In “The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of A Shattered Rockstar” by Nikki Sixx, co-founder of Mötley Crüe and the main songwriter for the erstwhile band, Sixx shares entries in his diary from 1987 juxtaposed with recollections by him and people who knew him then about incidents related to those diary entries. The book paints that time in Sixx’s life as one during which his addiction, primarily to heroin, but also to cocaine, was at its worst and when his addiction was worse than that of anyone else in the band. In one entry from January 1987 he describes how on one particular day he entered the recording studio in a state that shocked everyone, how a fellow band-member saw how his veins were collapsed and how his hands were “one big scab.” He described in another place how he had lost 40 lbs due to his addiction.
The diary entry continues, “But Tommy never said anything. Nobody ever does. The guys aren’t exactly angels themselves so it would just be the pot calling the kettle black…Mötley doesn’t like confrontation and they don’t like to cross me. So I taught them the new song and everything was OK.”
Vince Neil, another founder and band-member, was to say later how he knew Sixx had a drug problem, that it was worse than everyone else’s in the band, but “if anything happened, it would be taken care of right away. Our management always just smoothed everything over because Nikki was writing songs and making money for everybody. Why would they want to throw a stone in the wheel and stop the money machine from turning?”
In my last post “The Functional Addict“, I describe how successfully holding on to their employment despite their addiction often helps establish the completely wrong self-image of a “functional addict” in the minds of some individuals. Nikki Sixx’s diary entry and the later recollection by a fellow band-member point to some of the factors in their environment that help perpetuate the self-deception of being a “functional addict.”
The individual with addiction may live in a family that doesn’t want to risk confrontation. Family members and friends might have their own issues with addictions and other dysfunctions that they are afraid will come under scrutiny if the worst among them is urged to change his behavior. Some family members might be dependent on the person’s income and don’t want to rock the boat to the point where income loss is a real possibility.
It’s not just one person, it’s the entire system around them that helps them maintain the illusion that the ice they are skating on is thicker than it actually is. To an outside observer, it seems like a wondrous feat — this ability to skate on thin ice for seemingly forever. But key word there is “seemingly.” Sixx was to soon discover how thin that ice really was. He had a near-fatal overdose in December of 1987.
