Jamie Hess recounts her experience working as a publicist in New York City throughout her 20s, describing how the nightlife/hospitality PR scene (champagne, drugs, parties) made it easy to lose herself and impaired her sobriety efforts. She cites working for major nightclubs including Crowbar and reflects on identity struggles tied to being part of the nightlife world.
Chapters
Well, I was a publicist for my whole 20s, and I was born to be a PR girl, but I was always fighting against myself because especially in New York City, it's like champagne and cocaine and models and bottles, and that's just what it is. It was a very easy job for me to lose myself in. I was doing a lot of nightclub and hospitality hotels, you know, PR for those types of places. I was out all the time. You felt like you had to be out doing drugs in the bathroom with the writers from Page Six, because that's, like, how you got further in your career. It was very hard to get sober in that environment. For a couple years, I was actually the publicist for Crowbar, which is the biggest nightclub in New York, Chicago, Miami, Liter in the belly of the beast. And I think this happens to a lot of addicts. You get your whole identity wrapped up in that without the, am I even me anymore? Because am I even a publicist? Am I even cool? Am I even part of New York nightlife?