I don't think I need to tell you the last thing I want is to keep a story like this going. But what do you do when they call you and tell you they're running the story whether you participate or not "and it'll be worse for you if you don't participate?" What do you do when they say they're going with an unidentified source who's telling them something untrue and damaging with no one on the record refuting it? You're in a tough spot. [August 3, 2001]A tough spot, indeed. While it may be utterly commonplace, it's still a lousy way to be a journalist. Let's hope that that is not how Mr. Cieply got this particular interview. I imagine that when Sorkin looks back on the 2000-2001 season, he will remember it as a "wonderful, terrible year" for many reasons. The season started off with The West Wing collecting a truckload of hardware at the Emmys: nine awards. The show's ratings continued to climb, exacting a pretty good chunk of change for NBC. The season roared along toward a compelling, widely discussed finale. All should have been well for Sorkin, frequently described as "television's golden boy." But about a month before the season finale aired, Sorkin was busted at Burbank Airport on his way to Las Vegas. The trip was a gift from his wife, Julia, as a reward for finishing the season, and he was supposed to spend one night at the Bellagio to enjoy a rare opportunity to relax. Sorkin says in this article that he and Julia had already made the decision to separate before the drug bust, and indicates that they continue to have a very amicable relationship, with Sorkin visiting constantly to see his baby daughter Roxanne. He never got out of California, though: security staff at the airport spotted a pot pipe in his luggage as it was being scanned by the x-ray machine. Upon further inspection, they found marijuana, mushrooms, and rock cocaine. Cieply writes, "Sorkin says he grew lightheaded, as if his body knew before his mind that he was in serious trouble." Apparently his subsequently fainting did little to detract from the suspicion that he was high at the time. That was the beginning of a nightmare that will probably dog him for some time. On top of the ensuing bad publicity for Sorkin and the series, writers on the show were involved in contract negotiations that were getting ugly; Cieply summarizes that "contractually promised third-year raises and promotions for staff were not delivered because, Sorkin says, the show's production costs were too high and its unconventional structure, in which he writes all the scripts himself, didn't justify such high salaries for the other writers." There seem to be plenty of opinions on this whole writers' brouhaha, no shortage of which were expressed in MBTV's forums throughout the summer. Sorkin himself posted about the matter here, as did at least one writer for The West Wing, Rick Cleveland. Cieply manages to misapprehend this aspect of the matter thoroughly, writing, "Sorkin was put in the unseemly position of adopting a pseudonym to defend himself in an online chat room frequented by fans of the show." Huh? Number one: nobody put Sorkin in any position whatsoever. As previously stated, he had already been posting for six months or so when this thing erupted. He certainly is free to post or not post remarks as he wishes. Number two: I'm not sure exactly what's so "unseemly" about the fact that about fifty million people probably use "pseudonyms" online (or as we hipster young'uns call them, "user IDs" or "handles"). Sorkin probably would have registered as "Aaron" if that name hadn't already been taken by one of our esteemed recappers, and it's only a minority of people who use their real full names in posting on bulletin boards and Usenet anyway. Using a "pseudonym" does not in any way single him out as doing something "unseemly." ["PSA: for a whole raft of reasons, everyone should use pseudonyms online. Kids, play safe!" -- Wing Chun] Number three: there's a big difference between an "online chat room" and a "discussion forum," which is what MBTV offers. Five minutes of research online would have provided Cieply with much of this information. What Sorkin was doing was making use of a public forum he was already completely accustomed to using. Anyway, this very public conversation caught the eyes of various writers for print and the web, generating more bad publicity. The contractual fighting was widely discussed, as was Sorkin's failure to thank certain people when various awards were bestowed upon him. Sorkin and Cleveland more or less publicly kissed and made up, but not before a lot of negative press was created. Sorkin takes the lion's share of the blame: "It's been a summer of bad publicity for the show, and it's almost entirely my fault." While a lot of this controversy was swirling around, four of The West Wing's lead actors (Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, and Bradley Whitford) were involved in their own salary negotiations, which were going poorly enough that the four did not attend the table reading of the Season Three premiere script. It was sorted out in relatively short order with pay increases for all four, but not before yet more bad press attended the show. In addition to all of this, this is the year Sorkin marked his fortieth birthday, as well as undergoing back surgery in June. Having gone through quite a lot myself since last summer, I feel most of the time that I have had a hell of year, but my God, it's really nothing compared to what Sorkin's gone through. Cieply elicits a more detailed version of events surrounding the bust than has previously been made public. Sorkin says he took the drugs with him as a way to celebrate: "If you use drugs long enough you forget how to celebrate without them." It was not, however, an isolated incident, a single slip-up: "It wasn't the first time, but it wasn't the fifth time, either," referring to his use of rock cocaine. Sorkin also told Cieply that until the bust, he occasionally smoked pot. This much his wife seems to have been aware of, but how much she knew of his use of cocaine is undisclosed. She does say, "I am totally convinced that the number of times since [going through the rehab program at] Hazelden that Aaron has smoked cocaine is very few, because I know it's completely incapacitating." She adds, "No way could he [smoke cocaine] on a regular basis and maintain the work schedule he has." Pretty well everyone connected to The West Wing has attested to the demanding, Herculean task of making such a high-quality show. As the creator and primary writer for the show, there's more than enough resting on Sorkin's shoulders; add to that the stress and compulsions of being a workaholic, and then add to that an extreme fear of failure. As he told Fast Company for their April 2001 issue, "For whatever reason, I desperately need the approval, week after week, of 17 million complete strangers," and that the "worst kind of failure is writing a bad script." This is a lot to deal with on a daily basis. It must be even more to deal with if you happen to be in recovery. Sorkin says that using cocaine was a very irregular thing since his rehabilitation in the mid-'90s, and says that he did not use it to write, but only to "celebrate," likening it to having that "one potato chip." But I wonder if perhaps The West Wing producer John Wells might not be on to something in his assessment of Sorkin. Quoting Wells, Cieply writes, "...as last season drew to a close Sorkin 'was upset when there wasn't anything to write. [Writing] alleviates the pressure for him,' and the terror of indolence drove him to try a one-time drug binge." Elsewhere, Cieply says that Sorkin never used cocaine to write, just "in the spaces between bouts of work." It may be that Sorkin uses his prodigious talent to keep busy, to stay true to his recovery, and to try to keep the monkey off his back. It's far from the worst coping strategy around, but any coping strategy that depends on doing something manically or exclusively (whether it's yoga or writing or praying) ultimately seems to backfire. A strategy that depends on some sort of extreme imbalance to correct other extreme or imbalanced behaviour seems, to me, to be doomed to failure. If Wells is right, for Sorkin, it must feel like the minute the creative pressure's off...then the pressure is really on. The article goes into some detail about Sorkin's early background and how he got into using drugs (he was introduced to them by "friends," a word I always find ironic when it comes to people offering ways for people to destroy themselves). It discusses his slide into uglier and more self-destructive behaviour as his substance use festered; Cieply describes how friends, including Rob Reiner (director of The American President) and a business affairs lawyer named Julia Bingham, whom Sorkin later married, convinced him to go to rehab. We get some details of his recovery process; Sorkin indicates that he has been "largely faithful to the recovering addict's drill," attending recovery meetings regularly. Thankfully, Sorkin also says that he is not a victim of one of my least favourite myths about creativity: that you need to use drugs to create or make art; that you need them to, as Cieply puts it, "find an edge that won't always come naturally." I truly hope that he was being straightforward with the interviewer about this. Too many artists -- even greater talents than Sorkin -- have fallen prey to this most insidious misconception, destroying themselves and their art in the process, depriving their loved ones of themselves and the world of their gifts. There are too many and they are too famous even to bother naming here. And it can't be easy, in a town like Hollywood -- which is rife with creative people abusing various substances and others struggling with recovery -- to stay on the sunny side of the street. Cieply quotes one unnamed but well-known writer-producer as saying, "Every show I ran, I ran loaded. Most people had no idea." In contrast, Sorkin insists that there's "no way [he] could be writing high and not have people know." Cieply says that Sorkin was contrite and apologetic to everyone connected with The West Wing when the news of his arrest broke, truly sorry for the embarrassment and bad press his action brought on. All reported public and private statements made it clear that he felt he had done something stupid. From all accounts, it seems that most everyone in his life was quite supportive of Sorkin, but one friend was prepared to go above and beyond the call. Martin Sheen apparently took a fairly fatherly approach to Sorkin (whose problems, like Sheen's son Charlie's, must have seemed painfully familiar); Sorkin says that Martin told him, "You matter to me more than this show does. I will leave this show and help you, if that's what it takes." I'm sure everyone hopes it wouldn't have to come to that; I also hope that if it did, Sorkin would ask Sheen (and anyone else) for the help he needed. Much as I love this show, I don't care about it more than I care about whether people destroy themselves. It's reassuring to know that there are people close to Sorkin who feel the same way. As if I didn't already have enough reasons to admire Martin Sheen.... There can be no more screwups, no slips, no errors of judgment, no more potato chips, not one: Sorkin is subject to random urine tests and required to attend frequent and numerous recovery meetings. If he runs afoul of his probation it's likely (but due to recent legal changes in California, not certain) that he will go to jail. Sorkin claims, "This has been such a public nightmare for me, there's no possibility that I would mess with this or take any chances." He adds, "I realized after a week or so that I'm really no longer going to be the guy wrote A Few Good Men. I'm going to be the guy who got into drug trouble." He alludes to the possibility that this season's scripts are going to include themes that have recently made such a great impression in him, particularly what happens when members of the media decide to take you around back and kick the crap out of you. Now, this would almost certainly have figured largely in the upcoming story lines, given that Sorkin has been building the plot surrounding President Bartlet's concealment of a degenerative illness since long before the arrest, but it seems a reasonable assumption that there's going to be some real energy propelling that particular aspect of the scripts. Cieply concludes the article with a statement from Sorkin on what he's learned from this whole mess: "Keep your eye on the ball and do really good work. The rest of it goes away." Yes, but...workaholism is its own trap. It can't solve our problems. I doubt that extreme behaviour can bring peace or balance to anyone (and I'm as guilty as anyone of making that error). I don't know if Aaron Sorkin will ever read this. On the chance he does, I'd like to say a couple of things. Even though I am also a writer, I am aware that I don't have anywhere near the responsibility or expectations that he has in his position. And while I'm not quite as prolific as he is, I too put in eighty- and ninety-hour work weeks (and sometimes more). I look for ways to support my workaholism. I find excuses to drive myself harder. I think that this can be unhealthy at times, and I struggle with it. I certainly don't pretend to understand exactly what he's going through; but I want to say something supportive here without sounding all maudlin (or worse, preachy). And if I fail...well, we'll all just have to live with it. Cieply quotes Tommy Schlamme as saying that he wants to convince Sorkin that "[he's] more than what [he] write[s]." I can't echo this strongly enough: we are more than what we write. We are all more than what we do. And if we can be willing to accept that we are not our successes, that can help us to recognize that we are also not our failures. Mr. Sorkin, you're enormously gifted. I believe you can find healthy, sustainable ways to stay straight and write and deal with the times when the gyrating stops and there's nothing demanding to be written.
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Since there is little else of interest in the September 2001 issue of Talk magazine, let me confine my comments to Michael Cieply's article. Tastefully titled "The Crack-Up," it features a large, brooding photo of writer Aaron Sorkin who "reluctantly" submitted to an interview as a result of pressure from his agent and press representative. I suppose they felt he should try to clear the air and try to buff up his tarnished reputation. Or perhaps, as Sorkin pointed out on Mighty Big TV's discussion forums (where he has been posting comments since late January of this year, using the handle "Benjamin"), it was a matter of feeling more or less blackmailed: