The Other Great Depression: How I'm Overcoming, on a Daily Basis, at Least a Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Finding a Spiritual (Sometimes) Life

Richard Lewis is one of the most gifted and successful comedians in America and one of those most respected by his peers. The Chicago Tribune has called him "the most audacious wordsmith since Lenny Bruce". But at the age of 44, at the height of his success, Lewis found himself on a gurney in the ER, toxic with alcohol and hallucinating from excess drug use. The same neuroses and dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and that had generated so much wonderful material for comedy, had, it seemed, turned on him.How he got to that point, how he got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis are the subjects of this very funny, deeply honest, inspiring but unsentimental book. With the same fearlessness, wild energy, and coruscating humor that have defined his talent as a comedian, Lewis recreates scenes from his childhood and of his Hollywood escapades; imagines what Jackie Mason, Woody Allen, and Rodney Dangerfield might say on the subject of whether he should commit suicide; shares the gory details of his secret obsessions with food and women; holds forth on the difficulties of being a man and of having satisfying relationships; and talks about what it's like to be a "recovering lunatic" who occasionally, finally, feels like a human being.