by Bobby DeVito
After having seen nearly everything in my life turn to crap in a couple of years was unsettling, to say the least. I had lost my gig with Sherman, lost two wives, lost my record deal, and lost a great deal of selfconfidence. I began to drink with an intensity that I had never known. In the past, I would have 4 or 5 beers in an evening over the course of a four hour gig. I did indeed get really drunk occasionally back then, but it was not a nightly occurrence. At the Joyce, I started really drinking to excess. I had carte blanche to drink as much as I wanted, and even began to bartend on my off nights to make extra money and drink more. Richard was very forgiving to me, and was concerned. He asked me one time “Bobby, are you OK, son? I have been doing the math, and you drink a keg of Guinness by yourself every ten days. It’s not the money I’m worried about, it’s your health”
I shrugged him off, and didn’t mention the countless shots of Tullamore Dew and Jamesons that had accompanied many of those pints of Guinness.
I was during this era that I started doing cocaine more regularly. I was depressed and drunk most of the time, and some stimulant action was highly welcomed. Both Curtis and my younger brother Joe were concerned about my state of mind. While Curtis and I would party together, he seemed to easily be able to put down whatever we were doing, and simply go to bed. For me, it wasn’t bedtime until everything had been smoked, drank, or snorted. I just can’t stop, and it started to become pretty evident.
There was a local street guy that basically lived in Ybor City named Bongo. He was a 60-ish light-skinned black man who did shoeshines down on the street, and occasionally would sit in and play percussion when the musicians on the strip would let him. He was always “in the know” on where to find drugs, and we all did quite a bit of partying with the eccentric percussionist. When I was doing my gigs, all I had to do was give Bongo the nod as he passed by, and he would hook me up.
I had rekindled a friendship with a hot young Irish girl I had known since she was 18 – Jen. Jen worked at the Irish pub across the street, and had been a waitress at the Oak Barrel. I had met her when I was still married to Sara, and had later flirted with her a bit over the years. Jen liked to show up after hours with her then-boyfriend Rob, who managed another nightclub down the street, The Masquerade. The Joyce was the place that most of the other bar staff liked to hang out at after hours, and we did a brisk business. Jen and Rob had come over one night, and it was my birthday party. Lots of local musicians had shown up, and they were all playing at my gig for my birthday. I loved it, as I was getting paid to sit there, drink, and listen to all of them play. It was a fun night, and most in attendance got pretty hammered. On their way out, Jen managed to stumble over to me as her boyfriend Rob headed towards the door. She grabbed me to hug me, then kissed and bit my ear, cooing “I’ve always regretted that I haven’t already fucked you silly”. Uh-huh…
While I had expressed interest from several other more suitable women in the past few months, something about Jen excited me. She was brash, sexual, and creative. She was a writer and a spoken word artist, and knew everybody in the art and music scene. She was a tall, thin woman with lightly colored strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes, and she could drink you under the table. She smoked Lucky Strikes, and lit them with an antique thrift store Zippo that she had filched from some previous boyfriend. She had the “heroin chic” look that so many fashion models desire, and had actually been approached by and agent from Ford Modeling in the past. I had been largely single after my latest debacle with Erika, save for a torrid two week fling with April, the lead singer of the band Death Rains Honey. So I lusted for Jen, but had other pressing concerns – like more drugs.
So, I kept up with my partying, and soon it became much more frequent and a lot less social. As my addiction progressed, I preferred to go do my drugs alone. And worse, I had been introduced to the crack form of cocaine by a band in Jacksonville that I had done shows with a year earlier with Sherman. When one night I couldn’t manage to find regular powder cocaine, I just drove down to “the hood” in South Tampa. My problem was, I didn’t want to stop. One of the only reasons I am alive today is that I didn’t have enough money to kill myself.
Curtis was largely unaware of how bad off I was at this time. His mother had been in the hospital for months with terminal cancer, and he had his plate pretty full. I wasn’t there to support him like a good friend should, but I couldn’t even get off the couch sometimes. I remember going to his mom’s funeral in a complete hangover, and barely being able to make it through the ceremony. It was tough times for us both, and we both suffered much of it in silence while living together.
I thought I had things under control, but they were going off the rails. One morning, I awoke to realize that I had sold my endorsement guitars the night before to buy more drugs. I was stunned – this was a serious, serious consequence for me. Having grown up always desiring to be a guitar player and being in the guitar magazines, my first endorsements really meant a lot to me. And now I had sold my own legacy for a few small pieces of cocaine. I began to cry, and fumbled through my black book. I knew of a foundation that helped musicians, and I had called them previously to help another addicted musician I knew. They were called the Musician’s Assistance Program”, or “MAP” for short. Founded by a visionary ex jazz saxophonist named Buddy Arnold, MAP has been helping musicians for years. I placed a call to the office, and was immediately put through to Terry Kirkman. Terry had previously been in San Fran pop group The Association, and had weathered his own personals storms and was now working with MAP.
“Hi, this is Terry, how ARE you?” he asked immediately.
I told him I felt like dying, that I had gone off the deep end with cocaine and alcohol, and that I had just sold my endorsement guitars for drugs. He listened to my story, and related to me that there was a way out. I knew that I had to stop living the life that I had been dancing with, or else I would die. I had managed to escape jail more than once, being caught attempting to buy drugs by the Tampa PD down in South Tampa. “I know what you’re doing down here, and YOU know what you’re doing down here, so don’t let me catch you here AGAIN!” screamed one cop at me as he let me go. Of course, an hour later I was back at it, but this time in North Tampa. Addicts are nothing but creative. Terry listened to my story, and tried to give me a positive uplift to carry me through. He looked at his schedule, and said it would take two weeks before they would have an empty slot for treatment. I was depressed at this, but knew I had to do something, and MAP was the only program I could qualify for. For the next two weeks, I stayed away from drugs and alcohol as best I could, and concocted a story for my friends and the music press that I was going on a “songwriting retreat”. It indeed DID turn into a sort of songwriting retreat, just not your typical one.
I had begun playing solo acoustic gig regularly by this point, and I didn’t want to suddenly cancel all of my gigs and draw unneeded attention. I tried to figure out a way to do this with Terry. H said something that has stuck with me – “You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time”. And I was worried needlessly, as most people who knew me already knew I was in trouble. For two weeks, I continued to do my shows and get ready for rehab…fucking rehab.
Boarding the plane for Los Angeles was a surreal experience. I had managed to stay clean and sober for the two weeks’ prior to my flight, which was a miracle at that point. Arriving at LAX, I was greeted by a private car and ushered to the Daniel Freeman Hospital in Marina del Rey. The hospital was a bright and sunny affair, with a special lockdown wing for detox and rehab. I immediately was thrust into the front office nursing station, and had all of my luggage confiscated and searched. They threw away my aftershave, my non-prescription medication, and anything at all that may have been related to drugs and alcohol, including any clothing with alcohol company logos. I was assigned to a double room, and sat down on my bed to reflect. Who had I become and what had I come to? I had fired musicians over the years for being drunks and drug addicts, and
now I was the weakest link.
The first few days were mostly a blur of activity and detox drugs. Your first week in rehab is usually a barrage of pharmaceutical activity, designed to keep one from experiencing delirium tremens or other sorts of physical withdrawal symptoms. I would watch people just go from their room to the nurse’s station, doing the “thorazine shuffle”. I had never felt so very alone, and just kept my mouth shut and watched the madness around me.
Daniel Freeman is one of the top rehab facilities in southern California. This was the facility that Kurt Cobain had jumped the fence at, and there was a photo of Stevie Nicks hanging in on of the community rooms. As I began to get to know some of the other inmates, I soon realized that I was the poorest, most unfamous person there. Ego is perhaps one of the greatest barriers to recovery, and I have always had more than my share. I became friends with a beautiful blonde Texan named Ginger, she was a former exotic dancer who was just a stellar example of why Texas has some of the prettiest women in the world. Ginger and I would cuddle together sometimes on the community room couch, as long as the “watchers” weren’t looking. She had long blonde hair that nearly reached her elbows, and she continually played with it nervously during group. She also had a body that was distracting to me, as I would drift off from the groupspeak and imagine pulling Ginger’s clothes off after group.
We were a ragtag group that month in Daniel Freeman. There was a writer from Seinfeld, a couple of minor actors, a well-known Hollywood physical trainer, a medical equipmet company heir, and of course a couple of musicians. One of them was detoxing from heroin, and he was perhaps the least social of all the inmates. He had long curly hair that was always in his face, and he spent most of the day in bed, avoiding the endless groups. After a week of detox, he was required to attend activities with the rest of us. One bright spot at the Daniel Freeman Hospital was the recreation yard. It was separated from the Mental Ward activity yard by a fence that had a nylon separator woven into it. But many of the inmates had removed small sections of this nylon material, so that we could see into the other yard, and they could see us as well. It felt somewhat apropos that here I was right next to the mental ward. It was more than likely my very next stop if this didn’t work.
The yard was the only place we were allowed to smoke, so it was the place that you would usually find everyone. I used to sit out there and play guitar for my fellow inmates. They grew fond of hearing me play solo acoustic songs, especially “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. I found it hilarious that I was playing that song for the inmates, when Stevie herself had been her for cocaine addiction. Me and Stevie, we were JUST LIKE THIS now…
One afternoon, I sat out there in the yard, and fumbled around with an old Alice in Chains song. It was “The Rooster”, and I was basically learning the chords to the tune, and humming it to myself. He of the long curly hair and silence sat a few feet away, silent as usual. I had grown used to him being around, and accepted his silence as a matter of course. His name was Mike, and he was a deathly shade of white that could have only come from long-term avoidance of the sun. He had some serious long hair, and looked like a rock and roller. There was another rocker there from a Texas band, a lead singer named Andrew, and he and I had chatted about “the biz” while the longhair looked on silently. I figured eventually he would talk when he wanted to.
As I kept fumbling with the chords to the song, the longhair simply said “that’s not the right way to play it”
I was stunned to hear him finally speak, and after getting over my surprise, I asked him “So how the hell do you know?”
“Because I helped write it”, he said simply. I had not put two and two together. Alice in Chains had been my favorite band from the Seattle grunge era, and here sat Mike Starr, bassist for the band. The heroin stories from this particular band were legendary, and it didn’t surprise me to learn that Mike was here. He had already been to over a dozen rehabs by this point, and the band was long over. Lead singer Layne Stayley had already progressed to the point that he did not leave his house, and would be found dead in his apartment in about a year. Mike had amazing long brown hair that nearly reached his waist and almost always covered up most of his face, and as he began to detox became a bit friendlier. Over the course of the next few weeks, Mike and I spent hours together, talking about the music business and all of his experiences with AIC. I had lived a rock n roll life, but it was nothing compared to some of his experiences. Mike liked to listen to me play as well, and I started to play him some of my original songs to get his feedback. Rehab is a great place for networking.
And I wasn’t ready for rehab yet, obviously. I hated the AA and NA meetings. The only time I felt moved and interested in any of those damn meetings was a family and friends meeting, where the hospital allowed family members and significant others into the meeting so they could talk to and about the inmates. It was pretty entertaining, with lots of screaming, crying, and other drama. There was a beautiful young lady there who was barely 20 years old, and she was the daughter of the owner of leading hair product company. Her father actually came to the family group, and gave a speech to all of us. He was one of the most caring, interesting people I have ever met, and he made a real impression on me. He spoke about how we could all “get back up and fight to make something great out of our lives”, and he meant it. His beautiful daughter was one of the most attractive girls I had ever seen, with long straight brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and a sunny disposition that contrasted her heroin addiction. She was an avid hot rod builder, and I was impressed with her greatly. Of course, she dug Mike. So did I! So between Mike and her, and Ginger and myself, we had a little foursome that hung around together. After the group, I made it a point to speak to her father personally and thanked him for speaking. I told him how in the 80s, The X-Statics would search at beauty salons all over the south to find his “freeze spray”, a type of hairspray that was even stronger than Aqua Net.
Rehab romance is a natural result of locking 30 strange people together during a crisis period in their lives. OF COURSE people are going to hook up, there’s no stopping it. Naturally, it was forbidden by the staff, and they were always checking up on us in our rooms. The facility was a bit overcrowded after my first two weeks, and since I was a wellbehaved inmate, I was moved to a regular private hospital room several hallways down from the rehab section. This gave me a bit more privacy, and I figured out a way to sneak Ginger the Texas blonde down the hall to my room so we could fool around. God bless Texas and Ginger. She was bubbly, blonde, and horny. I think rehab makes everyone horny. You go for months, even years completely focused on alcohol and drugs, then once you finally get detoxed and cleaned up, you start seeing things fresh again. And you realize that you have missed sex, and boy oh boy does that person sitting in group look good. The Program suggests that people in their first year of recovery should not enter into a relationship with someone. It’s good advice. But at this point in my recovery, I was not listening to reason. I was playing with Ginger’s amazing body. Several times the MAP people brought me to private AA and NA meetings at their office, which would include some of the most famous musicians you can imagine. As The Program dictates, they have to remain anonymous. “What you see hear, what you hear here, let it stay here, AMEN!”. I very much enjoyed these meetings, as I felt like I really had something in common with the people at these meetings. I have something in common with everyone at recovery meetings – I’m a fucking addict and alcoholic.
Towards the end of my stay, another cute blonde girl named Nicole had started to get my attention. She was the comic relief of our rehab group, a total LA princess who had a very rich father. Nicole, like many LA type high society people, had gotten strung out on pills. Rich people seem to think they are not using drugs if they are prescribed by a doctor. Half the people in the rehab at that time were strung out on pills, usually Vicodin. Nicole was an ethereally beautiful blonde with light brown eyes, and was a huge crybaby at our meetings. Nothing at the facil
ity was good enough for her, and she had a hard time adjusting to the fact that she was there, and that she was no better than the rest of us. But in my third week, she had begun to hang out with me more and more, and we got caught in the kitchen making out one night by the staff. Of course, it was brought up to the group the next morning, and I couldn’t help but see the daggers in Ginger’s eyes as Nicole and I were roasted in front of our peers for our transgression.
Nicole was being given some new experimental drug, and one morning she came to my room literally covered in huge red splotches. She was having a major reaction, and it looked to me like she might go into anaphylactic shock. Heading to the nurses station, I requested that she be brought to the ER for evaluation. But the staff blew it off without a second look. Mike, Nicole and myself ended up having an impromptu meeting in the yard, where we discussed what had been going on. Both of them were fed up, and wanted to leave. I had to agree with them; if the rehab staff were going to simply let Nicole have an adverse reaction and die, then fuck this place…let’s leave,
We packed our stuff and got ready to leave. As we had planned, at 3 pm we all gathered at the front door with our suitcases packed. There was an emergency gathering of rehab staff, as they tried to talk us out of leaving. They spoke to us as a group, and spoke to us all individually, trying to get us to turn on each other. But our minds were made up, and they couldn’t stop us. We busted out of rehab, and caught a cab to Santa Monica, and got a couple of hotel rooms on Santa Monica beach. I had learned next to nothing from this experience, except how to use drugs better and more efficiently.
CHAPTer SiX
SAnTA MoniCA
Terry at MAP was livid as he shouted at me into the phone. I had called him to let him know my side of the story. I could see him in my minds eye in his office turning red screaming into the phone. “Damnit! You KNOW Mike’s a fuckup. We tried to help him for years, but HE DOESN’T WANT HELP! You still have a chance! I went out on a limb for you to get you here, and THIS is what you do to me? I promise I will make sure that Nicole is taken care of, and we’ll review policy for future use, but don’t screw everything up by leaving now”.