Cut from a 2015 book project—I hope!

.... but after high school, at Juliard, he went in for composition and for a while, he was an emerging musical composer in the world of modern dance, but then his lifelong penchant for addictive substances took over and he became a drug addict before netting out at drunk.

            There are certain people who do not want to heal. People who need access to the specific briny beauty that the world affords you when you’re high; the transcendental high notes, the paludal lows. There are lots of performing artists with substance abuse problems, but the really successful ones have teams of people who check the automatic payment box on their cellphone bills for them, who schedule their hotel wake-up calls, who buy them airplane tickets and drive them to the planes.

            Or they play in a band and survive on a system of checks and balances with the other members of the group. With some exceptions, the severly drug addled are not playing Rachmoninov for a sold-out house in Lincoln Center. Stephan could have been a great composer, or he could have made a tolerable amount of money showing up (or sleeping through) gigs in hotel bars, but for him, it was the prestige of the concert pianist, or it was nothing else.