The Heroin Diaries

by Nikki Sixx

  In Hong Kong I noticed my ribs are sticking out but also my face is puffy and yellow. I have some weird scabs on my legs and a rash on my chest and arms. I’m sure it’s just from not showering…I’ve seen it before. OK, buckle up…we’re descending into Hell. Satan is home (ha ha)!

  Van Nuys, 7 p.m.

  Home sweet home. Wow, is it nice to get outta those leather pants. I took another shower and got the rat’s nest outta my hair. I feel great–Abdul gave me a 10cc shot as soon as I got in the limo. I feel great. This is what I’ve been missing.

  I got a message from Robbin and Slash. We’re all going to the Cathouse tonight. King’s got some Persian but no needles so I’m going up to his house in the hills to chase the dragon and then off to the Franklin Plaza Hotel to pick up Slash. I kept the limo.

  9 p.m.

  Karen won’t go out–she said she has to work! I asked her if Doc knew that I didn’t come home from Hong Kong when I was supposed to and she didn’t think so. I guess threatening the interpreter’s life worked. It always does, ha ha. I just realized that it’s Christmas and I haven’t got anything for anybody. Karen got a Christmas tree though, and finally got rid of last year’s one. I could always give people the presents that I got last year that I haven’t opened yet…

  * * *

  COURTESY CALL

  This is just a courtesy call This is just a matter of policy This is just an act of kindness To let you know that your time is up

  * * *

  DECEMBER 23TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 9:30 a.m.

  Unraveling, unsure, undetermined, unnecessary…this is what my life has boiled down to. I either have to stop or die…I can’t straddle this fence any longer. I have taken into my lungs the longest breath of hell and I’m still here.

  Maybe there is a God…maybe, just maybe, there is such a lifeline. Something happened last night…good, I died. Sounds insane, doesn’t it? I feel different today. I think for the first time in my life I feel hopeful. I can’t remember ever feeling happy but I feel something has snapped. I feel, I don’t know…

  Last night was not unlike many nights for me, driving towards hell, hoping to be welcomed into death’s arms or simply to kill the pain and fill the hole of emptiness inside. I’m too weak and sick to write the whole evening down, I’ll try later…so here is the short version…

  Picked up Slash, his girlfriend Sally, Steven Adler and Robbin and went to the Cathouse. Lots of coke, alcohol, pills…I really don’t remember much. At some point the usual blackouts. Then we went back to Slash’s hotel to get some junk. I was too wasted and let this cat shoot me up. I turned blue on the spot. This is what they tell me.

  Steven and Sally came in and tried to revive me. I’m sure all the usual drama behind a junkie dying in your place happened at that point. But then something that’s never happened before–I couldn’t come back. The ambulance was called and I was well on my way to getting out of my skin.

  I saw something…fuck…OK here we go. I was on the gurney, the sheet over my head. I saw something…there was my limo. There were people crying. There was an ambulance…there was a body with a sheet over it being loaded into the ambulance. It was me. I saw it all.

  I was up, above it all. I couldn’t know this if I was dead. I don’t understand. But something feels different to me. I’m just gonna have to write later. I need to collect my thoughts.

  SALLY McLAUGHLIN: I’m originally from Scotland but moved to America in 1987 because I was dating Slash. When I arrived I went straight out on the road with Guns N’ Roses supporting Mötley Crüe, then Guns went straight on to Alice Cooper’s tour. So December 22, 1987, was my first day in Los Angeles.

  Slash and I were staying in the Franklin Plaza, and Nikki called up Slash and came over. Nikki, Slash, Robbin Crosby and I went to the Cathouse in Nikki’s limo and we were there for hours. The boys kept running off to the limo to do coke and then coming back to the club. The last time they did it, they never came back for me, so I had to walk back to Franklin Plaza on my own. I was steaming.

  SLASH: I can’t remember too much about it. Nikki had asked me at the Cathouse if I knew where he could get dope. A friend of mine had just become a junkie so we called him and all went back to Franklin Plaza. I was so screaming drunk that I couldn’t even find the floor to fall on. My friend turned Nikki on, but I didn’t even notice.

  SALLY McLAUGHLIN: Guns had two suites at the Franklin. Slash was in one and Steven Adler was in the other. I came storming into our suite, furious, and Nikki said, “Uh-oh, we’d better leave them alone for a while.” Nikki and Steven went to Steven’s room with their dealer, and I started yelling at Slash, but he was too drunk to even argue back.

  A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. It was Nikki, looking dreadful, and he came in and just fell on the floor. I was thinking, Great, now I’ve got two drunks to deal with here, but then the dealer came in, took one look at Nikki, yelled, “Nikki’s dead!” and ran off. He literally jumped out the window and over the balcony and ran off down the street.

  SLASH: Then the next thing, Sally was screaming because Nikki was rolled up and blue in the corner.

  SALLY McLAUGHLIN: Slash was paralytic and Nikki was turning blue. Steven helped me drag Nikki into the bathroom, then he ran off, so I was left on my own with him. I tried to get Nikki into the shower to pour water on him, but then Slash came in, saw Nikki and started freaking out. Slash had a friend named Todd who had died of a heroin overdose a few months earlier, so he started yelling, “Todd!” and smashing up the bathroom.

  By now I was giving Nikki mouth-to-mouth resuscitation over the bath while trying to hold Slash back with one hand. Slash smashed the shower screen, and the glass showered over me and Nikki, so I got up and punched Slash and laid him out. I was screaming for somebody to call 911, which they did, and said, “Nikki Sixx is dead!” I later found out that Nikki’s limo driver heard that and phoned Vince Neil.

  VINCE NEIL: I got two phone calls saying Nikki was dead, one from the limo driver and one from our tour manager, Rich Fisher. Maybe deep down I knew it was going to happen one day, but it still tore me to pieces because I loved Nikki–even though he was an arrogant selfish shit. I cried. And I never used to cry then.

  SLASH: Then paramedics were there, but I was so drunk I’d passed out. When I came around, the first thing I noticed was that for some reason I’d destroyed the fucking bathroom. Sally was freaking out at the influx of people in white uniforms taking Nikki away.

  SALLY McLAUGHLIN: The paramedics came pretty quickly and took over from there. I was still giving Nikki mouth-to-mouth, and the weird thing I remember is that when my breath came back out of his mouth, it sounded like he was snoring. I thought, Fuck, what if he’s just asleep, wakes up and thinks I’m snogging him?

  The paramedics ripped off Nikki’s T-shirt to give him adrenaline, then whisked him off. I hadn’t managed to bring him around but the paramedics later said that I’d kept him going. After they had taken him away, the police moved us into Steven’s room. We had to carry Slash in. He was still passed out. The police questioned us all and checked the other room. Then later, when I went back in, I found a bag of dope on the floor and a vial of coke on the table. They had just missed it.

  TOMMY LEE: I got a phone call in the middle of the night from Slash. He said, “Dude, don’t freak out, but Nikki’s in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.” Slash said that they had done everything they could to make him wake up–put him in the bathtub, splashed his face, pounded on his heart–but nothing they had done had worked. I thought, Oh fuck!

  KAREN DUMONT: Doug Thaler called me at 3 A.M. to ask if Nikki was home. He said a limo driver had called Vince and said that paramedics had pronounced Nikki dead at Franklin Plaza and taken him away in an ambulance. I began frantically calling hospitals but couldn’t find him anywhere.

  SLASH: He was in and out of operating rooms all night. His management came down later and yelled at me as a horrible influence, but the
truth was that I was seventy-five percent oblivious to what was going on. To me, it wasn’t a big deal. I used to do it all the time.

  NIKKI: I came to in a hospital bed. There was a cop asking me questions, so I told him to go fuck himself. I ripped out my tubes and staggered in just my leather pants into the parking lot, where two teenage girls were sitting crying around a candle. They had heard on the radio that I was dead and looked kind of surprised to see me.

  The girls had this pissy little Mazda and gave me a lift home as we listened to my obituary on the radio. One of them gave me her jacket and they made me promise to never do drugs again. Karen opened the door to me. I went straight to my answering machine and changed my message so it said, “Hey, it’s Nikki, I’m not here because I’m dead.” As soon as Karen had left for work I went straight to my bedroom, shot up and passed out.

  KAREN DUMONT: At 5:45 A.M. there was a knock at the door and I opened it to see Nikki standing there, shivering like crazy. He was missing his boots and shirt plus he was wearing what looked like a little girl’s jacket that was so tight across his back that his shoulders were heaved up. He just said that he couldn’t find his key.

  The next day I went to get his boots and give Slash and the Guns a piece of my mind. Sally told me that the ambulance guys had been going to give up on Nikki but a couple of girls had hysterically begged them to try again, and that was when they had managed to bring him back.

  12 noon

  I just woke up. My body hurts like it has never hurt before. I’m hungry, I’m dirty and I want to take a shower. I need to return some of these messages. When I came in last night I changed my message to HI, I’M NOT HERE BECAUSE I’M DEAD. I need to change that…

  All my messages from everybody are saying things like, “You’re an asshole” or “That’s not funny” or “What’s wrong with you Nikki, are you OK in the head, dude? That’s fucked.” For the first time I agree with all of them and I don’t think it’s funny either. (Well, maybe a little.)

  One last thing…I might as well admit now. I’m done with drugs. I’m done with being unhappy and I’m done trying to kill myself. I woke this morning with a needle still in my arm and blood in my hand. How sick am I that I came home and shot after I died? But more important, I threw all my rigs away. I’m sick of being a selfish, egotistical, self-hating, alcoholic junkie.

  * * *

  TO USE A CLICHÉ: I’M SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED.

  * * *

  KAREN DUMONT: Only later did I find out that Nikki had shot up again when he went to bed. We had a very proper relationship, or otherwise I would have gone into his bedroom to make sure he was sleeping before I left for work. He was clearly shaken and should not have been left alone, but I just didn’t really know any better.

  5 p.m.

  I told Karen I’m done with drugs. She said she hopes so but looked like she didn’t believe me. I think it will take a while till people believe me. Shit, I don’t know if I believe me.

  6:25 p.m.

  I’m so tired. I need sleep. I feel like I haven’t slept in years. It’s the only way to explain how tired I am. You know, I feel like maybe coming undone isn’t such a bad thing after all. I found my AA book under my bed when I was clearing away all my drugs. I read this. It makes sense to me…for the first time…

  DEANA RICHARDS: When I heard Nikki had nearly died it was not unexpected because it was what I had always feared but prayed would never happen. I was so terrified that he was going to die without anything being resolved–without him finally realizing just how much I loved him.

  MICK MARS: When I heard Nikki was dead, my first reaction was, “I knew that fucking prick was going to do something like that!”

  VINCE NEIL: I have to say, there have always been rumors about people in Mötley Crüe dying. We used to get loads of crank calls. I even got a call a couple of weeks ago saying that Tommy had died–and that was from my own mother.

  DECEMBER 25TH, 1987

  Christmas morning, Van Nuys, 9:30 a.m.

  Good morning and Merry Christmas. I’ve decided to put this diary away and start a new one…with a new day upon us I feel hopeful. Life, I think, has somehow taken a turn for the better.

  I don’t know how I survived the last year but I know there has to be a reason. Today for the first time ever I don’t care about the outcome or the whys and whens. I just wanna live. I woke up happy. I can’t believe it. I didn’t wake up with my head screaming and my instincts telling me to run and hide inside a needle or inside a coffin, whichever came first…as long as I became numb or better yet dead…I want to live and I don’t know why.

  Hey…why ask why…I’m going to go wake Karen up and tell her “Merry Christmas.” I think I’ll even call the guys in the band.

  Merry Christmas.

  NIKKI: I’ll never forget waking up after sleeping almost forty-eight hours and feeling so different. I knew something had happened to me but I wasn’t ready to look into it. What I had experienced was, I believe, something spiritual. Drugs had brought me to my knees and I knew it. Even though it would take a few attempts I was gonna get off drugs. I had been given another chance to live and I was gonna grab life by the back of its neck and shake the hell out of it.

  I’ve lived my life to the max ever since. Yes I’ve fallen a few times but I always get back up. I always say I wouldn’t have wanted to know that guy back then—and neither would you.

  KAREN DUMONT: After he’d died, Nikki didn’t want to do anything at Christmas but I invited a couple of my friends over. I said, “I don’t want to sit here miserable, even if you do.” I went out on Christmas Eve and bought food and a tree, which one of the guys from Ratt helped me decorate. Then Nikki decided it was a good idea after all and invited Slash over.

  SALLY McLAUGHLIN: On Christmas Day, Slash and I went to Nikki’s in a limo with all the presents we’d bought. I remember Nikki gave Slash a moleskin hat. Slash and I spent the night in Karen’s room. Slash wet the bed again: he always used to after taking coke and drinking. He didn’t want to tell Nikki, so he begged me to do it. When I did, Nikki just said, “Ah well, at least he isn’t shitting himself like I used to.”

  I actually ended up buying Slash adult nappies, but he never wore them

  MY LIFE AFTER DEATH

  THAT'S NOT VERY ROCK 'N' ROLL, IS IT?

  Not too long ago I said to a friend, “I died once but I’m better now.” He reminds me of the humor in this from time to time. Nobody knows why we do the things we do until we’re willing to peel the onion to get to the core of all our bullshit. I found out a lot about myself when I was finally ready to do so–not all bad, by the way. One of the gifts I’ve been given in sobriety is the ability to see through other people’s bullshit. (Nobody knows a bullshitter like another bullshitter–but I’m better now.)

  I said to Lemmy from Motorhead recently that I should have been on one of those T-shirts alongside Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders, and he said, “Nah, you’re better than that, mate.” I guess someone else should have written my biography but instead I’m still alive and kicking so I sit here, typing away. I was gonna write the end of my story here but I realized,

  * * *

  I AM NOT AT THE END OF YET HELL, I MIGHT ONLY BE HALFWAY THERE

  * * *

  There’s plenty of time for grave markers and eulogies later…there I go, laughing at death again. I’m like a man on a bed of nails. I may grimace in pain but I somehow find it in me to laugh at the irony of where I lay my head, yet there is frustration. It comes not from the puncture wounds, but from the fact that I haven’t made the Guinness Book of World Records for my life yet. Like I say, I’m only halfway there.

  The first half was one enormous roller-coaster ride through hell. I can only imagine what the second half of my life is gonna be like. OK, enuff of me and my rambling. Let me bring you up to speed so far. I will try and give a sorta recap of the insanity and beauty that came after December 25, 1987:

  * * *

/>   Canceled the European tour.

  Skipped rehab and went cold turkey.

  Moved from the Heroin House in Van Nuys to a well-concealed home in a place called Hidden Hills.

  Became reclusive for months at a time. I didn’t even go to the grocery store, and lost complete contact with reality.

  Wrote most of the Dr. Feelgood album.

  Went to a psychiatrist and told him that life on drugs was better than this.

  Got diagnosed as clinically depressed and chemically imbalanced (or should that be embalmed?).

  Went on a new drug at the time, called Prozac.

  For the first time, felt comfortable in my own skin without being high.

  Hired a band therapist to improve communication with the guys in the band.

  Met my future ex-wife.

  Moved to Canada to record Dr. Feelgood with Bob Rock.

  Stayed sober in Canada.

  Finished the album and moved back to LA.

  Went over to Tommy and Heather’s house and did a couple of 8-balls. Doug Thaler came over and flushed the drugs.

  Dr. Feelgood went Number 1.

  Went to Russia and I played my first show sober.

  Fired Doc McGhee.

  Sold out the Dr. Feelgood tour.

  Got married in Hawaii to my now-ex.

  Gunner Sixx, my first child, was born.