Post by Gilby Admirer on Sept 15, 2002 1:51:08 GMT -5
There was a signpost on the way to this West Coast perdition. The name carved on it was Steven Adler. Adler has been totally straightforward about the drug-induced strokes and heart attacks that have left him physically wrecked.
"We were saying to him, 'Steven, you're fucked up," Duff recalls. "We said: 'Me and Slash, we're fucked up, but you're really fucked up'. I remember saying to him: 'If me and Slash think you're fucked up, think about who's saying that...'
"But look at me. Look at pictures of me from '87 to '94. I started out as this thin rock dude, and by the end I looked like Elvis in his later years. Why didn't anybody say anything?"
Nobody did, and Duff carried on drinking until his pancreas exploded.
"It was 1994," he recalls. "I had stopped drinking vodka, but in a fucked up way I'd replaced it with 20 bottles of whine a day. I mean, I thought I was cutting down. I was taking quaaludes, anything to bring me down. And one day I had a pain right under my sternum. I thought it gas pains. It felt like someone sticking a knife in me. And I remember my best friend came round. He could always come without knocking, and I heard him downstairs, but I couldn't get out of bed. He got me to hospital. Sometimes, just before you die, they'll stick a knife in you just to relieve the pressure and the pain. I wasn't quite that bad, but I was in hospital for 10 days."
"I was on librium for the DTs, the delirium tremors. That got rid of the withdrawal. They wanted me to go to rehab, but I just felt that I'd had enough. I didn't want any more alcohol."
"At that time I started getting into kick boxing, and I found a martial art that I loved. More than anything, it thaught me to think sober. It changed the way I thought about things. I started washing my clothes. I cleaned my house. I went to the grocery store. It was real life, little things. I did the martial art twice a day."
"Then I went back to dealing with Axl, and I realized I just didn't need it anymore. It was just me and him. Slash had left, Izzy had left. It wasn't the same band, and I just thought: 'What's the point?"
"We were saying to him, 'Steven, you're fucked up," Duff recalls. "We said: 'Me and Slash, we're fucked up, but you're really fucked up'. I remember saying to him: 'If me and Slash think you're fucked up, think about who's saying that...'
"But look at me. Look at pictures of me from '87 to '94. I started out as this thin rock dude, and by the end I looked like Elvis in his later years. Why didn't anybody say anything?"
Nobody did, and Duff carried on drinking until his pancreas exploded.
"It was 1994," he recalls. "I had stopped drinking vodka, but in a fucked up way I'd replaced it with 20 bottles of whine a day. I mean, I thought I was cutting down. I was taking quaaludes, anything to bring me down. And one day I had a pain right under my sternum. I thought it gas pains. It felt like someone sticking a knife in me. And I remember my best friend came round. He could always come without knocking, and I heard him downstairs, but I couldn't get out of bed. He got me to hospital. Sometimes, just before you die, they'll stick a knife in you just to relieve the pressure and the pain. I wasn't quite that bad, but I was in hospital for 10 days."
"I was on librium for the DTs, the delirium tremors. That got rid of the withdrawal. They wanted me to go to rehab, but I just felt that I'd had enough. I didn't want any more alcohol."
"At that time I started getting into kick boxing, and I found a martial art that I loved. More than anything, it thaught me to think sober. It changed the way I thought about things. I started washing my clothes. I cleaned my house. I went to the grocery store. It was real life, little things. I did the martial art twice a day."
"Then I went back to dealing with Axl, and I realized I just didn't need it anymore. It was just me and him. Slash had left, Izzy had left. It wasn't the same band, and I just thought: 'What's the point?"
