Music vs. Drugs.

Since I wasn't putting together my own band anymore, the need to generate huge amounts of cash had vanished. I realized that when I was touring or playing out with bands outside of Conn., I wasn't dealing. I also used a lot less drugs. I'm not sure why that was true. Maybe it was because I was focusing on what was really important. Maybe, if I wasn't dealing, I couldn't afford to use the way I had become accustomed to. Or maybe it was just my rule about doing business only with friends I knew well. I still smoked pot when I could, but I had already learned everything I thought I was going to learn from psychedelic drugs, and when it stopped feeling like they were "teaching" me, they just weren't fun anymore. An hour into a trip, I'd say to myself.."Do I really have to feel like this for twelve more hours?" It had stopped being spiritual, and had just become chemical, and I didn't like the way that felt. So I stopped doing them. And so a joint,or a bowl of hashish now and then was all I really did. I never really liked alcohol. It made me stupid and sick. So I just concentrated on my music.

 But something different was happening. I was irritable, I was out of focus, I had a lot less patience, and I was feeling an anger that I was very unfamiliar with. I was frustrated with the way I had to leave things in Conn., and I couldn't shake the feeling that something there was unresolved. I know today that I had never allowed myself to feel the real pain of what had happened. I just avoided it, and ran to Detroit, thinking that the problem was where I was. I found when I got to Detroit was that I was having a lot of difficulty adjusting to my new home..everything felt "off" there, too. One thing was clear to me. I had lost a lot of my confidence, my self-esteem, and my creative fire. I didn't see it in those terms at that time..it was more like feeling that I was the "odd man out," and that I just didn't fit in anymore. I thought it was just the band, and some of it may have been, but I think what it really was..I had lost my sense of who I was, and that's a problem, no matter where you are. I was in a state of confusion and pain, but didn't know how to fix that, and because I wasn't using a lot of drugs, I was feeling that stuff even more. And it just kept getting worse..