![]() ![]() With regard to the more rambling entries, we find Sixx often times consumed by paranoia, hiding in his closet or flushing his stash (and effectively, hundreds of dollars) down the toilet for fear of being watched through his windows by the police, only to realize later that nothing of the sort actually occurred. There is a point in the year in which he was able to get away from heroin in particular and drugs in general for ten days or so, but eventually the addiction sucks him back into its vortex. The more lucid entries show Sixx as someone keenly aware of being captive to something from which he desperately wants to be free. The diary entries range from lucid and clear-headed at one extreme to the mad ramblings of a mind spiraling out of control at the other. It was the rock star lifestyle on steroids. This drug consumption went well beyond just the heroin which had him in its grip. The events of the year that follows include the recording of an album, a tour, numerous misadventures, and an absolutely insane amount of drug consumption. The opening entry finds Sixx alone in his mansion on Christmas Day 1986, shooting up, or as he describes it, “watching holiday spirit coagulating in a spoon.” It’s not hyperbole to call it a depressing beginning. Interspersed the book’s diary entries are contemporaneous thoughts and accounts from people around Sixx, including bandmates, managers, and his mother (with whom his relationship was strained, to put it mildly), among others. It was an addiction that nearly cost him his life – and in fact did, for two minutes on December 23, 1987, before a determined paramedic revived him with two adrenaline shots to the heart. In particular, these are diary entries recorded by Sixx between Christmas 1986 and Christmas 1987, while he was in the midst of a vicious heroin addiction. Yet, for reasons I will discuss below, this powerful book is more relevant today than upon its original publication in 2007, and maybe even relative to the 10th Anniversary Edition (the one I read) released in 2017.Īs the title suggests, the bulk of The Heroin Diaries is just that – entries in a diary. Spirit of Cecilia is not the place you would expect to find a review of a book authored by a heavy metal musician, particularly one from a band with a reputation as notorious as the one which is his claim to fame. What I didn’t anticipate is that the very first one would be a book authored by Nikki Sixx, whose claim to fame is as the bassist of the now-retired heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. I always knew I’d do book reviews here someday.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |