Steven Tyler: 'I'd be dead by now' if hadn't gotten sober
Living a sober life hasn’t been an easy journey for Steven Tyler, but it’s been a necessary one.
The Aerosmith singer is one of several performers — also including Trey Anastasio, Ben Harper, Joe Walsh and Soko — interviewed for a GQ feature called “Creating While Clean” about making music after getting sober. Tyler, who has long been candid about his addiction issues, is “on my fourth run” being clean — nine years and counting — and talked about how he would “be dead” if he had not gotten sober.
Tyler, 70, told the magazine that he started “smoking weed in ’65, ’66” and when his iconic band formed in 1970, “I don’t think there were any bands that even knew what sober was.” He said he “played with everything” as far as his drug of choice. (His memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? had a very long list, including cocaine, OxyContin, heroin, methamphetamine, methadone, LSD, according to Spin.) “I couldn’t do enough,” Tyler said. “I couldn’t get high enough.”
Although the dad of four admitted he was having fun (“Oh, hell yeah. Of course.”), it lasted only so long. “It absolutely works for a while. But then things go wrong. You become addicted, it’s something you do all the time, and suddenly it starts influencing your greatness. … It takes you down. There’s nothing but jail, insanity or death.”
Tyler cited the ’80s as the time when it got “really bad.” He said he was “just an angry f*** when I got high” and a danger to himself in more ways than one, recalling a trip to Anguilla where he “got thrown off the island by the police. And, you know, riding down the street on the windshield of a car. Stuff.” He admitted that if he had kept that course, “Well, I’d be dead by now.”
Tyler said he worried his creativity would be impacted by his sobriety. “When you’re high and you create something out of thin air, and the whole world is singing your f***ing song that you wrote stoned, it’s hard to think that getting high wasn’t the reason that all that happened.” However, “I’d get so high that I couldn’t be creative anymore.” With the band still together today, and a load of successes along the way (Grammys, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction), he realized his fears were unfounded.
“I got a band that’s still together, the guys are still alive, everyone’s healthy. We play better than we did 50 years ago,” he said. “I mean, there was a certain rawness when we played clubs and we were all f***ed up. Sure, I get it. But the band is still together and still sought after. People still want us for a million-plus dollars a night. And that’s what’s at risk if I use again. And my kids. My cats. My dogs. My beautiful f***ing house in Maui. My girlfriend. Everything is at risk.”
Tyler uses the 12-step program to stay sober and goes to meetings all over the world. “I can be in Afghanistan, I can be in Japan and go to a meeting and the room is full of alcoholics and people that did drugs like I did,” he said. “Only nobody’s high. And, believe me, the stuff they say is phenomenal. They’re still crazy, they’re just not under the influence.”
Talking about his relapses, he said, “Oh, sure I have, yeah. I had some operations, and I had my own medication, I kept it by the bed, I broke up with my girlfriend … and there’s the recipe. Booyah.” That said, “I’m going on my fourth run. So I’ve got nine years in December. Which I’m very proud of.”
He’s not judgmental of people who do partake — whatever their vice may be. “It’s none of my business, you know?” he said. “If someone can handle it, then God bless ’em. Who am I to tell someone what to do? It’s a waste of time. When I was getting high, I had a lot of people tell me, ‘Would you f***ing sober up?’ Did I listen to them? No. You’re down the rabbit hole. … You don’t want to listen to anybody when you’re on your own little journey.”
But he chalks it all up to a “learning process” — and has no regrets. “These moments, I don’t regret them. It was the greatest time. I’m just happy I survived, crawled out of the hole.”
Harper, Walsh, Anastasio and Soko also were candid with the magazine about their struggles with dependency, how they got sober and how it changed their lives.
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