by Steven Adler
ZERO HOUR
Like any good cop, Jamie knew when he needed backup. So on March 19, Jamie, Slash, and a near legendary interventionist, Steve Levy, all met at Burbank Airport and took the two twenty afternoon flight to Vegas. He even had a limo waiting to pick them up when they landed. They all piled in and motored over to the Las Vegas Country Club, where I was now permanently hiding out in my Fortress of Solitude.
Mom had driven over to meet them all in my front yard because she had to see it with her own eyes. She was proud of Jamie and she greeted Slash like a son. She has loved Slash for over twenty-five years and wanted to thank him personally for making the effort.
That’s my mom. She is always the first to say thanks and the last to get thanks for everything she’s done. But as I write these words, I’m so mad at her that I get all knotted up just thinking about it. Right now I hate the fucking bitch. I am furious with the way she’s treated me, but that’s another chapter—maybe a whole other book.
So after all the lovey-dovey, Jamie told Mom to clear out because he didn’t want her near the place when they broke out the heavy artillery and the ugliest of intervention shit started flying. Mom understood this and went back to her condo a few blocks away. Jamie used Mom’s key to get into my place and told Slash and Levy to chill in the living room while he went upstairs to fetch me.
Jamie headed straight up to the bedroom because he knew that was where I was kicking it 99 percent of the time. The drug den: my permanent place of worship. It was so funny because Jamie came in and immediately started choking because the air was thick with the smoke I’d been laying down nonstop for like the last fifteen hours: thick rancid smoke from cigarettes, rug burns, bongs, joints, crack pipes, and more cigarettes. And there wasn’t one open window for ventilation or sunlight, just the digital glow from my flat-screen and the dozen or so lighters I had on the bed and nightstand.
Jamie was shocked when he first caught sight of me because, surprise, I already looked like a corpse, and you can’t save a corpse. I had lost another twenty pounds or so and was down to about a hundred fifteen pounds, which meant I was now lighter than half the chicks I ever fucked. Now, I was just fucking myself.
Jamie threw up his best poker face, then smiled and told me that he was in town to take Mom out to dinner, something I knew he did every month or so. He said he wanted to swing by my place first to say hi and in fact had some friends downstairs with a bag of kick-ass weed. I was out of my bed like a shot, rubbing my palms together in anticipation as we bolted down the steps together.
I flopped on the couch and flashed my best rock star smile. Tasty weeeed time. I said hello to the other two guys and then did a double take. Holy shit. Slash! What the fuck was he doing here? Any lingering suspicions or paranoia I may have felt at the time were wiped out by the sight of my brother from another mother sitting there casually smiling at me.
Slash leaned across and gave me a big long hug. When we plopped back down I caught a quick glance of his face all scrunched up like a flummoxed Kermit. I felt a rush of blood to my face. A quick pit check confirmed my worst fears: I hadn’t washed in days and must have smelled like the worst combination of stale smoke and rank ass. I felt horrible about that.
As my head cleared a bit from the rush of seeing Slash, my humiliation was quickly supplanted by a growing rage. Wait a minute . . . I realized what my fuck-ass bro was pulling off, or trying to pull off, and the resentment began to build. But I was determined to keep a step ahead of these bastards who had invaded my sanctuary. Before Jamie could begin to conduct the meeting, I started in with some conduct of my own. Bad conduct.
I had some things to say, and I knew that in order to do it, I would have to keep my anger in check, at least until I had vented. So I talked about everything that Slash had done to abandon me and how he never questioned Axl or stood up to Axl for a moment. He never defended me, Steven, the guy who had given him his first guitar. Slash had crashed at my house and eaten my food and basked in my family’s unconditional love, and how did he thank me? He thanked me by sticking it to me again and again.
So for the first half hour or so, Slash and the boys just nodded and listened. My voice started to get kind of shrill at the end, and I have to give them a lot of credit for just sitting there and taking it. I’m not sure I would have. I think I’d have grabbed the nearest ice pick and gone to work.
Then it was time for the boys to fire back, and they remained pretty damn emotionless. I have to hand it to them; they were really focused on their little Rambo mission. They wasted no time with their reason for being there. They wanted me to check myself into Eric Clapton’s rehab center in the Caribbean. They had cashed in a lot of favors to get me in there. Jamie said he’d help me pack, because we had to be on a plane that night. Tickets had been bought. Plans had been made. Commitments were to be met.
Steve Levy started to say something that sounded very relevant and very interesting, but I couldn’t sit there another minute. I raised my hand like a schoolkid requesting he be excused. My nerves were snapping, and I felt light-headed. I know I should have felt the love, but as I got up to go to the bathroom I booted all over the place for like fifteen minutes. It was too much; I think I was in shock. It was like I had to hug Slash to be sure he was real. But even that didn’t give me any kind of lasting joy. I just wanted to slip upstairs to my bedroom, get under the sheets, and wait for everyone to just leave.
Particularly Slash; I wished he would please just go. This was the first time in over fifteen years that Slash was in my home, and I couldn’t wait for him to leave. The drugs have just screwed me up for good. I don’t react to situations the way any sane person should.
I came out of the bathroom and poured out my soul. I told everyone how grateful I was and how this all meant so much to me—that I definitely wanted to check myself into rehab. They hadn’t come a moment too soon to save my sorry ass. Thank you. Thank you!
Everyone eyed me like, “Okay, but we know you, Adler. What’s the fucking catch?” The truth was that there wasn’t any catch. I think that at that moment, I honestly wanted to go. Or at least some part of me wanted to go. But after waiting around for me to finish packing for over three hours, Slash and Levy said they had to get back to L.A. They had families, and unlike me, they had lives. They had dropped everything to come out to my house and show me the love, but it was time for them to head home. They grabbed a cab and took off.
The sad fact was, after the initial rush of seeing Slash, all I could think about was my drug connection coming by my house soon. Like always, I just needed to get high one more time before going to the airport. I had successfully dragged my feet long enough to make sure there was no way we were going to make the flight that night. But my goddamn brother must have figured out why I was stalling and that some dealer would soon be making a house call.
Now, there was no way Jamie was going to solo with me overnight and get me on that flight the next day. I was way too slippery for that and he knew it. So he jumped on the phone and started pulling strings. Next thing I know a security guard is rolling up my driveway. This guy gets out of the car, and he’s bigger than Texas. I figured he’d have Jamie’s back for the duration, and the two of them would hold down the fort overnight and thwart any attempt by me to sneak my drug runners past the gate.
Plus, Texas was packing heat. This was one intimidating prick, but I could see that at the core of things, he was a big teddy bear inside. You just couldn’t risk getting on his bad side. Jamie introduced him as Troy and told him I was fucked up, filthy dirty, with festering abscesses all over my body and numerous infections of varying severity.
Jamie said this right in front of me and I could see he didn’t care, because at this point, he was becoming livid. Jamie knew I had lost all interest in everything but my next high. So there was to be no more patience, no more understanding; there was only “the Mission,” and it was going down with or without my cooperation.
BACKFIRE
&nb
sp; How did Jamie know about the abscesses covering my stomach? Earlier, when Jamie complained that I was stalling, I told him that painful sores on my gut were making me move slowly. I figured it was a convenient excuse I could use to take longer to pack and miss the flight Jamie had booked to Clapton’s rehab. Unfortunately Jamie called Mom about the abscesses and found out I also had a blood infection that had recently threatened to travel to my left eye socket. This had been diagnosed a few weeks earlier and luckily the doctors were able to kill the infection. My eye would be fine but I was supposed to have stayed in the hospital for another week so the doctors could thoroughly clean out my blood.
Fuck that. I bolted after three days. One of the nurses came in while I was putting on my shoes. She was completely stunned but managed to ask me what I thought I was doing. I told her I was a hopeless drug addict who had to go home to get loaded, but then I’d be right back. I finished lacing up my shoes and shot out the door. Of course I never went back to the hospital. My mom told Jamie the doctors hadn’t had enough time to finish the treatment and that it was possible I could relapse.
After Jamie introduced me to Troy, I did what I always do when confronted with someone who can get between me and my drugs; I turned on the charm. Within minutes, Troy and I were hitting it off like old war buddies. My plan was to get Troy to drop his guard, have a few beers, and watch some TV while I snuck out to the driveway to meet with my delivery boy. But Troy was no fool; he wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and the pain in my gut from the abscesses was really starting to act up.
As I came off my high, the pain level went from ten to twenty and I started complaining. I didn’t want Jamie to freak any more than he already was, so I told him the pain was just from me tripping into my closet door while packing. Jamie gave me a look like “Oh, puh-lease,” and I knew that my number was up.
Troy lifted up my shirt before I could protest and confirmed everyone’s worst suspicions. The abscesses had worsened, considerably. There was one open abscess on my stomach the size of a ripe plum, and it needed tending to. Pronto. Too many dirty needles had been stuck into my belly, and now it was payback time.
After seeing this and speaking with Mom, Jamie concocted a plan he knew I’d be helpless to resist. He told me about a friend of his and the house party he was presently throwing. This friend had a phat pad just minutes away, a steamer trunk full of painkillers, and the best weed this side of Negril.
HOUSE CALLS
I groaned as we headed over to the house party. The pain was coming in waves, hard and fast. I’m no stranger to messing myself up, but this time the discomfort level was spiking off the charts. How do I get into these situations? Why is there always someone around who loves me more than I hate me? Why do they give a shit? Why can’t they just let me croak? And when did I start sounding like a whiny little bitch?
Troy and Jamie half carried me into the party house, the main part of an amazing compound ringed with smaller guesthouses, a pool, and a sizable fence. This dude had the sickest house ever, video games, sharks in a massive tank, personal chef, sound studio, pool table, 120-inch flat-screen, the works. Plus Jamie wasn’t kidding; this guy had the best weed ever.
I was practically drooling on myself as I was introduced to the play kingdom. The host took me over to the shark tank and I watched him feed the baby sharks. I was loving every minute of it. Then Jamie had the host check out my wretched gut, and before I could clamp my hands over my stomach, this guy took a peek. The situation was serious, but no worries, my host knew an Asian MD in Vegas who made house calls.
Soon, I was completely caught up in video games, and the weed had helped dull the ache some. At midnight, Dr. Feelgood showed up toting two briefcases. He took one look at me and asked me to lay down faceup on the sofa. He removed my shirt and began poking around. He told me I had several advanced-stage abscesses that needed immediate lancing and irrigation. Before I could respond, he asked Jamie and company to hold me down. That’s when I got nervous and told him I was fine. Could we please let this wait until tomorrow? Jamie couldn’t help but laugh, and the only thing more ridiculous than my request was the fact that I had let the sores get so bad in the first place.
The doctor numbed up my stomach and then started slicing and dicing. The incisions released the poisons, which shot out like little geysers. I started squirming like a baby and Jamie told me to chill; this was the sickest shit he’d ever seen.
This was definitely a new high for lows. He said this beat the infection I had on my arm that had also needed irrigation. The crap that shot out smelled awful, and I noticed that everyone but Jamie and the doc had left the living room. The doc must have shot me up pretty good with painkiller, because I no longer needed anyone to hold me down.
He told Jamie to keep me quiet and still and gave me something to help me sleep. I didn’t feel grateful, or relieved, or lucky. My last thought was a wish: I wanted them all to disappear so I could call my dealer and get fucked up.
My condition forced Jamie to put the Clapton rehab strategy on indefinite hold. It took me weeks to get better, and I did nothing to help the situation. Plus I got more and more frustrated. I just wanted to keep partying, but the dividends were becoming smaller and smaller.
WHEN HIGHER IS LOWER
While healing up I felt like all the fun had gone out of using. Maybe I was just doing junk to avoid the torture of getting off the shit. I feared that worse than anything. It’s such a bitch when your body starts screaming that it wants more now! You pump more drugs into yourself, but the high is barely there. They call it “chasing the dragon”; they ought to just call it “chasing the drag.”
I got so depressed and fed up with the hopeless hole I’d dug for myself. This must have been one of the all-time lows for me, because I ended up slashing my arms pretty badly. I don’t remember doing it, I just remember Jamie’s being there to bandage me up and call the hospital. It was horrifying when I tried to recall my state of mind before I did something that might have ended my existence. Even though the wounds weren’t mortal, I wondered if I had chickened out or just fucked up.
Now, I knew Jamie was bracing for my refusing medical attention, so I just cashed out by telling him I would willingly check myself in if he’d buy me a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Jamie was only too happy to oblige, although he knew I would change my tune as soon as I walked into the ER. He humored me anyway, going along with my Krispy Kreme strategy.
As soon as I had inhaled those shiny sugar bombs, I was having second thoughts. But by then it was too late. He had already told the doctors that I had attempted to take my life (when was I not doing that?). Their policy mandated that they keep me for seventy-two hours of round-the-clock observation.
So there I was, furious but stuck. I planned to sneak out, but they put me in restraints. For three days I went through the most hellish withdrawal, squirming and sweating, my body wracked by a nonstop assault of the worst cramps and chills, the most heinous nausea, and the overall sense that I was going to die.
Fuck that. I wanted to die. Please let me die.
SHAKE IT UP
Jamie showed up on the morning of the day they had to release me. He smiled, having told me he would have my “reward” for going through hell. He handed me a milk shake. What balls. But my bro knows me too well and even though I wanted to whip it at his face, I needed to chug it down even more. It turned out to be the tastiest shake I’d ever drunk, a frosty, thick vanilla frappé from heaven. At that point my body must have been craving anything sweet, because it actually helped settle me down.
Before I knew it, I was waking up in a car, and it was nighttime. “Where the hell am I?” Troy was driving, and he just said that he was taking me home and I should go back to sleep. We would be pulling up to the house pretty soon. For some reason his suggestion to go back to sleep seemed like the most perfectly natural thing to do, so I closed my eyes, and I was instantly out.
The next time I woke up, we were still in the car. What the
fuck? I was immediately suspicious, but by then it was too late. Troy and Jamie had tricked me, and we were in North Hollywood. That frappé must have been laced with enough tranquilizer to stop a charging rhino. Fuckers knew that the only way they could keep an eye on me was to enlist a squadron of Jamie’s friends to help, and they all lived in L.A., not Vegas.
As we rolled up to the house, I knew I was in for some total hell time, because trying to kick what I was on without medical supervision is not only the most painful way to deal with withdrawal, but it is a guaranteed recipe for failure. It can be very dangerous too, because if it’s done too abruptly, it can bring on severe shock. I couldn’t blame Jamie and Troy though, because deep down, I knew that I hadn’t given them any other choice.
Later, I wondered whether the way they had gotten me to L.A. could be viewed as a federal offense. I have no evidence, however, no way of proving that they had deceived me, kidnapped me, and taken me across state lines against my will. Besides, they were trying to help me, and what’s done is done.
HELL HOUSE II
The first Hell House, at Santa Monica Boulevard and Poinsettia, was the place GNR partied. Now, I was at a totally different kind of Hell House. They were actually trying to wean me off of crack by cutting down my dosages, going from a $100 to $50 to $20 worth of rock a day. I spent the next month or so high (but never high enough) on crack.
Then, when I was near weeping, a complete mess primed for a total breakdown, they would slip me another awesome milk shake that was a spiked concoction that kept me in a haze while I was being shuttled from houses in Hollywood to apartments in Van Nuys. About the only good thing that happened during this time was that the abscesses on my stomach healed up nicely. Other than that, I was the most miserable human on earth.
UGLIEST SHOWDOWN
Finally I remember Jamie, Slash, and a few other friends who had been a part of this endless, grueling 24/7 ordeal sat me down and asked me how I thought I was doing. They patted me on the back and hugged me. They said they cared about me. Each had earned the right to be in that room, because each had made personal sacrifices to help me. They had all contributed significantly to the latest epic chapter of “Save the Asshole.”