“What’s my drug of choice? Well, what have you got?” —Layne Staley, Alice in Chains
This week marks 14 years since Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley was found dead.
Mood music:
Like Kurt Cobain, Staley had a big impact on me in the early 1990s. But while I identified with Cobain’s depression, I identified with Staley for his inability to keep his addictive demons at bay.
I can’t tell you how many times I listened to the “Dirt” album while I binged myself sick. It seems like an unfair comparison, because Staley’s demon was heroin. Mine was compulsive binge eating — a destructive form of addictive behavior in its own right, but not necessarily from the same depths of hell heroin came from.
Staley’s lyrics seeped deep into my soul. When he screamed his vocals, I could identify the pain that came from deep down. I’m convinced that pain gave him the power to sing the way he did.
My writing taps a similar source within me, but the source is a lot more muted, less despairing, because I have something I don’t think he had — faith.
But as a 20-something, I couldn’t tell the difference. I felt like my demons were as vexing as his. When you’re younger, that’s the kind of self-important thinking you get into.
Before I found recovery, my demon would start harassing me long before getting to the scene of the junk. Forget the people who would be there or the weather and surroundings. All I’d think about was getting my fill of food. Then I’d get to the event and get my fill from the time I’d get there to the time I left. I’d sneak handfuls of junk so what I was doing wouldn’t be too obvious to those around me.
Halfway through, I would have the same kind of buzz you get after downing a case of beer or inhaling a joint deep into your lungs. I know this, because I’ve done those things, too. By nightfall, I’d feel like a pile of shattered bricks waiting to be carted off to the dump. Quality time with my wife and kids? Forget it. All I wanted was the bed or the couch so I could pass out.
I imagine Staley felt something similar much of the time, though I’m told by those who have kicked smack addictions that you don’t really care about anything when you’re high, because it’s like being under a warm blanket. The problem is that you spend the rest of your life trying to feel that way, and the only thing that works is more and more smack.
In the end, I know you can’t fairly compare the two addictions. I only know how mine made me feel, and whenever I listened to Staley scream, I felt like someone else got it, and that I wasn’t alone.
Thanks for that, Layne. I hope you’re at peace wherever you are.
Thanks for this one Bill & thanks for reminding us about Layne. I missed this the first time around, sorry. It is so sad that once again we lost one of the young talented ones (not that we should loose any).
Hope your at peace Layne.
Great Testimony! For all of us who loved Layne and his music…this is really cool….
Bill,
It’s all addiction my man, don’t compare food to heroin and vice vs.
Because it’s all sense pleasures, and honestly I feel very strongly that behavior based addictions (food, sex, spending, etc. etc.) can be more difficult to reconcile and come to terms with than addictions to substances/chemicals.
Anyhoo…. Hope your day goes well. I’m the MAN IN THE BOX!!!!!
He really is one of the best voices in Rock – total sadness.
Very well worded article. As a survivor this time around holding 7 years under my belt I can honestly from my heart tell you addiction is born with many faces.
In order for somebody to want to whip addiction they have to understand the pain that addiction brings. Layne showed the world what addiction will do to you. He’s one of the ones that will give you a reason to let your addiction to go. That may have been his calling in life.
No one knows why he could not or would not spank the demons that accompany addiction so that he can live his life. He just like everybody else deserves the right to wake up one morning and find gray streaks in your hair to look into your eyes and find wisdom where there once was a Blank Stare. All I can say is that for every one of us that has Rose above the chains that bound us to addiction it’s because somebody lost the battle to addiction and we witnessed it.