PROGRAM AIDS MORE THAN ROCK STARS

Group Has Helped Behind-The-Scenes Pros Treat Their Addictions.

Who in the music world is most likely to need help with substance
abuse problems.

Singers in rock bands with alcohol or heroin addictions are the most
prevalent, according to breakdowns of people helped into treatment
programs by the Musicians Assistance Program, which is marking its
10th anniversary.

That's no surprise, given rock singers' issues with ego and the
pressures of the spotlight. Of the more than 250 people who turned to
MAP in 2001, 36% were in rock bands, 23% were singers and 34% listed
alcohol as their primary drug of choice, with heroin right behind at
31%.

The surprise may be who was next on the list behind vocalists. It
wasn't musicians at all, but people working in the music
business--record company executives and staffers, managers, agents,
promoters, producers, engineers and journalists, among
them--accounting for nearly 20% of the people put into treatment by
MAP last year.

That statistic caught even MAP founders Buddy Arnold and Carole
Fields-Arnold off guard.

"I was startled when I saw the number," says Fields-Arnold, sitting
with her husband in the organization's small office suite in the
American Federation of Musicians' Hollywood headquarters. "I knew we'd
helped the odd agent or lighting person along the way."

Says Arnold, "But 49 people last year. Wow!"

They don't believe that the statistic reflects an increase of
non-artist music professionals developing addictions. The music
business--with easy access to the same vices in which the artists
indulge--has always been fertile ground for substance problems. But it
does mean that more music business personnel have been seeking help
from MAP.

"We're finding that more [non-musicians in the business] will come
here, even if they have insurance and funds that would get them access
to other treatment," Fields-Arnold says. "There's a support group
here. We have representatives in other cities, peer
networking."

MAP board member David Adelson, executive editor of the trade weekly
Hits magazine and music producer and correspondent for E! Television,
says that in this case, success breeds success.

"Musicians have been more forthcoming and more willing to deal with
their problems. It may have been a motivating force for others in the
music industry to take action to help themselves," Adelson says.

There's another arresting MAP statistic: 59% of the more than 1,000
people treated in the 10-year span--the vast majority in residential
treatment facilities--have remained sober, Arnold says. In Alcoholics
Anonymous, "you hear figures as low as 12%."

The Arnolds started MAP in 1992 out of their condominium, with eight
people helped the first year. Arnold was a jazz saxophonist who had
been a heroin addict for 31 years before getting clean in 1981 during
a prison stint (for impersonating a doctor in order to write
prescriptions for fake patients). He initiated the organization simply
to address the specific needs of addicted musicians.

"When we started, it was musicians, because that's all I cared about,"
Arnold says.

In the mid-'90s, Kurt Cobain's failed addiction treatment and ultimate
suicide and the overdose deaths of Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon,
Sublime's Bradley Nowell and others brought more attention to the
issue of addiction among musicians and led to increased referrals to
MAP.

It also brought music business funding for the shoestring operation,
including a seven-figure grant from the Recording Industry Assn. of
America.

Along the way, artists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young,
the Foo Fighters and Bonnie Raitt participated in benefit concerts and
fund-raising events. However, with the music business' attention
elsewhere now, MAP is back on the shoestring, existing basically as a
mom-and-pop operation with the Arnolds and their small staff. They
spend more of their time "begging for money" than they care to,
Fields-Arnold says. With Arnold about to turn 76, they are concerned
about the program's future.

They're grooming L.A. musician Bob Forrest as a successor. Forrest,
who has frequently discussed his addiction and recovery in the press,
has long been active in MAP, helping with interventions for musicians
in trouble and with the day-to-day operation. He's currently studying
to become a licensed counselor. Forrest will be the recipient of MAP's
annual Buddy Award at an event planned for November.

The rest of the MAP statistics. After singers and music business
personnel come drummers (17%), guitarists (16%), bassists (10%),
keyboard players (7%), writers"composers (5%), and reed and brass
players (1% each). Broken down by style of music, rock was followed by
performers from pop (19%), jazz (8%), blues"R&B (7%), country (6%),
classical and Latin (1% each), with 2% unspecified.