In advance of his concert, reading and Q&A session at the Fox Theatre on Sunday, April 1, Doughty talked with Westword about his addiction to just about every substance, what it took to get clean, how much he loves fans of his solo work, and why he will never, ever again play Soul Coughing's songs in public. Ever.
Westword: There are a lot of musicians who have told their stories of addiction in a very public way. Why did you want to write this book?
Mike Doughty: I didn't really set out with a mission. I've been telling these anecdotes for a lot of years to people. I thought they were funny -- I think I came into it wanting to tell an addiction story without any bad-assery. I think most addicts aren't like, you know, bloody-fisted, thrown-in-and-out-of-jail bad-asses. My story is kind of like, I'm Buster Keaton as a dope fiend.
The addiction story that comes to mind when you say "bad-assery" is like, Mötley Crüe's story (The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band). It's very, sensational and attractive -- like a, "that would be awesome if that was my addiction story!" kind of read.
Oh my god, yeah! The Dirt. The Dirt is incredible! The other thing I wanted to do was to sort of depict recovery -- going to meetings and show it for the weird world that it is. Not that PTA/Dr. Drew nature. A lot of hilariously cynical, dark, gleeful artistic people, that if you want, you can find those people in the universe of recovery.
So you went through a twelve-step program?
Oh yeah. Basically, I just found people that I dig. There's a guy I identify in the book as "The Rock Legend" -- he's the merry rock star from the '70s punk-rocker guy. He's extremely dry-humored and he was just so great and smart and creative and weird and I thought, "I want what that guy has."
At what point did you know or decide or realize that you needed to go to rehab?
I was a consistent weed addict. I gotta tell you - people will tell you there is no such thing as a weed addict. I am one. The 28-year-old wake n' bake guy or the super smart creative guy who can't get off the couch? They might be a weed addict.
Weed was sort of my baseline addiction for my entire using career. But there was a coke period, and an ecstasy period and a heroin period. All were degrading in different ways. But when I became a real drunk, waking up in the morning in my own piss, drinking before I got out of bed drunk, that's when I was like, this is not acceptable to me.
When you decided to make that step toward recovery, did you fear losing that "edge" as an artist?
Sure. But the end of the story is, I never felt so fiercely driven and engaged as an artist as I do now. I love the work I'm doing now. I feel like it's exactly what I want it to be. There was a time when my self-loathing was so thick that I had to be high to get past it to write a song. So there was a moment in my life where it was effective medicine.
But then after that, it just became this, like, barrier between me and the music I wanted to make. It became increasingly difficult to really make music. I definitely was afraid that I was going to lose my mojo as an artist when I got clean. And indeed, when I got clean, my receptors were charred. They were gone. It took me a while to really get into it again. When I finally got back into it, I was utterly engrossed in the work.
It is interesting that you took the time after starting recovery to really take a break before diving back in.
I tried to write songs, initially, but it was like, holy shit. These are terrible! But, you know, after a while, they came.
