Kill the Snakes
Vol. 2, Issue 26
I ’ve discovered I possess many of the characteristics I despise in other people. The most glaring ones are entitlement and an outsized ego, which is surprising because I considered myself supremely self-aware for most of my adult life. "Humble" is another word that was never a good fit for me. I'm learning how to be humble but am still a few years away from Pema Chodron territory.
Last week we had a run of new subscribers and when that happens my ego gets all gassed up and I think I need to write the best email newsletter in the history of newsletters or else everybody's gonna bail on it. So I spent the weekend writing a spiraling 4,000-word essay on my resentment of Esquire magazine that I'd plotted for a couple years. Anger is one emotion left from my not-sober life that can still crater me. But it also makes me feel extremely turned on–alive!–and is a wonderful escape route I can bask in for a few hours. One of the ways I quickly access it is by playing a tape of old resentments in my head, and this weekend it resulted in an exacting, vengeance-minded screed. The essay quickly became counterproductive and self-pitying, though, and that's no fun. I wanted blood in my mouth but I felt rancid and weak. Where did my resentment go?
****
Here's the background: In August of 2016 I had lunch with an Esquire writer who wanted to do a profile on me. The request came soon after Hogan’s lawyers had put a $115 million lien on my bank account. The magazine wanted to do a tick-tock story of what my miserable existence was really like. I was in the process of exiting my rented condo in Singer Island, Fla, where I had been doing outpatient rehab, to move to Los Angeles to be with Julieanne and take a low-level job at a magazine. I had also recently reset my sobriety date so I was back to counting days, and as much as I craved some sort of favorable coverage (and attention) at that point, I knew I wasn’t ready to participate. I explained to the writer all of this, plus that I was newly sober and struggling with some recently discovered sexual abuse trauma. Although I was used to getting dragged through the news – "A.J. Daulerio to Peter Thiel: Do you want my rice cooker and dishes?”– I didn't think I was quite ready for the splashy men's magazine treatment just yet.
My life may have appeared in disarray, but I sensed it was about to turn around. I was excited to begin a new life with Julieanne, excited to be away from Florida for what I hoped would be forever. All these details only made the writer more interested and he continued to push–he wanted to cover all of it to “humanize” me–and he’d really like me to participate.
I caved and we officially began the story in September. He followed me down to Singer Island to watch me move out of my shitty rental condo I'd called home since May. We talked most of the weekend and performed all the scene-setting details to provide the story great and gusty pathos. We had dinner at an Outback Steakhouse. The next day we watched the Eagles season opener at–gasp!–a bar with my parents. Sitting on my dilapidated front porch, he studied me as I chain-smoked and bitched. He recorded all of our conversations on his iPhone and scribbled down details on a pad like a guy who’s done a million of these magazine profiles before. He asked me questions clearly meant to find some granular expository details–what kind of books are you reading? Who's that a picture of on your socks?–and then he left that Sunday and I flew out Monday, and we were set to reconvene in my new home in Los Angeles for follow-ups.
Instead he called me a couple days later with bad news–he'd lost all the recorded material and could we just pick up some of it over the phone? He had notes, though, scribbly little notes. I should have just said “I’m no longer comfortable with the way this is going,” but if I backed out how would I ever be redeemed?
I can now admit that the true motivation for my participation in it was self-serving: maybe someone important will read it and feel bad for me and give me an editing job again.
I was determined to make that happen so I endured all the probing personal questions–"tell me about what you remember about your trauma" or "tell me how much cocaine were you using." All were activating, and his approach wasn't very sensitive to that. I worried this story wasn’t going to be about anything positive, just a past tense rehash of the person I used to be so Esquire could figure out if Gawker really got what it deserved, but I ignored those suspicions. It couldn't be worse than anything I went through already.
****
In October of that year, Julieanne got pregnant. It was a happy surprise. I told the writer about it, that it was something we were both looking forward to. Also, Julieanne had agreed to talk with him finally.
I didn’t hear anything from him for a while, up until a little later in November. He was wrapping up the story and just needed to hammer out some more details. But he said he had enough–from my friends, from my former boss, from his own research–and there were only a few loose ends to tie up. It was set to drop in early January. I had no idea what would be in it since it seemed like we hadn't addressed anything new.
Once it landed online in early January, the little amount of traction I’d gained post-trial fell out from under me. I was humiliated by the story–more so than I was even every single day during the trial's relentless coverage. It’s not necessary to get into every little nitpicking detail, but what bothered me most was what was left out: My move to LA. My job. Julieanne. The baby on the way. All of my new happiness I’d acquired was just erased.
And that’s how I felt: completely erased. The story time-warped me back to Singer Island and just left me there, broke and pathetic, waiting for the retrial that would never come. The resentment I had against the writer and the magazine became as big as a snake. And it grew more once movie producers began inquiring about the rights to the story–the rights to MY story–because in the deep spins of another karmic payback all I wanted was someone else to blame for how I felt.
My hopes of a quick and dirty redemption backfired; all I got was more grief. Instead of taking responsibility and accepting my own giant ego as the cause of my pain, I decided it was better to just carry this steaming resentment around with me forever. One day: I will let the world know how terrible this magazine is. One day: I will relaunch Gawker and obliterate every single men's mag. One day.
In the meantime, I stopped and started many angry little Medium essays, but backing off before I published them. I'm not proud of this. But what else could I do? How else could I ever stop feeling so invisible?
****
One of the best pieces of sober advice that I ever received was from my friend John soon after that story dropped. He’s also in recovery and he was one of the first people I spoke with after it was published. He read it. He knew why I was upset about it. But he also wouldn't let me tunnel too far and he reassured me of one thing:
“This is not your story.”
I didn’t fully grasp the gravity of that statement at the time or how transformative it could be. This wasn't my story–it was the magazine's. It's okay to be upset about it, but it's not okay to continue to let it upset me every single day of my life. That story isn't about a real person anymore, perhaps it never was. And what’s even less real are the stories I tell myself–all those negative thoughts inflamed by so much anger and sadness. But when my turbulent past lifts me right off the ground it feels very real.
It's not, though. It's just imaginary wind.
****
I forced myself to re-read the Esquire story again this weekend. I needed to remember everything that made me angry about it all over again just one more time. Then about halfway through it, I stopped. I felt nothing. The words on the page were not about me anymore. They were just jumbled letters and fancy fonts. Ironically enough the headline was "A.J. Daulerio Is Ready To Tell His (Whole) Gawker Story" but that wasn't even remotely true. I decided it was officially time to let this one go and stop waiting for some official retraction of the story (that will never happen). And I've discovered that the best way to get rid of resentments is through patience and time along with making a conscientious decision to not be upset by whatever it is again–old co-workers, old high school bullies, exes who treated you badly, the President of the United States–and be vigilant about it. It's the same tools we use to stay sober: a consistent commitment to a necessary change. Put them in the God Box, close it up, and walk away. One day there will be another story to tell, but today, this snake is finally dead.
This week we have one of my favorite pieces on The Small Bow: a comic by Edith Zimmerman called "How To Make Your Own Bed," which is nice way to stabilize some of these long days.
How to Make Your Own Bed
By Edith Zimmerman
Magical Draw-er
Illustrations by Edith Zimmerman
