Fitness and Theatre Helped Me Recover From Meth/Sex Addiction

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 2

It was warm, almost hot. Mid-June temps danced around 80 degrees. Yellowing grass crunched beneath my sneakers. The public park had been so green the summer before for our A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today, it was suffering under a drought as we rehearsed Much Ado About Nothing.

We weren’t suffering yet, working in loose fitting t-shirts, tank tops, shorts and sundresses. Suffering would start when we opened in a week. We had our production, with its themes of brother against brother, set in the days following the Civil War. Soon we would be spending every Wednesday and Sunday afternoon in full period garb: women in corsets and Gone with the Wind dresses, men in full wool Union and Confederate uniforms, while the grass-scorching temps reached mid 90s and beyond.

Thankfully, we still had a week and, for the moment, could work without losing our body weight in sweat.

We were rehearsing Act 4 Scene 1: Hero and Claudio’s wedding. I, Claudio, had been tricked into believing I’d witnessed Hero being unfaithful, and I meant to humiliate her at the altar.

As we walked the wedding procession, I played with the idea that Claudio would be trying to play it cool, not wanting to give away his plan to humiliate his unsuspecting bride, while at the same time struggling to keep the tempest of anger swirling around inside him in check.

Even though we weren’t required to be fully memorized yet, I decided to give the scene a go off-book. My hand itched to be holding the script even though I’d drilled the lines all morning.

CLAUDIO Stand thee by, friar. — Father, by your leave, Will you with free and unconstrainèd soul Give me this maid, your daughter?

LEONATO As freely, son, as God did give her me.

CLAUDIO And what have I to give you back whose worth May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

My Anger — Claudio’s anger — began to bubble over, my voice dripping with poisonous irony as I called the unfaithful Hero “rich” and “precious.”

PRINCE Nothing, unless you render her again.

CLAUDIO Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. —

I spun Hero around and — with a safe stage shove — threw her down at her father’s feet.

There, Leonato, take her back again. Give not this rotten orange to your friend. She’s but the sign and semblance of her honor. Behold how like a maid she blushes here! Would you not swear, All you that see her, that she were a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none. She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

For the first time, I felt what it was to be carried by Shakespeare’s words, his rhythm, his meter. As Claudio, I knew who I was, where I was, and what I was trying to achieve. The rest was simply committing to the text, trusting its inherent power and momentum, which just like a well written song, will carry you provided you don’t fight it.

I didn’t have to reach very far to connect to the anger I needed to infuse Claudio. I have never been an outwardly angry person. However, with all the trauma I had put myself through chasing the slam for the previous two years, anger was right there under the surface. I only needed to dip my toe in that emotional torrent and the rest was just saying the lines and trusting the text.

My humiliation of Hero nearly complete, I went in for the kill, exposing Claudio’s irrevocably broken heart.

O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been If half thy outward graces had been placed About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart! But fare thee well, most foul, most fair. Farewell, Thou pure impiety and impious purity. For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it more be gracious.

With that, I made a hard pivot step, and marched out of the scene, nearly to the other side of the park.

I returned after the rest of the scene played out and we all shook off our characters and dropped back into ourselves.

The director walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. Turning to everyone, he said, “John has just set the bar. Now I need you all to match it.”

Springfield Rep’s second season, for me, was one big confirmation I had made the right choice in getting clean — one big confirmation made up of several satisfying roles. I played the love-tortured Claudio, sang the love-sick Charlie in Brigadoon (where my Scottish accent was… an attempt), played a passionate Spaniard in Florence in Business of Passion, an original show written by Dexter (where, again, the accent was more of a general European), and danced a tango in She Loves Me (no accent required).

I hadn’t given up on my dreams and, hallelujah, my dreams hadn’t given up on me.

I’d been clean for about five months, the longest I had gone without using meth since my first hit two years earlier.

Two years.

In the span of a lifetime, two years is a blip.

Yet, in those two years, an entire lifetime.

I’d love to say I went to Illinois that summer to rebuild friendships, to regain trust. I had come out to Laura, Dexter, and Jason about my drug use…again. I admitted to lying to all of them for over a year about my drug use, claiming to be clean when I was anything but. I should have been carrying a steamer trunk of shame on my back that summer, but I wasn’t.

I took their friendships for granted. I was ignorant to any concerns they had. I simply trusted that they would be there, no matter what. My only concern was the work in front of me.

My recovery was as selfish an endeavor as using had been. I didn’t spare a thought for what I had put my friends through. My focus was on the next rehearsal, the next performance, the next show.

I was there to do a job.

I’d done my job last summer, rough as it was.

I’d done my job with the Christmas show.

Now, I’d done my job with the second season which, having been months clean, was a fuck ton easier, even with a much fuller plate.

I even picked up some good habits for a change!

One big thing I missed from being high on meth was how it gave me an overwhelmingly positive body image. Regardless of how wrecked or grotesque I was, how strung out and rail thin. In the mirror, I saw an Adonis.

I missed that. I wanted that back.

One morning, before rehearsals, I had some time to kill, so I went for a jog. Not very far, practically around the block. Then, a couple days later, I went for another jog.

After a week I started doing crunches. Soon after I added some push ups. Then tricep dips off a chair. Whenever I felt I could do more — jog a little farther, do one more set, add one more exercise — I did more. By the end of the summer I had a basic fitness routine.

I’ve been interested in bodybuilding since I was a kid. I ogled the bodybuilders choked with muscle on the cover of Muscle and Fitness and other magazines. I flipped through the pages reading about their workout routines. I showed so much interest, my parents bought me a weight bench and I made my own little home gym.

Problem was, as a hyperactive, I needed instant gratification to hold my interest in anything. I had neither the patience nor the focus to commit to a day to day, week to week, year to year process to achieve the kind of physique I was seeing in the magazines (nevermind about the kind of “enhancements” needed to reach such monstrous size).

Over the summer, I received plenty of instant gratification. Other actors commented on my chest looking bigger, my arms being more defined. The costume designer even said my legs were thicker.

Seeing myself in the mirror everyday, I was unable to see the minute changes. I added maybe all of five pounds of muscle, putting me at about 145 pounds. But with all the compliments, I started wearing tighter t-shirts and peacocking around a bit.

There was a vanity about it, no doubt, but I also had something to prove. I was erasing the memory of the pale, syphilitic mess whose hair was falling out. I was actively bettering myself. With every jog, with every push up, with every successful performance, it was as if I was saying — to my friends but even more so to myself — “Look at me. Look at how I’m improving myself. Look how much better I am. I’m going to be ok.”

I didn’t arrive in Illinois with the focus of rebuilding friendships and rebuilding trust, but by the end of the summer, I’d done just that. Or at least I had begun doing just that.

I didn’t spare a thought trying to convince my friends I was better.

I was showing them I was better.

As it would turn out, my newfound investment into fitness was rather prescient.

Two days after closing Springfield Rep’s season, I arrived at the dinner theater in Ohio ready to play Simon Zealot in Jesus Christ Superstar.

At our first rehearsal, I had taken over the role of Jesus!

I’ll tell you what, when it comes to committing to a fitness routine, few things are as motivating as spending half a show on stage in nothing but a loincloth.

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