ONCE A MENSCH, ALWAYS A MENSCH –
Feb. 4, 2021 – And then we walked two blocks up Eighth Avenue. We made a right on 24th Street and headed east. I went to my first 12-step meeting at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis’ David Geffen Center. I don’t remember much about the meeting except there were about a dozen men sitting in chairs in a circle. For the first time, I said, “My name is Marc, and I’m a crystal meth addict.”
That was almost 17 years ago. I have been clean and sober for seven and a half years. In other words, it took me about a decade to get long-term sobriety.
I have been an entertainment journalist for 25 years. Much of that time I was working in the “gossip biz,” with stints at the New York Daily News, Us Weekly, New York magazine, “Entertainment Tonight” and “E! News.”
I spent most of my waking hours reporting, writing and talking about the private lives of celebrities. I may have excelled at my job, but I was never fully comfortable prying. My uneasiness really took hold when I was active in my addiction. How could I ask celebrities (or their publicists) about their deepest, darkest secrets when I was living with one myself? I felt like a fraud, an impostor. I worried all the time about being found out.
In the summer of 2004, just weeks after Scott introduced me to Frank, I moved to Los Angeles to help launch the “Entertainment Tonight” companion series “The Insider.” Moving 3,000 miles across the country meant I could start over. Or so I thought. I told myself I would stop drinking and using, but I broke that promise within two weeks.
