To Hell and Back: Excessive Drug Use, Addiction, and the Process of Recovery in Mainstream Rock Autobiographies

Abstract

Rock autobiographies have become increasingly popular since the 1990s. This article analyzes 31 mainstream rock autobiographies describing a wide variety of legal and illegal substances used and reckless behavior. Narrative analysis shows that books concentrate on recovering from addiction. The majority of writers have participated in some kind of treatment. Rock autobiographies use therapeutic vocabulary and borrow discursive elements from culturally familiar Alcoholics Anonymous texts recounting recovery stories. The analysis shows that drugs and alcohol are not associated with rebellion and authenticity as they once were in rock music. Surviving addiction has become a key theme of rock culture.

Keywords :

• addiction
• recovery
• narratives
• rock music
• popular culture
• narrative theory
• excessive appetites

THE AUTHORS

Adjunct Professor of Social Psychology, Dr. Soc. Sci., M.A. Atte Oksanen, is a researcher in Department of Social Research at the University of Tampere. He has done transdisciplinary research applying examples from music, literature, and popular culture, including issues such as self and identity, violence, addiction, and social welfare. His research interests center on the fields of social psychology, sociology, and cultural studies. Oksanen is currently running his own project Images of Addiction in Rock Culture that is funded by The Academy of Finland (2009–2011, decision number 127003). He is also responsible leader of the project Everyday Life and Insecurity: Social Relations after School Shootings in Finland (Aaltonen Foundation 2009–2012) with Professor Pekka Räsänen (The University of Turku, Finland).

GLOSSARY

• Addiction: A popular synonym for an excessive appetite.

• Excessive appetite: An overattachment to a substance, object, or activity that has high costs for the subject and causes various conflicts.

• Narrative theory: Narratology, the study field analyzes the form and content of stories or narratives written or represented otherwise.

• Recovery: A process of overcoming addiction. AA first popularized the concept.

• Rehabilitation: It refers to treatment processes that aim to prevent patient's return to active substance use. The word “rehab” has become an umbrella term for a wide range of interventions involving excessive appetites, for example sex rehab.

Notes

1 A recent study documented that North American and European rock and pop stars have significantly higher mortality than demographically matched populations. The main causes of deaths have often been drug and alcohol use-related. The first years after achieving fame were an especially risky period for the stars (Bellis et al., 2007).

2 The reader is reminded that the DSM diagnosis of drug abuse and alcohol abuse disorders, which are based upon consensus and not on empirical evidence, also posit a chronic disease with predictable relapses. Editor's note.

3 Homosociality is understood here as nonsexual preference for the company of the same sex (Lipman-Blumen, 1976, p. 16). The characteristics of homosociality among men include reinforcement of the masculine brotherhood by emotional detachment, competition and the sexual objectification of women (Bird, 1996, pp. 122–123).

4 Caffeine and tobacco were not listed. Generally, they were only seldom mentioned in the books and they were not so tightly related to excessive appetites as the other substances.

5 The reader is asked to consider that a narrative orientation to what is being described would acknowledge that there exists both the personal “real,” inner me-self (I) as well as a range of public-social selves (me). When asking ”What's your story?” it would be important to know, if at all possible, what “me-self” is being told about or shared. Editor's note.

6 The interested reader is referred to the “natural recovery” literature. Editor's note.

7 The reader is referred to the books Credit and Blame (2008) and Why (2006) (Princeton University Press) by the American social historian Charles Tilly who posits a system of “explanations” to why something was done, not done, happened or did not happen as well as describing the credit-blame process from a Western cultural perspective. Editor's note.