A POTENT LURE: ADDICTION TAKES ITS SAD, CONTINUING TOLL

The late Kurt Cobain, the leader of Nirvana, has been on my mind.

Much of it has to do with his suicide, eight years ago this week.

He was just 27 - blonde and beautiful, talented and sensitive, a star -
when, as the old bluesmen used to write, Cobain took a shotgun and
"disconnected his brain."

What a waste.

Certainly, the slavery and trappings of show business played a major role
in Cobain's decision to take his life. But suicide was also something he
had long talked about and, on several occasions, had tried, only to fail.

His actions were hard for the world to understand. Cobain was a rock star.
He was living the dream. But at the same time, he was torn by success, as
it stood against everything that he believed in as a member of the punk
community.

That he enjoyed the trappings and attention of success confused Cobain, and
it fueled the whispering demons that had taken control of his soul - which,
according to his punk friends, he had already sold to the music industry.

He had done no such thing. Making music at the level that Nirvana had
reached is big business. Cobain was taking care of business, and
maintaining his integrity, the best way he knew how to do it.

Some days, he enjoyed his status. Other days, he ran from it, ashamed,
pained to the bone.

The problem was, there was no parity; the music business was not taking
care of Cobain.

His management and his record company knew he was troubled, suffering from
severe lifelong depression and anxieties that success amplified. But taking
time off was not in the equation for Cobain and Nirvana. There was money to
be made. Lots and lots of money. Cobain was left to suffer on someone
else's dime. Shut up, buck up and get on the road. Record that new album.
Everything will be fine.

To cope, to ease the pain, Cobain turned to heroin. It was an addiction
that soothed. It was an addiction that caused him pain. It was an addiction
that fueled his death.

He injected a potentially lethal load of heroin shortly before pulling the
trigger on the shotgun that ended his pain - and his life.

Addiction. It seems to go with the musical lifestyle like cream goes with
coffee, or more aptly, gin goes with tonic.

People roll their eyes at the phrase "artistic temperament." In truth,
clinical studies have shown that many, many artists - musicians, painters,
writers, poets, dancers - are highly intelligent and tend to see and feel
the world differently from the average Joe and Jane.

Many suffer from some form of depression.

Substance abuse is a form of self-medication. It enables people to put up
with the "normal" world.

It is so prevalent among musicians as to be almost considered the norm.

The list of drug and/or alcohol addicts is shockingly long - from such
classical composers as Berlioz to such painters as Van Gogh to such writers
as Ernest Hemingway. Then there were such jazzmen as Miles Davis, Charlie
Parker and Jaco Pastorious; such country icons as Hank Williams, Townes Van
Zandt and Steve Earle, and a list of rock musicians that is too long too to
mention.

And it's not just professional musicians who suffer from addiction. I have
been a musician in this town for more than 30 years. I have seen musical
friends and bandmates either go to rehabilitation facilities, often to no
avail, or go to an early grave.

Getting high is a means of staving off the boredom that is the reality of
playing music in a touring band. It is a means of maintaining a party
atmosphere that is expected of certain bands and musicians. It provides a
false sense of security and self.

I was in a band during that 1980s that, in the manner of The Faces, built
its reputation on its ability to fly high, play hard and have more fun than
the law allowed. There was no attempt to conceal our shenanigans; if
anything, they were played up.

It was, quite literally, youth run wild.

Not long ago, all the members of that band found themselves in the same
room. The occasion was a funeral. All reminisced with a smile about old
times. All reflected, in a far more somber manner, that we were all lucky
to be alive.

Responsibility - and divine intervention - had carried the day.

From the other side of the fence, it's not hard to see the stupidity of
addiction.

Why would anyone use a needle to shoot drugs in this day and age? It's not
like the handwriting isn't on the wall. The list of the drug-fueled dead is
long and sobering: Van Zandt, Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake, Janis Joplin, Elvis
Presley, Keith Moon, David Ruffin, Tim Buckley, Rick Danko, Sid Vicious ...

The list goes on and on and on.

And that's discounting the musicians, many of whom are famous, who were
irrevocably damaged by their dabblings in drugs.

Fly too close to the sun and you are going to get burned.

Cobain has also been on my mind because there are local musicians, people
whom I care about, people who should know better, who have been, or are
currently, using high-octane drugs.

One is in his early 20s - intelligent, nice, enormously talented and with a
promising career in front of him. To his credit, he seems to have seen the
light. He freely admitted his heroin addiction to his friends and comrades.
He has completed a drug program, and he has been successfully weaned from
methadone.

At the moment, he is heroin-free. But that could change in an instant. The
lure of the drug is that powerful.

My hope is that his will is more powerful than the siren-like call of the drug.

Nobody likes to hurt. Still, it is worth noting that such seemingly
indestructible addicts as Keith Richards and Jerry Lee Lewis are few in
this world.

Mere mortals die.

No more funerals, please.