Singing the Blues Happily

The article called "Facing the Music" in the Grapevine (December 2001) brought back a lot of memories for me. Like the author, I am a musician--a harmonica player and singer in a blues band. I started playing in bands when I was sixteen years old, and drinking was something that musicians, especially bluesmen, just did. It went with the territory. And I had a lot of fun for most of my drinking days. But by the time I came into the program, it was controlling my life and I simply wanted to find a way to stop. I was forty-three, in major financial trouble, and in a marriage that didn't have much left in it. I was angry, depressed, and beaten.