
By 2010, Artie Lange had hit bottom. In his darkest moment after a four-day heroin binge, Lange drank bleach, slit his wrists, and stabbed himself in the stomach nine times. During a Rolling Stone interview, Lange explained his addled thought process at the time, saying, "At the time I did that, there was a part of me that just wanted to get that heroin feeling or that opiate feeling or whatever. My logic was, 'If I get bloody, I'll get queasy, and I'll go to sleep.'"
In the moment, he didn't consider it a suicide attempt, though later he realized it was. Luckily, his mother found him passed out and bleeding in his bedroom and rushed him to the hospital. After a year and eight months in rehab, therapy, and AA, Lange started to work again and wrote his second book, Crash and Burn, about his addiction and suicide attempt.
But 2010 wasn't the first time Lange had attempted suicide. In 1998, after getting on MADtv (his greatest success to that point), he took a bunch of pills and chased them with whiskey hoping to end his life. The stress of the show and his growing cocaine problem later drove him to write a note to his mother and sister and attempt suicide again. Thankfully, he's still around.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunCClmxnaWelo8GwuMNmq6utpJ16or7TopxmpJGjtKZ7