Answer Addiction

Tag: rock stars & sobriety

  • Ryan Adams Celebrates Sober Milestone

    Ryan Adams Celebrates Sober Milestone

    Rocker Ryan Adams took to Twitter to announce that he’s been sober for two months.

    Singer Ryan Adams, who was once married to actress Mandy Moore, celebrated 60 days sober on December 27. In a tweet, he expressed his appreciation for his situation.

    “2018: you brought me to my knees,” he wrote on his Twitter post. “It turns out that’s where I needed to be: in prayer for everyone here or lost. In these trying times, God bless everyone struggling or on the path to empathy, kindness and recovery.”

    Adams also attached a photo showing off his 60-day sobriety token.

    He topped off his post with well wishes: “Keep the Faith. & may the Faith keep you.  XO.”

    The good news comes a few months after some Twitter drama with Moore. The actress tweeted that she married the wrong person when she married Adams in 2009, staying with him for six years before divorcing in 2015. Things got ugly when Adams replied.

    “She didn’t like the Melvins or BladeRunner. Doomed from the start … If only I could remember the start lol,” Adams wrote in a tweet on October 10th.

    A few days later, Adams woke up to the fact that participating in the drama wasn’t cool and issued a public apology.

    “I apologize for my remarks. I was trying to be funny. But I have and will always choose to remember the amazing moments. It isn’t classy or ok lessen what was,” he wrote apologetically. “I am happy for everyone and doing my best.”

    Later, on Thanksgiving, the tone of Adams’ tweets were more supportive, full of words of encouragements for those who may be going through the same thing he was.

    “Today I am thankful for my sobriety, my friends & for the program & all the Jedi passing along wisdom,” he wrote. “I know people are struggling & alone on the holidays. But you are NOT ALONE. Everyday is a new opportunity to grow, to reach for the light. Keep the faith. You are loved. XO.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Slipknot’s Corey Taylor On Addiction: I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Now

    Slipknot’s Corey Taylor On Addiction: I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Now

    Taylor reveals that it’s only been within the past year that he’s finally become a fan of who he is.

    Slipknot’s Corey Taylor says there’s a lot about his own recovery and his new attitude towards it on his band’s new album and their Halloween single, “All Out Life.”

    Taylor has spoken openly about his struggles with depression and having been the target of child abuse, and his coming to terms with the darkness he’s struggled with having changed his perspective not only on his life, but how he sees himself as well.

    “I’m looking to the world through clearer eyes,” Taylor said on Beats1. “I’m also just starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces of my chapters that I’ve had to relinquish and let go of. I’ve said, ‘Look, if it wasn’t for all these dark things happening to me, I wouldn’t be the guy I am right now.’”

    He says he’s also realizing his priorities have changed.

    “This has made me deal with the fact that I am an addict. It’s made me deal with the fact that I’m in my 40s, I’ve got kids, and I need to take care of them. I’m dealing with all of these crazy things in my life that make me ‘me,’ and yet I should be embracing the fact that I’m alive,” he revealed. “I should be embracing the fact that I’m a father, I should be embracing the fact that I’m in two great bands.”

    Taylor has in the past stood up to take on the role of a sober role model.

    “It’s stronger to be that badass—to be the guy who sees it all, remembers it all, feels it all, and, at the end of the night, doesn’t need that quote-unquote party, you know. Because it’s hard in this industry; people are made to feel like they don’t belong, because they’re not a part of that. And it’s a shame,” he said in a past interview.

    He’s lost a friend to the industry before—fellow Slipknot bass player Paul Gray in 2010. Gray died of a drug overdose caused by morphine and fentanyl.

    It’s only recently that Taylor’s been able to forgive and learn to love himself.

    “I was never a huge Corey Taylor fan, until maybe the last year or so,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘What? There’s a lot about me that’s really, really cool. I’ve luckily had a lot of great people around me to encourage that and go, ‘We’ve been saying that for years.’”

    Slipknot’s newest album should be out next year, and the band is scheduled to headline Download Festival 2019. Their new single, “All Out Life,” debuted on Halloween.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik Reflects On Getting Sober

    Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik Reflects On Getting Sober

    The “Iris” singer has been sober since 2014. 

    The Goo Goo Dolls, the multi-platinum rock group best known for hits like “Iris” and “Name,” are still going strong both on the road and off. And lead singer John Rzeznik is living the family life he had never previously imagined before he got sober.

    Rzeznik recently reflected on his hard upbringing and journey to sobriety to Buffalo News. The singer grew up in Buffalo, New York with a “pretty serious drinker” for a father.

    “I have no idea how he survived as long as he did.” Rzeznik recalled his relationship with his father as “distant… That’s the mark of an alcoholic—the distance. It’s a very lonely disease. It’s a disease of loneliness.”

    As Rzeznik told the Press of Atlantic City in 2016, “I was wearing my father’s clothes. My father was a brutal alcoholic, just crazy. I thought that was my destiny as well. I finally got slapped in the head hard enough to go get help.”

    Rzeznik lost both his parents in the early ’80s, leaving him on his own when he was 16. He took refuge in music, but he was still trying to deal with serious mental and emotional demons.

    “I had no idea what was going on inside my head,” he recalled. “I didn’t understand it, that what I was feeling was depression, and it was very, very hard.”

    On November 16, 2014, Rzeznik had a meltdown in New York, and drank himself into a blackout. When he came to, he called his manager and said, “I’m not doing anything for the next three months. I’ve got to take care of this, because I’m going to die.”

    Rzeznik then checked into rehab for three months, and adds, “I wish I could have stayed for six months. I went to a very serious place, where they don’t do yoga and massage. They concentrate on triangulating treatment, where it’s like therapy and 12 step and some spiritual work.”

    Rzeznik now has a sobriety calendar on his phone, and as of September 10, he racked up 3.81 years, 45.79 months, 1,395 days, and 33,467 hours sober to his credit.

    Rzeznik’s wife Melina confessed that she was thinking of leaving him before he went into rehab. Once he hit his one-year sober milestone, they started a family and had a daughter, Lili, who was born in December 2016.

    Today the singer says, “I’m paraphrasing someone else, but kids turn you into the person that you should have been the whole time.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Korn's Jonathan Davis Talks Addiction: "Benzos Are The Devil"

    Korn's Jonathan Davis Talks Addiction: "Benzos Are The Devil"

    “I’ve dealt with anxiety for a long-ass time. I got prescribed Xanax, benzodiazepine, a long time ago. Benzos are the f—ing devil. They’re horrible drugs.”

    Jonathan Davis, the frontman of the metal band Korn, puts his struggles with drugs and anxiety front and center in a song on his debut solo album, Black Labyrinth.

    In a new interview with Forbes, he spoke frankly about how attempting to treat his anxiety with drugs like Xanax led him to a dark place.

    “I’ve dealt with anxiety for a long-ass time. I got prescribed Xanax, benzodiazepine, a long time ago. Benzos are the f—ing devil. They’re horrible drugs,” he explained. “They feel good at the moment and are a quick fix to get you out of a panic attack, but they’re not designed to be taken long-term—especially Xanax.”

    His song on the album, “Medicate,” is about kicking the benzo dependency he developed.

    “I started taking it for anxiety. I’d take a piece in the morning and a piece at night, then go to bed. You start to build up a resistance,” he recounted. “Two years later and I was trying to kick it. The song is about me dealing with common regrets, that I need this pill to be happy or stay sane.”

    Getting off it was difficult—and dangerous.

    “I started off taking 0.25 milligrams of it, and eventually I got up to 2 milligrams, that’s one bar a day. And eventually I got up to two bars a day later down the road,” he told Forbes. “But the first time I kicked it, I was doing a bar a day, and I slowly weaned down. Which, you cannot function. And if you don’t do it correctly, if you just stop cold turkey off of it, you can go into seizures and die.”

    Nowadays, Davis is living completely sober, and getting high in a different way—sensory deprivation at the center of the Ganzfield experiment.

    “It’s a drug-free hallucination,” Davis says. “You’re staring into your subconscious. To me, it proved that there’s something different out there than what we’ve been taught about God. You see colors and shapes. It’s like you’re staring at the inside of your brain.”

    He also calms himself down with video games, music, and spending time with his children. His band seems to have caught the clean-living bug, too.

    “We just all independently faced our demons. There’s not really any drinking going on in the band anymore,” Davis explained. “It happens, every band that’s been doing it this long. Eventually you need to stop, or you’re gonna die. Everybody got through it their own way.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Guns N’ Roses Drummer: I’ve Never Been Happier Than I Am Sober

    “After, like, the ninth month of not drinking, my whole life did a 180. Everything changed. I became happy again. I love life again.”

    Steven Adler, the former drummer for Guns N’ Roses, who left the rock band because his drug use was becoming too much, says that he has never been more happy than he is living life in recovery. 

    “My health is fabulous. Actually, tomorrow I will have four years and four months of no drinking. And I haven’t done drugs since 2008. So I’ve never been happier,” Adler recently told a journalist, according to Blabbermouth. 

    While the initial period of recovery was difficult, Adler said that he began to notice positive changes in his life the longer he stayed away from drugs and alcohol. 

    “After, like, the ninth month of not drinking, my whole life did a 180,” he said. “Everything changed. I became happy again. I love life again. I enjoy the sunsets. I enjoy the sunrise. It’s beautiful.”

    Guns N’ Roses paused recording during the late ‘80s and early ’90s to give Adler a chance to get his heroin addiction under control. However, Adler wasn’t able to stay sober, so he was kicked out of the band in 1990. 

    Since he has been sober, Adler has joined the band on some tour dates, and has also started his own Guns N’ Roses tribute band. In order to keep touring with that band, Adler maintains a strict routine that helps him stay sober, he said. 

    “I wake up,” he said. “The first thing I do is I read The Four Agreements. It’s a book from Don Miguel Ruiz. [The book’s mantra is] be impeccable with your word; don’t take things personal; don’t make assumptions; and always do your best—no more no less,” Adler said. 

    “I read a little of that, I have my decaf tea, I go on the treadmill and I do a little jogging to stay in shape, and then I practice. It’s all mind, body and soul. So I read the book for my mind, I do the treadmill for my body, and I play the drums for my soul. And then the rest of the time, I sit round and watch Family Guy with my dogs.”

    Adler’s mother, Deanna Adler, recently spoke about watching her son struggle for so many years. 

    “[It] was very hard to see my son hurt like that and have a disease like that, because I’ve never drank or smoked or done drugs—I’m just a normal person,” she said. “But to see your son in such pain like that and knowing that you can’t do anything—I thought I could do something to help him, but in reality you can’t.”

    View the original article at thefix.com