From the Stacks

I collect books. One of my favorite things is to stumble across a signed first edition, or an unusual book somewhere. So, I decided to take a book that I found interesting out of my stack nearby and share a bit about it with you (as if anyone is reading this).

Today, I grabbed the Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx – the guitarist and main songwriter for Motley Crue. Although this book is not signed, nor is it a first edition, it is interesting. My friend Tony, who has enlisted me to write for his blog, Alabama Gameday, has given me grief in more than one conversation about paying too much attention to rock lyrics and looking for evidence of spiritual meaning in secular songs.

Granted, Motley Crue doesn’t have a cover version of Kumbaya in their recorded catalog so there is really nothing to decipher lyrically. It is my association with the Celebrate Recovery program at my church that made this book enticing. I should offer a warning. This book contains a lot of profanity and graphic detail. If you are the type of person who doesn’t want to have to wash your eyeballs after reading profanity, or if you have a stick up your bottom, don’t read this book.

That being said, the book wraps up with two very important lessons. The first lesson is to give away as much as you can. The other is to let go and let God. Both are spiritual lessons and the writer admits that his addiction has given him a spiritual awareness he never knew existed. As he said, his addiction gave him recovery and the ability to give back.

We have a saying in Celebrate Recovery, where I lead a men’s general issue small group, that says that nobody ever seeks to recover until they have found the bottom of their despair. In every life, there is a rock bottom moment. In the case of Nikki Sixx, dropping dead and being revived by a passing pizza delivery guy was probably the bottom.

In the world of music, so many stories have a tragic ending. The roster of the rock and roll dead is long and likely to get longer. This story, at least, offers a bit of hope to the regular guy that recovery is a better way of life.