Answer Addiction

Tag: Ringo Starr

  • Ringo Starr Speaks On Peace, Love & Sobriety

    Ringo Starr Speaks On Peace, Love & Sobriety

    The former Beatle reflects on seeking peace and love in the world and how sobriety has helped that journey.

    Musician Ringo Starr, formerly a member of the legendary Beatles, always uses July 7th, his birthday, to share a message of peace and love to the world. In an interview with Parade, Starr revealed that sobriety helped him get to where he is today.

    This year, Starr turned 79. He carried out his traditional birthday ritual of asking everyone to say or think the words “peace and love” at noon on July 7th at Capitol Records in Los Angeles, a place where his former band once called home.

    Celebrating 30 Years of Sobriety

    He’s also celebrating a few other milestones this year. Starr has now played his All Starr Band tours for 30 years now, a musical outing in which he plays alongside other music legends like Santana, Toto, and Men at Work. He’s also celebrating 30 years sober, which is no coincidence.

    “There is an absolute connection. [When] I got sober, I had all this time and more energy,” Starr explained in the interview.

    He recounted what it was like prior to getting sober.

    “I just couldn’t really move without alcohol. And without drugs. I was not a purist in any way! So in the end, I said to Barbara [Bach, his actress wife of 38 years], ‘You’ve got to get us into one of those [rehab] places,’” he remembered. “I didn’t know where they were. But she called some friends of ours in LA who knew, and I went to Arizona, where I found myself with 88 mad people in this place.”

    But despite how he may have felt about the company he kept in rehab, he can’t say it didn’t help him.

    “Well, it’s working today. That’s all I have. But it makes life so much easier,” Starr said.

    He also shared his secret for staying spry and healthy at 79: meditation, a vegetarian diet, and exercise.

    “I get up in the morning and I meditate. I go to the gym and I have a trainer, and I work out myself too, when I’m on the road,” he revealed. “I’m a vegetarian. When we’re on tour, to get out of the hotel, I usually go to the local organic shop just to see what they’ve got. But I’m only a vegetarian, not a vegan. I eat goat cheese. A vegan is very hard, and they eat a lot of sugar. I’m careful about sugar.”

    A Haze Of Drugs & Alcohol

    But things weren’t good for a long time for Starr, who admitted he spent two decades in an alcoholic haze following the breakup of the Beatles.

    “Now along the way I got lost in a haze of alcohol and drugs,” he told Rolling Stone in a 2011 interview. “But thank God I’m still here, coming out of it now a day at a rime (sic). And now I’m feeling like those days (the Sixties) again. I loved that movement, and now I sort of feel like I’m back in it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ringo Starr And Joe Walsh Discuss Long-Term Recovery, Becoming Sober

    Ringo Starr And Joe Walsh Discuss Long-Term Recovery, Becoming Sober

    The rock star brothers-in-law got candid about addiction, recovery, and Tom Petty in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

    Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh are not only rock legends, but they have also both been in recovery for many years. Now they are both speaking about their journeys to sobriety, and how they helped each other get there.

    Eagles guitarist Walsh received a humanitarian award for his work in the recovery community at the 74th annual gala for Facing Addiction with NCADD last October. His friend and former Beatles drummer, Starr, presented him with the award.

    When Walsh went to rehab in 1995, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever play guitar again. Eventually, Starr brought him back to music and became a sober buddy. (Starr is also Walsh’s brother-in-law.)

    “I got sober because of a fellowship of men and women who were sober alcoholics,” Walsh told Rolling Stone. “After a couple years, I talked about [my sobriety] with other alcoholics and tried to help them. The only person who can get somebody else sober is somebody who’s been there and done that. I realized that I do more good showing people that there’s life after addiction.”

    When Starr got sober, he put together Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, which included Walsh on guitar. Starr, too, was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to play once he got sober.

    “I thought I don’t know how you do anything if you’re not drunk,” he said. “I couldn’t play sober, but I also couldn’t play as a drunk. So when I did end up in this rehab, it was like a light went on and said you’re a musician, you play good.”

    Rolling Stone asked Walsh about the opioid crisis, given that a lot of musicians his age have been taking painkillers to deal with the rigors of performing.

    “I don’t think America’s aware of how bad it is out there,” Walsh replied. “I’m talking about addiction across the board. Opiate addiction, it’s killing young kids by the hundreds—by the thousands.

    “The problem is if you hurt physically, you can get prescription pills for that,” Walsh continued. “The problem is that after that pain is gone, whatever substance you used very subtly convinces you that you can’t do anything without it and then you have to deal with that. And people don’t know that.”

    Starr then reflected on a fellow musician who succumbed to opioid abuse, Tom Petty, who died in 2017 at the age of 66.

    “The discussion is very difficult, because we did as much as anybody did and we’re still here and we’re sober… I don’t know why Tom’s gone and I’m here. It’s unanswerable.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr Take Stage At Recovery Gala

    Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr Take Stage At Recovery Gala

    “My higher power became vodka and cocaine. Nobody wanted to work with me…I turned into this godless, hateful thing,” Walsh said in his speech.

    Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and his wife Marjorie were honored this month for their work in advancing the cause of addiction recovery.

    The rock ’n’ roll couple, whose recovery advocacy spans more than 20 years, were presented with the Adele C. Smithers Humanitarian Award by friend and former Beatle Ringo Starr at the 74th annual gala for Facing Addiction with NCADD on Oct. 8.

    “I was one of those really nice pass out/black-out drunks,” Ringo Starr said before presenting the award, next to his wife Barbara Bach Starkey. “I came to one night, out of a black-out the next day, and I’d done a lot of damage. I was about to lose the love of my life, Barbara, and everything else.” That’s when Starr finally got help.

    While receiving the award, Marjorie Bach Walsh, who is Barbara’s sister, addressed her own recovery. “My son who is here this evening, and who does incredible work for addiction, had suffered for a long time before this woman got sober. And for that, Christian, I am beyond sorry. My life is a living amends to you,” she said.

    Joe Walsh has been sober for 25 years. As a kid growing up in the 1950s, he felt different, and thus isolated, from other children. “In my late teenage years I tried to play guitar in front of some people and I couldn’t do it. I hyperventilated. I started shaking. I started crying.”

    But after a “couple of beers” he was able to play. “That planted the seed. I thought alcohol was a winner.” This gave him the courage to make music, and early on he attributed his success to alcohol.

    “My higher power became vodka and cocaine.” But his substance use reached a tipping point. “I burned all the bridges. Nobody wanted to work with me. I was angry… I turned into this godless, hateful thing.”

    He turned to Alcoholics Anonymous, where he met some old-timers. “Gradually they showed me that I’m not a unique individual, one-of-a-kind person. I’m just an alcoholic, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was somewhere where I belonged.”

    “I don’t know why I’m alive. I should not be alive. I hadn’t planned on living this long, I don’t know what to do,” Walsh said to laughter.

    “I decided to drop my anonymity because most of the world knew I was a mess anyway, and go public, and speak out and try and help other alcoholics because that’s what we do.”

    View the original article at thefix.com