The Heroin Diaries

by: Nikki Sixx and Ian Gittins

Cleaning out some old storage units Nikki Sixx, from Motley Crue, recently stumbled on a old diary he kept during the height of his heroin (and coke and alcohol) addiction. Now sober and recovered he decided that sharing the diaries might be helpful to someone else going through what he did, or at least help someone relate and know they are not alone. And for those of us that aren’t junkies? It was just plain and simply captivating, entrancing, and addicting in itself.

I knew a little bit about what happened to Nikki during this year because I have read “The Dirt” and “Tommyland” where the subject had been skimmed, but never really examined. Such as the raw form of a diary. With exerts from former management, friends, and family (and not all nice I assure you) Nikki’s year of hell unveiled itself in a disgustingly self destructive picture. All the while you ask yourself why he kept torturing himself, especially when he didn’t even enjoy his high. The stuff his paranoia and delusions induced were beyond me. To his little closet, to constantly flushing his drugs, his freakish relationship with Vanity, to his belief his security was out to get him and to the little men with helmets climbing his fences and the Mexicans in the bushes, it was insanity at best. I’m amazed he didn’t shoot his brains out. Things were most obviously at there worst when he began to lose his passion for the music! No matter how bad things were, Nikki always took his music seriously and with heart. Until the Heroin to ahold. If you’ve seen the movie “Being John Malkovich”, this novel was like: “Being Nikki Sixx”. That bizarre but more than that it was profound.

I always wondered how celebrities could be on the top of the world and be so miserable, how they could have their dreams come true and resent every moment of it. It all seemed so ungrateful and spoiled. After reading many autobiographies on rock stars I’m starting to see the common denominator: DRUGS And Alcohol. In the right settings alcohol and drugs can be all fun and games, but when abused they are deadly. In many cases, like Nikki’s, it just brought up unresolved issues he had with his family, that if had been dealt with may never have took him where it did. I mean that careerwise and addiction wise. But who’s to say? If there was one thing I learned about Nikki, it was that the man has vision. He has the ability to see the bigger picture, that is when he wasn’t being scandalous and self destructive. Like setting hotels on fire. Or banging his managers girlfriend right in front of him. Between the alcohol and drugs on that tour influencing him and letting him have the ability to do what he wanted because he was a rock star was no more than simply acting out. Some deep part of him needed a parental figure to tell him to stop. To make him stop. To intervene. He was not unlike a two year old throwing a tantrum. And though he kept his distance from everyone close to him, the last thing he wanted was to be alone. Nikki’s tantrumlasted years before he finally he learned to be an adult himself and deal with his addiction and deal with his past and take control of his life. It only took him dying to do it.

I adored this and want to thank Nikki for sharing his very private experience with us. It touched me in more ways than I can explain, and I’m not even sure it was supposed to.