My Appetite For Destruction (35 page)

I
myself escaped death while living in a house in Calabasas. I would meet my dealer at the Thrifty parking lot in Laurel Canyon. This one afternoon, I brought my dogs with me to get them out of the house. After scoring, I’d drive to a little side street down the block. Then I’d pull over and shoot up. This was a regular routine for me that had resulted in at least one disaster already. All I remember from that day is sitting there cooking the shit up in a spoon. I vaguely recall seeing two little kids playing ball across the street. After that, nothing.

Apparently I went into convulsions again. I was violently flopping around, rocking the truck, my forehead slamming into the horn while the dogs went crazy. The kids heard the commotion and got help. Paramedics arrived and had to break the window to get me out. Again, I awoke in the hospital, covered in charcoal. When you overdose, they pump your body full of charcoal. It comes out of your nose, your mouth, and your ass. You spit charcoal, you puke it.

Shortly after that, there was another incident where I nearly didn’t come out of it. I had recently been prescribed lithium. What they didn’t know was that I was allergic to the drug. The shit was fucking me up more than anything. It turned me into a zombie.

One night I had a strong craving for a Slurpee. I had plenty of money, but I couldn’t find any. I tried to get out the front door, but I couldn’t even turn the handle. Sluggishly, I picked up my drum stool and threw it through the window to get out. But when I hopped over the broken glass, I sliced my foot badly in the process.

W
earing only boxers, I made my way down the hill. I was craving sugar. I must have looked so scary, limping along the street in my underwear, bleeding. I entered a 7-Eleven store, where the cashier eyed me warily. I didn’t have any cash so I stole a Big Stick ice cream; it must have been obvious as hell.

So I’m walking back, boxers hanging off my ass, bleeding like a stuck pig, sucking on my Big Stick, when a cop car pulls up alongside me. I look at them with my zombie eyes and say, “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m sick. Can you take me back to my house?”

They eyed me up and down and said, “You’re on your own.”

They took off. The one fucking time I want to get in a cop car and they wouldn’t have me! There’s a lesson for you: if you don’t want the police to pick you up, beg for their help.

I made it back to the house, and it took me forever to open my sliding glass door. When I finally did, I stepped inside and tried to close the door but just said, “Fuck it,” and collapsed on the couch.

Two days later I went through this exact same routine. Wearing only boxers, I went to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee, only to discover again that I had no money. My old house, the one I sold to former
MTV
VJ Martha Quinn, was close, just up a big hill. So I made my way there and buzzed at the front door. Martha’s husband was the greatest guy. He could have called the cops, but instead he just listened. I was a royal mess, swaying back and forth, slurring my speech. That lithium!

I said, “Please, I can’t find my money. Can I borrow $1.25 to get a Slurpee? Maybe you could take me down to the store?” So he drove me down to 7-Eleven, only to find that the goddamn Slurpee machine was broken. That kind of sums up my luck and my life. Even with help, the deck is always stacked against me.

I
have no idea why, but two days later one of my lawyers called my buddy Steve Sprite and asked him to check up on me. Over the years, Steve had proven himself over and over to be my absolute best friend, and he’s always there when I need him. He’s been by my side for years, and I don’t know how I’d manage without him. Maybe it was the lithium, maybe something else, but for some reason, I hadn’t been able to eat for days. I was just miserably sick from an ulcer or something. I’d get incredibly hungry and order up a ton of food from Jerry’s Deli—soup, sandwiches, knishes, mashed potatoes and gravy. Then I’d take one bite and get a horrid feeling in my stomach, reminding me that nothing would stay down.

I called a friend of mine, a woman who tended bar at a barbecue restaurant nearby. She swung by from time to time and helped take care of me. She and Steve took one look at me and were freaked out by the terrible condition I was in. Steve dragged me to his truck, a big piece-of-shit white Chevy that only he could get to start. I was so fucked up, I believed I was riding in a brand-new truck: I remember telling him, “When did you get this new truck? It’s like yours, only nice.” I thought it was so styling, a beautiful brand-new pickup, so I must have been delusional.

Steve got me to the emergency room of Century City Hospital and put me in a wheelchair. I remember being pushed through the doors. I kept repeating, “I didn’t do any heroin, I didn’t do any heroin.” I was completely out of my mind. I was put on a hospital bed, where I just stared up at the light. Steve was worried that I might be in a lot of pain and told the doctor. The doctor calmly walked over to me and yanked the hairs on my chest to prove I didn’t need anesthesia. He knew what he was doing, because I didn’t even flinch. I had a large infected lump on my arm, the result of my being completely abusive with a dirty needle. The doctor cut into it with a scalpel, and all this green ooze came shooting out. The nurses had to move the person in the next bed to another room because it smelled so awful. Then something let go inside of me and I just went out. Later, doctors would determine that I had slipped into a coma.

At some point during the time I was out, I remember floating in a dream that was incredibly vivid. I saw myself lying on top of a giant turquoise phoenix in the middle of a desert, and to either side of me were giant turquoise stones shaped like the phoenix. My point of view shifted and I was now in the sky, looking down upon myself. A vision of a woman floated up to me from beneath the clouds. She was nude except for a small garment covering her midsection. Her hair fell all the way to the ground. But it wasn’t exactly hair, it was hair that morphed into feathers, and those feathers formed wings. She flew above me and reached out. I was lifted into her arms and I swear I never felt so safe, so secure. We were hovering high above the earth as she turned and smiled at me. We suddenly shot up into the sky, where the light became blinding.

I don’t know how long I was out or how deeply I had slipped into a coma, I just know that I caught a break, the biggest break of my life. Hospital records show I was admitted on April 19, 1996, and sometime between then and April 22, when I walked out against their wishes, a miracle happened.

The blinding light caused my eyes to flutter open suddenly, but the fluorescent glare blinded me and I quickly shut them to stem the searing pain in the back of my head. I was groggy, but I could feel the needles and tubes leading in and out of my arms and thighs. I thought, “Fuck this.” I angrily started yanking them all out, but the machines around me set off warnings, urgently buzzing and ringing. Something was very wrong; parts of my body weren’t working properly and this intensified my rage. A nurse ran in and shouted at me to stop, but I just stared at her. I had no grasp of what I had just done, had no idea what was going on.

Later that evening, a doctor performed a series of tests on me and told my family, who had come to visit, I was in stable condition and recovering. He shook his head and quietly slid the clipboard back into the metal sleeve at the foot of my bed. I looked around the room at my family. Mom, Mel, and Jamie were there, and that was fine with me. My mother climbed into my bed to be next to me. She was crying, a steady quiet sobbing. I asked her why. She explained how the doctor feared that initially, before my tube-tearing fit, I wasn’t responding to their tests, and they determined that I could be trapped in a coma for the rest of my life. The doctor told her that even if I were to come out of it, I would not be able to use my right side. She kept shaking her head, crying, going on about how it was a miracle, how amazing it was that I was responsive and, according to their latest tests, almost fully recovered. I didn’t come out of it, however, completely unscathed. I lost some control of the muscles on the right side of my face, and to this day I talk with a slight slur.

The doctors concluded that I did, in fact, suffer a stroke. You’d think this nightmare would be the final moronic chapter in my life. And you’d be perfectly right to assume this would scare me into cleaning up my act. You’d guess I finally suffered something so traumatic, I’d find the resolve to take better care of myself.

Guess again.

Within two days I was walking around, much to the amazement of the physician. They actually presented me with a plaque that said anything is possible.

I promise you anything

Get me out of this hell.

—”
COLD
TURKEY
,”
JOHN
LENNON

The past decade had been a long, hard road. Unfortunately, the stroke did nothing to deter my drug use. Subsequent shooting pains across my chest left me weak and worried. And while I didn’t know if it was a heart attack, I did know I’d be using again.

As we entered the new millennium, I remained detached from the world. I rarely went out. Whenever I did, I found it difficult to enjoy myself. I would always return home depressed, immediately hitting the pipe or calling my dealer. A long line of unsavory characters slowly invaded my inner circle and soon became its sole inhabitants. With the exception of Steve Sprite, the one friend who would never let me down, all of the people I saw were drug dealers or drug users. Any time the phone rang it would always be one of three people: a dealer, Steve Sprite, or my honey, Cherry.

The exception was one call I received from a buddy who dealt in shady underworld business. He asked me for a favor. It seemed the law had finally caught up with him, and he was going to be doing a little time. He needed a safe place for his girlfriend to stay while he was behind bars. Would I mind letting her live with me for a few months? When someone who’s probably connected to the mob asks you for a favor, there’s only one answer you can give.

Her name was Sheila, and she was the daughter of a designer clothing mogul. Now in her midthirties, she found herself cut off from her family, a tragic result of her own pathetic drug addiction. I had to be careful of the way I’d budget for this extra member in the house, because at this point, Mom was overseeing my finances and she had me on an allowance of $600 a week. I would get the money on Friday, and by Tuesday or sooner, I’d be broke. I also had the use of my credit cards but was not permitted to withdraw cash with them.

The drug abuse shot my paranoia to new heights. With her boyfriend in jail and Sheila staying at my place, I was convinced that my condo was bugged. I believed that I was being watched by the Feds. Any time anyone would begin to talk about drugs, I’d hush them up or make them talk in whispers.

I began calling my mom every day for more money. I spent many mornings cursing her out over the phone. “You fucking bitch. That’s my money. Give it to me.” Withholding cash from me was entirely justified, but there was no way I’d admit it at the time. When addiction consumes your soul, you lose sight of yourself completely. I had become an evil fucking demon.

Mom had limited my credit card so it could only be used to buy food. So Sheila and I worked out a scam where she would buy over a hundred dollars’ worth of items, like cleaning supplies and dog food, with my card, only to return it all shortly after, untouched, for cash. This went on for months.

Sheila and I had a number of sources for drugs. One was a terribly shy, mentally challenged man named Bob. When the going got rough, Sheila would perform sexual favors for him, and he soon fell in love with her. Unfortunately, she hated every minute with him, so it was only during the most desperate times that she was forced to call him, meet him, and come back with a fat rock for us to smoke.

Some mornings I would wake to discover one of my gold or platinum records missing from the wall and an unconscious Sheila spread out on the couch high on heroin. She hocked more than a dozen awards of mine. I would become so angry and often found myself heading over to the pawnshop in an effort to retrieve my lost treasures.

On one such occasion, I ran into a face from the past. Ola, Slash’s mom, was browsing in the shop. “Ola?”

I was delighted when she recognized me immediately. “Steven! How are you? You look great. You cut your hair, I like it.”

I was too embarrassed to admit that my short cut was a result of accidentally setting my hair on fire a few weeks before. Instead I just happily laughed. “Well, thank you.”

She mentioned that she would try to have Saul call me soon. While that would have been great, I wasn’t going to count on it. I shifted back and forth on my feet, embarrassed that she might notice the
GNR
awards on display at the shop. Fortunately I don’t think she did.

I
did venture out once or twice during this time. Steffan, a longtime friend, invited me to check out his band, Dad’s Porno Mag, at the Whisky. The show was sponsored as part of an annual convention called
NAMM
, the National Association of Music Merchants. During the show, I got up and contributed backing vocals to a favorite oldie by the seventies band Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show called “Cover of the Rolling Stone.”

Afterward, I was outside talking with some people when this big guy with a bigger grin approached me. Despite his expression, he was somewhat intimidating, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. “Steven, huge fan!” he said. I shook his hand and just said, “Thanks.” We’ll call him Chuck and his girlfriend Kimberly, his friend Larry and Larry’s girl Sue. They were all in their twenties and turned out to be sweet people.