Tom's Blog on Life

For those interested in more sustainable agriculture… http://www.demeter.org.au/history.html

There is a Dr Criticos in 79 Silver St Marrickville (9560 3154) who is trained to handle the cause of depression etc. with nutrition. http://www.biobalance.org.au/

Klonopin is in the Valium family, but Valium is fuzzy and Klonopin is insidious because it’s so subtle that you can hardly tell you took it. I got through 1986 and 1987. Thank God I’d already written the words for my record The Other Side of the Mirror. But what started happening was that if I didn’t take it, my hands started to shake. I felt like I had a neurological disease or Parkinson’s. I started not being able to get to Lindsey Buckingham’s house on time, and I would get there and everybody was drinking, so I’d have a glass of wine. Don’t mix tranquilizers and wine. Then I’d sing horrific parts on his songs, and he would take the parts off. I was hardly on Tango of the Night, which I happen to love.
The next six years were terrible. Looking back on it, I think this therapist was basically a groupie. He loved hearing stories of rock and roll and he started upping my dose. He watched me go from a beautiful, 125-pound, newly sober woman who had the world at her feet to a 170-pound woman who had the lights go out in her eyes.
Finally, in 1993, I’d had enough. I said, “Take me to a hospital.” I went in for 47 days, and it made Betty Ford look like a cakewalk. My hair turned gray and my skin molted. I could hardly walk. You can detox off heroin in 12 days. Coke is just a mental detox. But tranquilizers—they are dangerous. I was terrified to leave, and I came away knowing that that would never happen to me again.
I learned so much in that hospital. I wrote the whole time I was there, stuff that I consider to be some of my best writing ever. I learned that I could have fun and laugh and cry with amazing people and not be on drugs. I learned that I could live my life and still be beautiful and fun and still go to parties and not even have to have a glass of wine. I never went to therapy again after that—why would I?