NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Local muralist Tyler Vantucci recently declared himself “New Jersey sober,” a lifestyle he describes as “totally clean, except for found cigarettes, expired kombucha, and the occasional free-range ketamine bump,” confirmed sources.
“I’m not, like, ‘rehab sober,’” said Vantucci while lighting a half-smoked Newport he found outside a Shell station. “I’m spiritually sober. If I didn’t pay for it and it came from the earth—or the sidewalk—it doesn’t count. Out West it’s green juice and ayahuasca in a yurt. Out here it’s ripping menthol butts you found in a puddle while blasting A Day to Remember in your headphones. This is East Coast healing. I’m not numbing myself anymore. I’m present. When I smoke a cigarette off the ground, I feel it in my spirit. Also in my lungs. But that’s part of the journey.”
Roommate Madison Reyes says she now avoids using the word “sober” around him altogether.
“He keeps calling it ‘urban foraging,’ like he’s some kind of nicotine raccoon with a self-help podcast,” Reyes said. “Last week he told my mom he was clean, then pulled a Parliament out of his shoe and said it ‘found him.’ I don’t even know what that means. Not only that but another friend of mine just said he was ‘Long Island sober,’ which evidently means they only smoke cigarettes they’ve bummed off of someone else. I just can’t keep up.”
Caleb Torres, a sober recovery mentor with eight years clean, says he once tried to help Vantucci, but quickly realized they had “fundamentally incompatible definitions of sobriety.”
“He told me he’s working Step Six-and-a-Half, which apparently involves smoking a roach he found in a glove compartment and then gratitude journaling about it,” said Torres. “I invited him to a meeting and he said he couldn’t come because he was scared he would ‘absorb the microplastics in the folding chairs through his ass.’ I got sober after OD’ing behind a Taco Bell. I’m not here to gatekeep. But if your sobriety includes street mushrooms and car-seat cigarettes, maybe don’t call that healing.’”
At press time, Vantucci was spotted leading a sunset “detox ceremony” behind a Jiffy Lube, passing around a crystal pipe filled with what he claimed was “naturally sourced resin.”