Fellow Comedians Beg Artie Lange To Seek Professional Help For Drug Addiction
Fifty-one-year-old comedian Artie Lange has struggled with drug addiction for most of his life. Lange is most known for co-starring on The Howard Stern Show which premiered in 1979. In June of 2018, Lange was lucky enough to narrowly escape jail time for testing positive for heroin along with other dangerous substances. Instead, he was sent away with four years of probation after promising to get clean. The comic is now down to his last chance to turn his life around or face death after nearly 30 years of drug abuse. His fellow comics and friends are joining forces to beg him to seek professional help, according to Fox News.
Decades of drug abuse have taken a toll on Lange’s health and physical appearance. He recently shared a photo of his extremely deformed nose, a result of snorting shards of broken glass and Oxycontin. His nose has nearly caved in on itself, appearing several times its normal size. Along with a picture of his deformity, Lange wrote, “This is it but I believe her nose had a septum and had not been hideously deformed due to over 3 decades of drug abuse.”
?@artiequitter?
Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. When you had time clean we had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self-loathing and fear. Give it up and live.? pic.twitter.com/KzOyvSLaW3— Richard Lewis (@TheRichardLewis) January 7, 2019
Well-known comic Richard Lewis is urging Lange to seek treatment. “Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. We had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self loathing and fear. Give it up and live,” he tweeted.
Fellow comedians echoed Lewis’ sentiments. Jackie Martling has come out on the other side of addiction, now sober after struggling with alcoholism for years. He believes that if he can achieve freedom from the clasp of addiction, Lange can too. “coming up to 18 years [sober] in May. in early 2001 I’d have laughed at the idea of not drinking for 18 *days.* Art, I know you know the laughs are just as hearty on this side. I love you and am of course 100% in your very crowded corner,” he tweeted following Lewis’ plea.
Maurice LaMarche is yet another comic to join in an effort to save Lange’s life. He too experimented with drugs and alcohol in the past and changed his ways before it was too late. Now, he hopes to convince Lange that even at 51-years-old, it is not too late to turn things around and change his life for the better. “C’mon, Artie. Join us. You can do it,” he pleaded on Twitter.
