Alice Cooper Welcome to My Nightmare Chapter 13 Whiskey Holds the Lace:
He had playfully refered to himself as Jekyll and Hyde character. Killer Alice Cooper by night mild mannered Vincent Furnier by day. Now his friends were finding out how true this theory was but it wasn't the difference between onstage and offstage that brought it to life. It was the fact that he was an autopilot on stage and a mess offstage. It was only Alice himself that didn't realize this. He kept telling himself that drinking wasn't a problem and that nobody was noticing. He pride fully appeared completely normal when he wasn't. Alice himself even says today, " you would never believe I was drunk nobody who was close to me was able to realize how much I was drinking. When I was 16 and dreaming of being a rock star getting money and cars, I never included being an alcoholic. It sneaked up on me. I like drinking and hanging out with the guys. Wed have these long drive in the states and Id have about three beers before and after the show. I started having a beer in the morning too. But I didn't feel like an alcoholic. Then the beers lead to whiskey in the morning and the afternoon. Then there was more before and after the show suddenly the fun was gone. It started tasting like medicine. It didn't change my personality drastically if you knew me then you wouldn't have known I had a problem. I never missed a show or a lyric. I was what you call a functional alcoholic."
Yet how functional was he really. He wasn't enjoying the performances or the tours. Writing new songs became like chore and rehearsing became painful. Before a show backstage even the sight of what he was going to wear made him sick, so he would reach for a whiskey drink it up and get dressed. Still he insisted that nobody knew but they did know. Its hard to be unaware that the one youre working for is throwing up blood every morning or that there are whiskey bottles on the table,in the morning, and in the trash in the afternoon.
Sheryl and Shep( his wife and manager) often compared notes. The piling up empty cases of beer in the garage, performances becoming less and less spontaneous, and Alice carrying on destroying himself.
Alice himself cautioned in 1982, "You hear about the dangers of Heroin and Cocaine but alcohol is the perfect killer. Its the worse drug in the world and I took it to far. It got to such a point that I began to believe that I couldn't live without a drink."
Alcohol began to dictate his friends and flavor his career as well. He was also being beaten down by record company politics. Shep Gordon ,his manager, was under no illusions with what Alice was going through though the attempts to balance Alices demands with his concern for Alices health were being shot down by Alice every time he suggested taking it easy. He wanted Alice to take a break but he wouldn't do it.
Welcome to My Nightmare Chapter 14 Special Forces:
Warner Brothers had assumed that Alice was going to give them the rights to WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE for distribution but he didn't and all promotion from Warner Brothers was dropped. His albums had even been blocked from getting any kind of exposure. There was no co-operation whatsoever. Alices life was falling apart with no contract with Warner Brothers his career was at rock bottom. Some even said it should stop.
His only source of comfort was his family. His wife Sheryl and his daughter ,Calico, who was born in 1981. No matter what Alice went through they were always there. Then one day they weren't.
Sheryl moved out of the house on September 30, 1983 taking Calico with her. Her life was so shattered by Alices drinking. Six weeks later she filed for divorce. It seemed the marriage was broken with no chance of reconciliation.
Sheryl didn't really want to leave though. It would all go away if Alice gave up drinking of his own freewill with nobody forcing him to do it. And he did it.
They were in the courthouse about to finalize the divorce when Alice pledged that we would stop drinking without anybody forcing him too. And he was true to his word.
It wasn't just his family by his side there was JESUS. Throughout his career Alice had been trying to avoid anything onstage that might embarrass his father or his fathers church;he had often spoken too that his way of entertainment was as harmless as any singer or actor. I was a matter of pride for him but it was also based on deep beliefs that he learned as a child and had always been in the back of his mind.
Although he believed it was no ones business but his own Alice himself was as strong a Christian as any faith grounded pastor and probably more honest in his understanding of what faith meant as well. He said about the same time he stopped drinking, "I started thinking about Christianity when the doctors said that if I had been drunk another week I would have died. When you come that close to death you start thinking about something other than limos and mansions. I suppose its not surprising I turned to my Christian faith. My father was a preacher."
Alice does not preach and he does not prophecy. He does not put religion in his lyrics. In fact the only time hes outspoken about his faith is when he needs to defend himself against anyone accusing him of Satanism and leading kids astray. That's the cruelest insult to Christians.
" You can call me untalented and boring. Ok I can live with that but call me satanic and youre stepping on what I really believe. I spend a lot of time in my lyrcis warning against Satanism because I don't believe in the concept of Satan I believe in Satans being. I believe in the being of God. And I think were in the middle. Were being pulled this way and were being pulled that way... Satan offers us everything we want. God is offering us everything we need. So when people start playing around with the 666 and the upside down crosses and all the blasphemy-I'm at the point in my life where I can go, 'Be careful, youre inviting something in and you dont know what youre playing with. So I do lyrics that say 'Be Careful.' He's here hes right here and hes going for your throat, it doesn't look like it but he wants to own you. That's pretty horrifying, that's real horror when you think of it. If you believe in Satan, then you believe in a real person that's trying to destroy your eternal life. Whats more horrifying than that?"
ALICE COOPER
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