the effect of “my drawing skills are less good than before I got clean”. And he told me, “Drugs don’t help art. That’s a myth.” Then he told me my latest scribbling was “Fantastic.” I felt like a validated child whose macaroni masterpiece had just won refrigerator status. Still, I didn’t believe him. Not yet. But I told him I agreed anyway because I wanted to believe it. His craft improved with clean time. Maybe mine would too.
I stopped drawing for a while. I was unhappy. Empty. Then I realized in a chimera moment of “durrr” meets epiphany that my art and writing alike weren’t any good because I wasn’t doing anything peripherally different that was any good. I needed more than clean time. I needed lifestyle changes that aligned with those I wanted to emulate. On the outside? Yes. I was trying my best. But when I was home and alone, it was as if I just took off all my good character traits like gaudy costume jewelry.
Messy house. Laundry piles. Filthy floor. Still bulimic. I wasn’t integrated. Sure, I stayed clean – but I was intrinsically dirty – and miserable. ‘cause I wasn’t doing the stuff that made people like the Russells or Gabriel Bernsteins of the world seem so at home in their own skin – after also having the blanket of altered consciousness ripped from their bodies. As I awoke to this painful fact, I slowly started doing what they were doing – not just in public, but on my own time.
And I effing hated it. At first.
“Why should I hafta do this shit when I didn’t ask to wake up feeling crappy every day?”
Relapsing meant failure. And I hate failing. So a modified Nike style mantra of “Just Do it anyway” seemed to work best for me. And it still is. What you do is just wake up and don’t let yourself get in an argument with your brain. Give the “I don’t wanna” bit the same silent treatment you did after that Hitler thing you said, as you strap on your running sneakers or roll out the yoga mat or whatevz. What you do in those morning moments sets the tone of the day. That’s the thing about reality, I guess. You can either be really glad that natural tools do exist to fix your misery. Or you can carp about it as soon as the alarm sounds until you hafta finally put on your Vodka goggles to create art while making everyone else’s life a nightmare. I tried the carping and the chemicals. We all know how that ends.
So I tried the former for the past year.
Now, it’s like I’m living in an alternate reality where everything’s accessible.
If I can just remember to get over my fear and laziness each day.
Look, I may not be a bad ass director with Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman and talking foxes from Hell in the movies I make. I also have no image and name to maintain. But, really, if you do – that’s less of an excuse to relapse and more of a reason to stay clean. Because if my little pile of dogshit improved, you could have a fcckn empire ahead of you. You have made some amazing movies, Mr. von Trier. You. Not vodka. Not drugs. You made ‘em. And I empathize with the terrifying thought snowball of “I can’t focus. How will I work? What else can I use to feel creative? Who am I without that former identity?” But it’s just a fear seed that starts small and grows into garden of self-doubt. Fuck the seed. Don’t water it. You haven’t given clean-you a chance to try yet beyond like one film. So how about you knock up your garden with this seed right here: What if your future work is better than your polluted work?
Do yourself a favor if you’re serious about getting clean (and not just saying that you have been as a conveniently already-paid year-long penance for the nazi comment). Get a sponsor who you respect and who seems to have their shit together. Or if you hate that idea, maybe go see some of those hippie yoga instructors or something. You won’t want to because Hollywood has been painting them as ridiculous and woo-woo and everything eye-roll for as long as they could. However, much like Hollywood sex – it’s totally different in real life. If you make an effort. Unlike Hollywood sex, though, it’s far better in real life. Also, buddy, maybe try going to some meetings? I know you say you’ve been going every day for the past year. But here’s the thing: if you were, you’d have heard that annoying bit over and over and over again every time that goes something like this:
“…we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films”.
#busted #justsayin’
Anyway. Keep trying, my friend.
Your craft is still there – and accessible whenever you want it.
And once you fine tune how to connect to it, you can reach up and grab it whenever.
Without the come down.