I was just trying to find the strength to keep walking.
The moment the Black Sabbath album went to number one in America should have been a defining moment for me as well as for Ozzy, a time of supreme celebration. I had worked my butt off to help get it there, for years and years. But I was numb. Just numb.
The new house was sitting there, ready for me to move into, but I felt so overwhelmed by it. My entire life was there, all sixty years of it, in boxes, everything I had. But every time I went there, I couldn’t cope. I would walk in the front door, take a look round, then run off back to the hotel and hide. I would literally pull the sheets over my head thinking, I can’t do this. And so it went on, week after week. I just couldn’t get myself together. I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t want to begin.
Meanwhile, Sabbath were off touring Australia and New Zealand, and I decided to take a long weekend away and flew to Mexico with Aimee and her boyfriend Michael. I just needed to get away, and thought that a change of scene might make me feel better about my life. How wrong I was.
It was just my luck that someone recognised me at once. The very next morning after I got there the place was surrounded by paparazzi. Someone had sold the story to a Belfast newspaper, and once it was out that I was staying there, photographers pursued us everywhere we went, even during a day trip on a boat. There are pictures of me looking suicidal, as if I’m about to chuck myself over the side and be done with it. But actually I was deep in thought, mulling over my problems and wondering what to do next. I didn’t feel settled anywhere, I just felt lost. I might as well have stayed at the bloody hotel in LA.
Straight after the second relapse, I had said to Ozzy that it was going to take at least a year of sobriety on his part to get us back together. I told him it had to be an AA meeting a day, working the steps religiously and a full commitment to staying clean and sober. You can’t just say, OK, I’m fine now; you have to work at it over a long period of time.
But I missed my old life, I missed him. I wanted him back. So it became my mission to make him see what he had in life and, more importantly, what he could lose. I wanted him to look at everything he had worked for, and what he was throwing away because of the fucking drink and drugs. I wanted to scream at him, ‘Are you fucking mad? Are you so juvenile that you can’t get a handle on your behaviour?’
The pictures of me staring out to sea in Mexico went global. Ozzy was in Australia when he saw them, and the very next day he put a letter on his Facebook page, an open letter which read:
For the last year and a half I have been drinking and taking drugs. I was in a very dark place and was an asshole to the people I love most, my family. However, I am happy to say that I am now 44 days sober. Just to set the record straight, Sharon and I are not divorcing. I’m just trying to be a better person. I would like to apologise to Sharon, my family, my friends and my bandmates for my insane behaviour during this period… and my fans. God bless, Ozzy
The next morning I woke up to Ozzy’s statement. I was stunned. After reading it, I realised he had come a very long way in the forty-four days he’d been sober. I admired his honesty, and truly felt that he wanted his family back. And where he said he was trying to be a better person, I was a hundred per cent sure that he was trying. So I texted him and told him how proud I was of him, and how brave I thought he’d been.
His response was, ‘I’m honestly trying, and I love you.’
I returned to The Talk on the Monday. Now it was all very public.
Up until Ozzy’s statement, I hadn’t commented on my personal situation other than to my family and close friends. However, my co-hosts on The Talk knew what was going on, but had very kindly desisted from asking me to speak about it on air. But now it was out there, in black and white on Ozzy’s Facebook page, I knew I had to say something.
‘It’s our business and we’re dealing with it,’ I told the viewers. ‘We’re not getting divorced. However, am I happy? No. Am I upset? Yes, I am – I’m devastated right now.’
I said that Ozzy was in a very dark place, that his disease didn’t just hurt him but his family too, and that we had been through worse and would cope with it.
‘Otherwise my husband will be taken to the hospital to get my foot removed from his ass,’ I quipped. But off air I was, at best, morose; at worst, constantly tearful.
At this point in my life I should have been at my husband’s side touring in New Zealand, Australia and Japan. But this was Black Sabbath’s time to shine. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to hide my emotions, so the only thing was for me to stay away. It was their moment, not mine.
People in my life were saying to me, run, run, run while you can; you can have whatever’s left of your life to do what you want with, you can come and go as you please and be who you want to be. But I just couldn’t. I kept on looking back at all the good times, all the connections, at the life we had made together.
The one thing I’ve learnt from this is, never give advice to a couple who have been together for over thirty years. Ultimately people are always going to do what they want to do. And you only end up looking like a baddie. All the well-meaning advice I’d given to friends over the years was a waste of time. First, I had no right and second, nobody else really knows what goes on between two people.
As Ozzy moved from Australia, to New Zealand, to Japan, I was still in the same bungalow at the hotel with an empty house down the road. I couldn’t face opening up another box full of memories. Every time I walked through the front door, I was overwhelmed.
From the day I married Ozzy, I’d always had this thing in my mind that, if I made the perfect home, if there were flowers, if there was fruit, if I got the right bloody curtains, if it smelt lovely and looked gorgeous, then it would make everything right in our world.
He wasn’t like that at all. He’s always been fucking blind when it comes to the look of a place. He won’t pull the chain, he won’t pick clothes up from the floor, he’ll eat strawberries and leave the top bits scattered all over the carpet along with cream-cracker crumbs. He’s oblivious, he can’t see any of it. But if there’s even a tiny chink of light on the TV screen because the curtains don’t close properly, he’ll bloody well notice that. But I realised now, it wasn’t Ozzy that was blind. It was me. Thinking that the perfect house equalled the perfect marriage.
I have always placed so much emphasis on the ambience of a place; I would want every house to make us happy. And if it didn’t then it would be, Oh God, it’s the wrong layout, the wrong location, it’s too small, it’s too big… I must sell it and then everything will be perfect and we’ll be happy and so will the kids. But recently, after all those years of trying, of fretting about that painting ruining the room or those cushions not being plumped properly, I’ve realised that it means jack shit. You can’t manufacture happiness.
The happiest times were when we were broke and we had nothing.
So it wasn’t that the new house felt like an insurmountable interior-design project that just didn’t look ‘right’ to move into yet. My reluctance to cross its threshold ran far deeper than that. Psychologically it was huge for me, because I was moving into somewhere on my own. The kids were grown up, with their own places, and Ozzy was living a few streets away at the Dark House. My entire life had been about making a home for them, and now it was just about me. It completely floored me. I loved this house in North Crescent Drive, and I had nothing but wonderful memories of the days I’d spent there with Gert and Sonny, but when I walked in the front door all I felt was the dull ache of loneliness.
On Ozzy’s return from Japan, we decided to meet in a public place this time so that neither one of us could lose our temper. I decided on the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge. By now Ozzy was well into two months of sobriety. He had a sponsor and Billy Morrison was working with him as his sober coach. The sponsor works the twelve steps with you, and the sober coach is always there for you to talk to and go to meetings with. When you’re as addictive a
s Ozzy you have to work, work, work at it. It doesn’t come easily.
For the hours before we met, I had butterflies in my stomach. It seemed like for ever since I’d looked into my husband’s eyes, but now I was looking into sober eyes. The man I loved was present. Remorseful. Humbled. Yet I could tell he was relieved to be sitting next to me. Just as relieved as I was to be sitting so close I could smell his cologne. I put my hand on his, took him in my arms and we both cried.
15
Addicted
The Ozzy I love.
Having read my books, readers might have formed the opinion that everything is Ozzy’s fault, that I was an abused wife, someone who was so emotionally battered I couldn’t see a way out of a relationship that was slowly destroying me. And yes, when Ozzy was in the dark place, back on the drink and drugs, it could sometimes feel that way. Why had I put up with all his shit over the years? Why had I tolerated his wilful absences from family life after yet another drink or drugs binge? Why had I made a stand, only to return a day or two later?
The truth is, I’m not a cowed wife; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Believe me, when the mood takes me I can give as good as I get, and over the years Ozzy has had to deal with the often murky complexities of my addictions, too. I am not an easy person to live with. I can sometimes be very selfish and manipulative. And God, I’ve had my issues with weight and the bulimia that goes along with it. In addition, I am a spendaholic, a spendthrift of a lifetime’s standing. My relationship with money is as terrible as my father’s; he didn’t respect it and neither do I. For me, living life to the full has always meant spend, spend, spend.
This see-sawing behaviour has blighted my entire adult life, but only recently have I identified another full-on addiction: my often destructive codependency in relation to my husband.
Thinking about it now, I realise I had suspected he was using again right from the start. God knows, I had seen enough of his drug and alcohol abuse over the years to recognise the signs. But although I felt resentful towards him for this latest transgression, I also understood for the first time ever that it was partly my fault too.
I had buried any misgivings, attributing his unpleasantness towards me as stress over anything and everything except the bleedin’ obvious. It was the pressure of writing the album. It was the stress of touring. It was because it was hot. It was because it was cold. It was because he was jet-lagged. It was because the dogs were being irritating. It was because he hadn’t had much sleep the night before. You name it; I had the excuse for his unpleasantness. Anything but confront the reality.
I had turned the other cheek and enabled him to carry on using.
Ultimately, it was his responsibility when he went back on the drugs and alcohol, but if you read any literature on addiction, or you go to Al-Anon, the support group for relatives and friends of users, the first thing they tell you is to pack your bags and leave and don’t look back. They say that tough love is the way forward because you have to make them responsible for their actions, and the only way they will work a rigid programme is if they have lost something they love through their destructive behaviour.
So at the first sign I should have said, ‘I’m leaving.’ Perhaps that might have nipped it in the bud. But I didn’t. I never have. I have never put him on the spot, never made him responsible for his bad behaviour. I always look the other way because my attitude is, anything for a fucking peaceful life. Bury your head in the sand; tomorrow’s another day and by then it will all have gone away.
Jack reckons I do it because, having seen how the break-up of Ozzy’s first marriage affected his older kids, I was prepared to do whatever it took not to let that happen to our family; that I have a ‘this too shall pass’ attitude that makes me persevere through the really tough times.
There’s an element of truth in that, because the residual damage of a break-up is always in the back of my mind whenever Ozzy’s behaviour prompts me to think about leaving him, which is another reason we have lasted thirty years. But there are other factors at play, too.
I learnt placatory behaviour as a child because my father was so mercurial. I spent most of my formative years trying to stay on his good side and keep the peace between him and my mother so that there wouldn’t be yet another ugly outburst to spoil the fragile status quo. So when I got married, it seemed only natural to carry on that pattern of behaviour.
Ozzy could perform open-heart surgery on me without an anaesthetic and I’d tell you that he was doing it for the best. I would find every reason in the world why he could do that operation. I would actually justify his actions; make allowances for him in a way that I have never done or would never do for anyone else in my life. I wanted my children to have this perfect family life that I’d never had. So, to the best of my ability, I would try to keep things as harmonious as possible.
In the early days, I would sometimes try the age-old tactic of biding my time to address an issue, waiting until the atmosphere was right rather than having a reasonable chat with him there and then about how his latest bout of bad behaviour had really bothered me. The problem was, I never felt the time was right to make the point I wished to make about his most recent marital misdemeanour.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he’d fire back. ‘That was yesterday. Why are you ruining a perfectly great day? You’re fucking sick, you are.’
I eventually stopped saying anything, and whatever it was that had happened would never be mentioned again.
Take note that my placatory behaviour was usually for the benefit of the children when they got older, or anyone else who happened to be present, because I didn’t want to pop the bubble of supposed bliss. But if he incited my anger when we were alone, God help him. I would hurt him, and he would hurt me, both physically and mentally.
It’s always been one extreme or the other with me. I would either brush things under the carpet, pretending that everything in my garden was rosy when it was actually shrivelled and unattractive, or a red mist would descend and I would lash out. I have never been one of those people who can make a measured, well-articulated response. I grew up witnessing my father’s violence or threatening behaviour as his solution to most problems and so, far too often, it has been a natural response for me too. I repeated the pattern. I knew I was doing it, but the difference has always been that, generally, I like people, and my father liked nobody. I respect people, he didn’t.
So my pattern of behaviour in the marriage has been either placatory or pugilistic, with little in between. I have given Ozzy black eyes; I once smashed Aimee’s china feeding bowl over his head when he told me he had the clap, and, more recently, there was the cup and saucer I threw at him after demanding a divorce. I’m not recounting this because I’m proud of it; most definitely not. It’s just to put things in context, to illustrate that as much as Ozzy has been out of line over the years, my own behaviour hasn’t exactly been exemplary.
To understand what makes us tick as a couple, you have to go back to Ozzy’s childhood as well as mine. He came from a working-class family in Aston, Birmingham, and they were really good people. But you didn’t have to look far back to find little formal education or experience of the world, and ancestors that were all from the workhouse.
And what was the way out for families like that? A drink, that’s what. It would make them feel better. It was a laugh, a release, the same way that smoking was. It took them to another place.
Ozzy’s background is getting pissed on a Friday and Saturday night, bashing the wife if she got angry with you then all sitting down for Sunday lunch as if nothing had happened before heading off to work again on the Monday morning. It was nobody’s fault; it was just the hand that fate had dealt, and they were stuck in that rut. For the majority of Ozzy’s generation, there was no way out of it. No way to break the mould. There weren’t people around to advise and help them; they just got on with it as best they could.
Ozzy was one of the lucky few who did get out. Ozzy
’s escape was daydreaming that he was going to be a Beatle, or that his sister was going to marry one of the Fab Four and he could join them on the road. For him, the next best thing was to form a band with his mates, and voilà: the rest is heavy-metal history.
But even though he got out of Aston, the entrenched pattern of behaviour he’d learnt as a child stayed with him, as did mine. We were both working-class – though my background was more feast or famine – and we both came from families that, in different ways, were fucking nuts. But somehow we have built a life together and come out the other side of all the shit we’ve been through. We’ve invested our time, our youth, our love and our soul into what we have.
We all have dreams, but I have now accepted the reality: that I am married to an alcoholic and drug addict who, every single day, has to fight not to be that way.
As for me, I have come to the conclusion that I am seriously workaholic. This destructive behaviour has not helped my marriage, my kids, or my health. I am like a hamster on a wheel. Over the last thirteen years all I’ve done is chase my tail. Yes, I’ve loved the success, the adulation, the money, the power. But when you’re sixty years old you have to ask yourself, What the fuck am I doing it for? I run from one project to another, fighting the clock. Fighting for an hour with my granddaughter, or an hour with my husband or my children. For what? At the end of the day all we have is each other. With any luck, I’ll make it to seventy-five. And if I do, what will I have? Hopefully my husband and my kids, and memories. But do I really want to spend the rest of my life running around the world to get my face on TV? I’m not building a career, I’m way past that. Why was it never enough to be a manager, a wife and a mother? I got the taste of fame. I do truly love working in TV. Has it now become my drug? Yes. I’ve met amazing people, made amazing friends. Done incredible things, but I do realise that you can’t have it all. Because of my work schedule and Ozzy’s, we’ve been parted for weeks at a time. Not good. Not healthy.
Unbreakable: My New Autobiography Page 17
