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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Warning:
Ozzy Osbourne is not a qualified medical professional
Caution Is Advised
Seriously, Caution Is Advised
Disclaimer
Some names and personal details in this book have been changed for privacy reasons, and most questions have been edited.
Facts in the pull-out boxes and quiz sections were supplied by Dr. Ozzy’s research department (he’s called Chris), as Dr. Ozzy’s memory of events between 1968 and the present are not entirely reliable.
This book should not be relied upon for medical purposes.
Important Safety Information
Do not use DR. OZZY if you suffer from medical conditions, ailments, or other health concerns, as this may cause sudden and unsafe death or death-like symptoms. Discuss your mental health with a qualified psychiatrist if you’re considering using DR. OZZY. In the rare event that use of DR. OZZY results in the growth of winged testicles, seek immediate medical help, or fly to your nearest hospital. If you are under the age of 18 or an extraterrestrial lifeform, you should not use DR. OZZY. Trials have shown that a low dose of DR. OZZY is no safer than a high dose of DR. OZZY. Even trace amounts of DR. OZZY, which may be undetectable to the human eye, can result in serious damage to wildlife. If you suspect the presence of DR. OZZY, inform government agencies immediately and remain indoors. Use of DR. OZZY is legally prohibited in many territories and may be considered a felony in the United States. If accidental use of DR. OZZY should occur, wash the affected area immediately. DR. OZZY should not be taken with other self-help products, as confusion and bleeding could arise. Users of DR. OZZY have reported instances of cranial detonation, self-amputation, and madness. It is not possible to determine whether these events were directly related to DR. OZZY or to other factors. DR. OZZY does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, ingrowing toenails, and bovine spongiform encephalitis. The most frequently observed side-effects of DR. OZZY include hysteria and indigestion. Less commonly, leprosy may occur. Also, in clinical studies of DR. OZZY, a small number of men experienced certain sexual side-effects, such as penis detachment and ocular ejaculation. These occurred in less than 99.9% of men and went away in those who stopped using DR. OZZY because of other, more serious side-effects, such as prolonged agony and screaming.
DR. OZZY’S MEDICINE CABINET
Essential Items for All Patients
Description: Use(s):
Black Stuff, Greasy (From Dad’s Shed) Acne/Blemishes
Brandy (4 Bottles) Hangover
Brick (1) Various
Cocaine, Eighties-Vintage (Bag Of)* Athlete’s Foot
Dynamite (2 Sticks)* Constipation
Chicken (1, Alive) Hangover (Severe)
Football (1, Leather) Diagnostics
Lemon (1) Common Cold
Sewing Kit (Stolen From Sister) Surgery
Shotgun (Semi-Automatic)* As Above
Pool Cue (1) Diagnostics
Stink Bombs (Novelty Pack Of) Indigestion (Severe)
Warm Vegetable Fat (Tub Of) Earache
Whiskey (2 Bottles) Anything
*Might not be legal where you live
The Doctor Is In… sane
Introduction
A Note to All Patients
If someone had told me a few years ago that I’d end up writing a book of advice, I’d have punched them in the nose for taking the piss. I mean, unless the advice is how to end up dead or in jail, I’m not exactly qualified. I’m Ozzy Osbourne, not Oprah fucking Winfrey.
But here I am: “Dr. Ozzy,” as people call me now. And to be totally honest with you—I love this new gig.
I suppose it all started just before my last world tour, when a bloke from The Sunday Magazine in London came over to my house and asked if I wanted to be their new “health and relationship” columnist. When I’d finished spitting out tea over my Yorkshire terrier, I asked him, “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” He said yeah, they were sure. If I wanted the job, the guy added, readers would write in with their problems—everything from stubbed toes to tearaway kids and fall-outs with the in-laws—and I’d give my answers. I wouldn’t even have to put pen to paper: someone would call me up every week so I could dictate my words of wisdom over the telephone.
“Look—are you absolutely 100 per cent sure you’ve got the right person?” I asked him again.
He just smiled.
The funny thing is, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense in a crazy way. I mean, by all accounts I’m a medical miracle. It’s all very well going on a bender for a couple of weeks, but mine went on for the best part of 40 years. At one point I was knocking back four bottles of cognac a day, blacking out, coming to again, and carrying on. Meanwhile, during the filming of The Osbournes, I was shoving 42 different types of prescription medication down my neck every single day. Each one of those drugs had about twenty or thirty different side-effects, so at any time, there were about a thousand things wrong with me just thanks to the pills. And that was before the dope I was smoking in my “safe” room, away from the cameras; or the crates of beer I was putting away; or the speed I was doing before my daily jogs around Beverly Hills. I also used to get through cigars like they were cigarettes. I’d smoke ’em in bed. “Do you mind?” I’d ask Sharon, as I lit up a Cuban the size of the Red October. “Please, go ahead” she’d say—before whacking me with a copy of Vanity Fair.
Of course, I’ve also taken a few… well, not-exactly-legal things in my time. There are probably rats in U.S. Army labs who’ve seen fewer chemicals than I have. What’s amazing is, none of that dodgy shit ever killed me. On the other hand, maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise, given all the other things I’ve also survived: like being hit by a plane (it crashed into my tour bus when I was asleep with Sharon in the back); or getting a false-positive HIV test (it turned out that my immune system was knocked out by booze and cocaine); or a suspected rabies infection (after eating a bat); or being told that I had Parkinson’s disease (it was actually a rare genetic tremor). I was even put in the loony bin for a while. “Do you masturbate, Mr Osbourne?” was the first thing the guy in the white coat asked me. “I’m here for my head, not my dick!” I told him.
Oh, and yeah, I’ve been dead twice: it happened (so I’m told) while I was in chemically induced coma after I broke my neck in a quad bike accident. I’ve got more metal screws in me now than an IKEA flatpack—all thanks to the amazing doctors and nurses at the NHS.
I always used to say that when I die, I should donate my body to the Natural History Museum. But since accepting the job as Dr. Ozzy—which snowballed into a gig at Rolling Stone, too—I don’t have to any more, ’cos a bunch of scientists from Harvard University offered to take sample of my DNA and map out my entire “human genome.” “What d’you wanna do that for?” I asked them. “To find out why you’re still alive,” they said. Thanks to them, I now know for sure that I’m a “genetic anomaly”—or at least that’s what they told a room full of mega-brains at TEDMED, a medical conference in San Diego, California, when they announced the results in 2010 (see chapter 7).
The fact that I’m still alive ain’t the only reason why I decided to become Dr. Ozzy, though. I’ve also seen literally hundreds of doctors and shrinks over my lifetime—and I’ve spent well over a million dollars on them, which is fucking ridiculous—to the point where I’m convinced that I know more about being a doctor than some doctors do. And it’s not just ’cos of the insane lifestyle I’ve led. I’m also a terrible hypochondriac. I’ll catch a disease off the telly, me. Being ill is like a hobby. I’ve even started to diagnose my own diseases with the help of th
e Internet (or I should say my assistant Tony, who does all the technical stuff, ’cos I ain’t exactly Stephen fuckHawking when it comes to using a computer).
Of course, the question I always get is, “If you’re such a hypochondriac, Ozzy, how could you have taken all those drugs over the years?” But the thing is, when you have an addictive personality like mine, you never think anything bad’s gonna happen. It’s like, “Oh, well, I didn’t do as much as so-and-so: I didn’t drink as much as him, didn’t do as much coke, etcetera, etcetera…” Now, that might be fine in theory, but in my case, the “so-and-so” was usually a certified lunatic like John Bonham. Or, even worse, Mel Gibson. Which meant they’d put enough up their noses to blast off into outer fucking space. Another thing I’d always tell myself was, “Oh, a doctor gave me the drugs, and he must know what he’s doing.” But that was ignoring the fact that I’d administered the stuff myself, usually at five hundred times the recommended dosage. It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t end up like Michael Jackson, or any number of other tragic rock ’n’ roll cases. In fact, my friends knew me as “Dr. Ozzy” for years before I started giving advice professionally, ’cos I was like a walking pharmacy. I remember in the 1980s, a good mate of mine came to me for help with his leg ache, so I went to get my “special suitcase,” pulled out a pill the size of a golf ball, and said, “Here, take one of these.” It was Ibuprofen, before you could buy it over-the-counter in Britain. He came back a few hours later and said, “Wow! Dr. Ozzy, you cured me!” The only problem was that I gave him enough to cure an elephant. The bloke didn’t shit or sleep for two months.
He didn’t thank me so much for that.
But it ain’t just medication I’ve given to my friends. As insane as it sounds, a lot of people have come to me for family advice. I suppose it’s ’cos they saw me raising Jack and Kelly during The Osbournes, and they think I’m like an undead Bill Cosby or something. They ask me stuff like, “How do I get my kids to have safe sex?” or “How do I talk to them about drugs?” I’m happy to help the best I can. The only trouble is, when I talked to my kids about drugs, it was, (a) “Where’s your stash?” and (b) “Can I have some please?”
I’ve become a better father since then. I mean, during the worst days of my addiction, I wasn’t really a father at all, I was just another one of Sharon’s kids. But I’m a different person now: I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t get high—or least not on anything but endorphins from the jogging machine. Which means I enjoy my family more than ever: not just my five amazing kids (two of them to my first wife), but also my five grandkids. Plus, after thirty years, my marriage to Sharon is stronger than ever.
So I must be doing something right.
When you live full-time in Los Angeles, like I’ve done for the past few years, you often feel that people spend so much time trying to save their lives, they don’t live them. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all going to die, one way or another. So why kill yourself with worry?
For me, though, the decision to change my life wasn’t really about my health. It was about the fact that I wasn’t having fun any more. As I used to say, I’d put the “wreck” into recreation. I was on Ambien, Klonopin, temazapam, chloral hydrate, alcohol, Percocet, codeine—and that was just on my days off. But morphine was my favourite. I didn’t do it for very long, mind you. Sharon would find me passed out on the kitchen floor with the dog licking my forehead, and she put a stop to it. And thank God she did: I’d have kicked the bucket a long time ago otherwise. But it was tobacco that really put me over the edge. I’m a singer, that’s how I earn a living, but I’d get a sore throat, then cough my way through a pack of Marlboro full-strength, to the point where I had to cancel gigs. It was ridiculous; the stupidest fucking habit you could ever imagine. So cigarettes were the first thing I quit, and that started the ball rolling. Now I take drugs only for real things, like high cholesterol and heartburn.
I can understand—sort of—if people think it’s more rock ’n’ roll to die young. But what really winds me up is when you hear, “Oh, my great-aunt Nelly smoked eighty cigarettes a day and drank sixteen pints of Guinness before going to bed every night, and she lived until she was 103.” I mean, yeah, that happens. My own gran lived until she was 99. But the odds ain’t exactly on your side. Especially not when you get to the age of 62, like me.
Another thing that puts a bee up my arse: people who never get check-ups, and never go to the doctor, even when they’re half-dead. It ain’t macho—it’s fucking pathetic. I had my prostate checked just the other week, for example, ’cos I’m on a three-year plan for prostate and colon tests. I couldn’t believe how many of my male friends said to me, “Your prostate? What’s that?” I was like, “Look, women get breast cancer, and blokes get cancer of the prostate.” One guy even asked me, “Where is it?” I told him, “Up your arse,” and he went, “So how do they check that then?” I said to him, “How do you think they check it? It starts with a rubber glove and ends with your voice rising ten octaves.”
My prostate guy here in California says that every man over the age of 50 will develop some kind of prostate problem as they get older, but only half will get tested. And yet nowadays you can cure prostate cancer, no problem at all, if you get to it early enough. It’s the same with colon cancer. Don’t get me wrong: I’m the first to admit that the preparation for the colon cancer test ain’t exactly glamorous. They give you this horrendous liquid to drink, then you have to crap through the eye of a needle until your backside is so clean, if you open your mouth, you can see daylight at the other end. But it’s only ’cos I got tested for colon cancer that my wife did the same—and her test came back positive. Thanks to that, they caught the cancer in time, and she’s alive today. That’s a huge deal. So when I first became Dr. Ozzy, my first message was: “Don’t be ignorant!” To men, in particular, I wanted to say: I don’t think a doctor’s never put his finger up a bloke’s ass before. They do it every day, so get over yourself. Besides, what would you rather have, a strange man’s finger up your arse on a Monday morning—or the sound of a pine box being nailed shut over your head?
Having said that, every case is different—which I realized very quickly when I became Dr. Ozzy. For example, after reassuring my readers that they had to nothing to fear from dropping their trousers in front of their GP, I got an e-mail from a guy called Geoff in London.
He wrote:
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
After hurting my rear-end end while squatting down to tile a floor, I asked my GP to take a look at it. He ummed-and-ahh’ed for a while, then sent me off to a local teaching hospital, where a very excited specialist said he need to perform an examination. After giving me one of those back-to-front robes to wear, he lay me down on a slab on my side, and proceeded to round up some 20 junior doctors, who then took turns to file past my exposed behind, scribbling notes and snapping photographs as they went. Their verdict after that what seemed like ten lifetimes? I had a rare “perianal haematoma”… which would go away by itself.
All I can say is: sorry, Geoff. If it’s any consolation, I once mooned a crowd of about half a million people at a gig, so you certainly don’t hold the world record for having the largest number of people gazing up your asshole at any particular time. That one belongs to me.
To be honest with you, I can still hardly believe the stuff people write to me about. One guy asked if he should cut down on his cocaine use—’cos he’d just found out that he had high cholesterol. Another time, a girl in America—she was 22—asked if it was okay to sleep with her mum’s (younger) boyfriend, or if that would make things weird at family get-togethers. I mean, what’s wrong with these people? And as you’ll see when you read on, that ain’t even the half of it. Sometimes even Dr. Ozzy is lost for words.
When it comes to routine stuff, though, I pretty much always know the right answers. That’s the thing about being a worrier, especially a worrier who’s a hypochondriac: you end up investigating every last ache and twinge, so
over time, all these random facts end up sticking in your head. If only I could remember lyrics so easily.
I wasn’t always a such hypochondriac, mind you. When I was growing up in Aston, for example, our family GP was a guy called Dr. Rosenfield, and I’d do anything to get out of an appointment with him—mainly ’cos his receptionist was a woman with a full-on beard. I ain’t kidding you: a big, black, bushy beard. It freaked me out. She was like Captain Pugwash in a frock. And Dr. Rosenfield’s office was so gloomy, you felt worse coming out of that place than you did when you went in. As for Dr. Rosenfield himself, he wasn’t really a bad guy, but he wasn’t exactly a comforting figure, either. I remember falling out of a tree one time when I was stealing apples: I hit a branch on the way down, and my eye swelled up like a big black balloon. When I got home my old man smacked me around the ear before sending me off to get my injury looked at—then Dr. Rosenfield smacked me around the ear, too. I couldn’t believe it.
I rarely got any kind of proper medical care in those days. If one of the six Osbourne kids had an earache, they’d get a spoonful of hot vegetable fat down their earhole. That was the done thing. And my gran would give us milk and mutton fat for bronchitis. As for my father, he had this tin in his shed, I don’t know what it was, some kind of black greasy stuff, and if you got a boil on your neck he’d go, “I’ll get rid of that for yer, son, heh-heh-heh,” and he’d slap it on there, and you’d be like, “NOT THE BLACK TIN! NOOO!” But that’s all my folks could afford. Shelling out on zit cream from the chemist wasn’t gonna happen when they could barely afford to get food on the table.
My father was one of those people who’d never see a doctor. He’d never take a take off work at the factory, either. He’d have to have been literally missing a limb to call in sick—even then, he’d probably just hop into the factory, like nothing had happened. I don’t think he got a single check-up, right up until the end of his life—and by that time, he was riddled with cancer. His prostate gave up first, though. I don’t know why he’d avoided doctors—it was all free on the NHS—but it made me think the opposite way. My logic is, if I go to the doctor now, and there’s something wrong with me, they’ll catch it, and I’ll get to live another day. Don’t get me wrong: I ain’t afraid of dying. Although it would be good to know where it’s gonna happen, so I could avoid going there….
Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy Page 1