“We had TVs and had a little time to watch them,” says Johnny. “We could read—but for me, it depended upon how big the print is. I could read Rolling Stone; I got it at the hospital all the time. I don’t read much now; my eyesight is worse than it was. I can see details if I’m close enough. Every day, you had an hour off to go outside and play basketball or whatever, and you had time off in the afternoon to take a nap if you wanted to.
“They had decent food at the hospital and you could wear regular clothes. We wore sandals, jeans, blue-jean shirts. I made some real good friendships. I got to be real good friends with one girl—I think I was the first guy she went to bed with—she was about fifteen. We stayed in touch afterward—I’ve been friends with her for years.”
Turner remembers Johnny talking about that friendship during one of their visits.
“Johnny told me he had a sexual experience with one of the girl patients,” said Turner. “They had an encounter on the levee down by the river. Needless to say, it was against the rules, and he got in trouble for that.”
Turner visited Johnny twice during his stay in River Oaks, and recalls Johnny being severely depressed.
“He was having trouble with his anxiety and from what he said to me, it was severe depression,” said Turner. “River Oaks had people that were long term; one guy died in there shortly after Johnny left. That guy fascinated Johnny. He was a raving lunatic, completely mad. They would chain him to the bed; he would shit in his hands and throw it at the staff. I don’t think Johnny got anything too special down there except a break. He just stayed awhile and when he felt better he left.”
Although the hospital was considered drug free, alcohol wasn’t considered to be a drug. “They didn’t give out medication; you had to get an order from a doctor just to get an aspirin,” says Johnny. “The hospital was real antidrug, but they had a happy hour where you could have one drink—one beer or one shot of Jack Daniels or whatever. You couldn’t do that now—they think you’ll just switch off to alcohol. They didn’t have the twelve-step program there.”
Johnny enjoyed individual sessions with his doctor; it helped him understand his behavior and learn ways to change it.
“My one-on-one therapy doctor was Bob Davis,” says Johnny. “I liked him a lot. I talked about the things that were bothering me. He pretty much said I just had to put up with the things that were makin’ me want to do heroin in the first place. Those one-on-one sessions definitely helped me to feel better. There was also group therapy—the counselors were real serious about that. There were about thirty people in group session; if you didn’t want to talk you didn’t have to. People would talk about any problems they had in the past or were having in the present.”
His private sessions validated him as person, which was critical after being treated like a star and feeling he was little more than a meal ticket to his manager. But something was terribly askew at the group sessions, which heightened his feelings of not being accepted and brought back early memories of being shunned for being albino. During one session, the counselor insisted group members were more enamored by Johnny’s celebrity than by who he was as a person. Johnny recalls members of the group countering that they liked him for who he was, but finally getting argued down by the counselor.
“That really pissed me off,” says Johnny. “It seemed stupid to me. He finally got people to agree—it took him a long time, but he finally did. It really pissed me off. In an hour session, nobody would admit it to the very last. They figured it was just gonna go on forever if they didn’t admit it. So people finally said, ‘I guess we do think of him more as a star.’ That really made me think I went there for nothin’. I didn’t think it was right of them to say that, and it made me not want to quit.”
Hurt and discouraged by the way he was treated, Johnny searched for solace and acceptance outside the walls of the hospital. Once again, he found comfort in fast friends who provided him with drugs to numb his pain.
“After a while, I could come and go as I pleased and I met people on the outside,” he says. “I got drugs while I was in River Oaks. I’d go walkin’ around and people would come up to me. There was a guy who lived right by the hospital who had drugs; I could go there and do anything I wanted. I got drugs on the outside, but I didn’t take very many.”
Johnny loved smoking pot and brought back a joint from one of his outside visits. With drug addiction rehabilitation still in its infancy, the staff of River Oaks had no clue that pot—compared to heroin or speed—was a relatively harmless drug. Trained to treat patients suffering from mental illness, who might become self-destructive during a psychotic episode, their response was harsh and punitive.
“I smoked a joint in the hospital,” Johnny says. “They caught me and used arm and leg restraints to strap me into bed when I was sleepin’. I was strapped to a bed for twelve hours a day for a month. The reasoning was that you might feel so guilty; you’d try to kill yourself. I didn’t feel guilty at all—I felt like smokin’ grass was fine. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. I wasn’t suicidal.”
Although he never played guitar in the hospital, music remained a strong force in Johnny’s life. He used his time outside the hospital to work on his chops. “If you were good for a while, they let you go out on certain nights,” says Johnny. “So I got to leave and play with Thunderhead at a club called the Nutcracker. I just walked in the club; they were all nice to me although they were kinda nervous. I didn’t play with them the first night, but I did after that. I went to the band house too, where most of ’em lived. You needed a car to get there, but they didn’t mind picking me up—I had a lot of fun with them.”
“I met Johnny when he was in rehab and I was playing with Thunderhead,” said Rush. “He knew Grego—Greg Howard, who owned the Nutcracker and was friends with the band. Everybody had their own place in New Orleans, but there was one apartment where we used to rehearse and hang out all the time. When Johnny started getting passes, he’d come and stay with us in our band house, and come out and play with us. We used to play at the Nutcracker a lot and we played with Johnny there. We also used to go to Thibodaux, an hour or so away, and play in big rock bars in Bayou country. During the first set, he hung out in the dressing room so nobody could see him. Then he’d come out in the last half of the second set and play a song or two with us. That would freak everybody out that Johnny Winter was onstage. He was doing it to work out his chops because, most of the time when he was in the hospital, he didn’t play. Although I never went to the hospital to see him, I heard he had one of his Firebirds hanging off the bedpost. It was in there but he would never play it.”
Thunderhead was a New Orleans-based band originally called Paper Steamboat. The lineup included Mike Dagger on vocals, Rush on lead and slide guitar, Ronnie Dobbs on lead and string guitar, and Othi T. Ware on bass. When drummer Bobby Torello (a.k.a. Bobby T.) joined the lineup, his nickname was Thunder, so they changed the band’s name to Thunderhead.
Originally from West Haven, Connecticut, Torello moved to the Big Easy to fulfill a lifelong dream.
“My goal in life was to play with Johnny Winter, so I moved to New Orleans to find him,” he said. “I heard he was there in the hospital, so I took a gig with a band in Mississippi. I played in Mississippi and hung out in New Orleans on my off nights. Johnny would jam with Paper Steamboat on weekends so I started jamming with them.” Torello never met Johnny in New Orleans, but would meet him a year later through the Thunderhead connection.
Johnny had an opportunity to share a bigger spotlight when he joined his brother’s band at a November 1971 show at New York’s Academy of Music. That show was taped for Roadwork, a 1972 live double album by Edgar’s Winter’s White Trash that went gold.
“I played ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo’ with Edgar’s band,” says Johnny. “I was still in the hospital, but I went home for Christmas. It had been about six months since I played in front of an audience. It’s hard to play after not playing out for a while, b
ut I knew I wanted to do it. Playing with Edgar’s band was a little different ’cause it’s harder to play with musicians you haven’t played with. My playing wasn’t great; it could’ve been better.”
“I was with Johnny at that show,” said Jim Franklin, who traveled from Austin to see him. “Steve and Teddy always put me in touch with Johnny ’cause they knew I had a pacifying effect on him. He stayed in a hotel on Fifth Avenue right near Washington Square. I met up with him a few times that weekend, had lunch, and then went to the show. He seemed to be sharp because he wasn’t stoned.”
Johnny’s appearance was unannounced until Edgar stepped up to the microphone, and said, “A lot of people keep asking me, ‘Hey, where’s your brother?’” as Johnny walked out onstage. “It was a great moment and somewhat of a historic moment with that introduction,” said Edgar. “It was the first time he had ever sat in with one of my bands as opposed to me sitting in with one of his.
“I viewed it as a supportive thing to welcome him back, the perfect coming out experience for him. I really don’t know if he did it as a favor to me or if he thought of it as something that was good for him. It certainly meant a lot to me personally; it is one of the most memorable moments of my entire career.”
Six months after performing with Edgar’s band, Johnny signed himself out of River Oaks Hospital. Feeling a bit shaken and disappointed by his experiences at the facility, he snorted heroin the day he was released.
“After nine months, the counselors kept saying, ‘You don’t really like Johnny because he’s a good person, you like him because he’s a rock ’n’ roll star,’” Johnny explains. “I figured if they felt that way, I had no reason to stop. That was awful—thinkin’ nobody liked me for myself. When I started again, I did a little bit of both-snorting it and shooting it. I got high when I got out but I just did it once in a while.”
Then there was the unfortunate incident during a trip to Austin, where he ended up in a precarious situation that sabotaged his intentions to stay away from drugs.
“When he got out, Rocky Hill [Houston guitarist and brother of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill] and somebody else came to pick him up in a van,” said Turner. “Rocky and everybody else was taking drugs back then. Rocky had a bunch of Quaaludes; more than one person could eat. The cops stopped them, so somebody quickly divided them up so nobody would die. Johnny didn’t make it home before he was forced to take some drugs. Take drugs or go to jail—that was the choice in front of him. So it was sadly ironic that he didn’t even make it home before he consumed a bunch of Quaaludes.”
Between the Quaalude experience and his cravings for heroin, Johnny knew his stay at River Oaks had only provided a hiatus from drugs. He hadn’t yet made a complete recovery.
“The first hospital withdrawal didn’t do me much good,” he says. “I put myself in different hospitals in New York several other times after that. I stayed at the Regents Hospital in New York for several months a little more than a year after I left River Oaks. When it finally worked, it was because I just got sick of it, sick of feeling that way. I was really tired of it. You have to be tired of it yourself and want to get off of it. I didn’t go to a methadone clinic till after I got out of the hospital in New Orleans. I went to a clinic up in New York. I tried everything and I still wasn’t happy, so I figured the methadone might do it for me and it did. I’m still doin’ it. Makes me feel completely normal.”
Long term use of heroin changes a person’s biochemistry. Methadone, a synthetic substitute for morphine, helps former addicts function normally. Johnny’s decision to treat his addiction in a long-term methadone maintenance program still draws criticism from people who perceive methadone as a way to substitute one drug for another, or view short-term treatment as the only acceptable use of the synthetic drug. Although it is not sedating or intoxicating, and blocks any euphoric or tranquilizing effects of opiate-class drugs, there is still a stigma attached to the use of methadone.
Derringer has been an outspoken critic of Johnny’s participation in a methadone maintenance program, perceiving it as a substitute for heroin, with the same effects.
“I think it specifically was just something that he envisioned as a great lifestyle, strangely enough,” Derringer told Muise. “And he used that opportunity to check himself into a hospital to put himself in some kind of situation where he could get stuff from legitimate sources rather than having to deal from the street. And that is basically what he still does today. It’s sad to say... and he’s been able to maintain that lifestyle of getting methadone from the state for twenty-five years.”
Shannon, who still has a close relationship with Johnny, has a different understanding of the effects of methadone on Johnny’s body.
“Taking methadone doesn’t hurt you,” Shannon said. “But if you quit after being on it for so many years, it will kill you. Because your body won’t produce endorphins and enkephalins, which are natural painkillers. Johnny’s body won’t produce that anymore, so he has to stay on it.”
The scenario of Johnny staying high on methadone and enjoying that lifestyle couldn’t be farther from the truth. It wasn’t until nearly two decades later that the interaction of prescription drugs with the methadone put him into a drug-induced state. That toxic combination almost destroyed his career and nearly cost him his life.
Given Johnny’s frame of mind, his use of heroin the day he was released from the hospital wasn’t farfetched. Psychiatrists who work with heroin addicts have noted that many have self-esteem issues and suffer from repressed or buried feelings, such as grief or anger that they feel are too powerful to let out.
Rush wasn’t surprised by Johnny’s reaction to the patients’ response to the facilitator at the River Oaks group sessions. Throughout the years Rush has known him, feelings of alienation were always lurking below the surface of Johnny’s confident demeanor.
“Johnny always seemed to think the only reason anybody would associate with him was because he was this famous guy,” said Rush. “I remember something he told me years later that always stuck in my mind. He said, ‘You know Pat, with today’s music, if I came out now, nobody would pay any attention to me. There are so many bands out there, KISS with the painted faces, Bowie with his thing, punk bands, guys with cockatoo haircuts, tattooed faces, masks, makeup. If I came out now, nobody would notice me. The only reason I made it, Janis made it, Jimi made it, was because at the time we were completely different from everybody else.’ Especially him because of the way he looked. He has always had a bit of a complex about that. Because of the way he grew up and the hardships he went through, by the time he did make it, it was tattooed in his brain that the only reason people would want to have anything to do with him, was because all of a sudden, he is famous and cool.”
Johnny’s status of famous and cool continued to haunt him when he left River Oaks and traveled to Austin for some downtime with Franklin.
“When went to Texas after rehab, I couldn’t just go out and watch a band,” says Johnny. “People would ask me to sit in, to give them a pick—give ’em something or do something for ’em, and I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to be able to be just another guy—I didn’t want to have to be a star all the time. It’s really tiring. I felt like a jukebox ’cause that’s what everybody expected from me—music. Put a quarter in and get their song. People don’t relate to you as a person and there’s not much they can do about it and not much you can do about it.”
Johnny vented his frustration to Rolling Stone reporter Chet Flippo, who met him in Austin after he left the hospital. The interview took place in Franklin’s studio above the Armadillo World Headquarters, a club in the National Guard Armory that became the place to hear music in Austin after the Vulcan Gas Company closed. In an article aptly titled “Just Act Like I’m A Person, Dammit!”, Johnny openly discussed his addiction. The article ran with an unflattering photograph with a quote for a caption: “ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS: YOU’RE A JUNKIE, YOU’RE A JUNKIE. I HATED MYSELF.
” “Smack just sneaks up on you, without you realizin’ it,” he told Flippo. “Pretty soon you just can’t get up in the morning without it.”
“I’ve never been very subtle about that kind of stuff so I pretty much answered his questions,” Johnny explains. “I figured that maybe it could help other people that were goin’ through the same thing.”
Johnny felt grounded when he saw his friends from Texas; he knew them before he achieved fame and never had to question their motivation.
“I was honored that he decided to come here after he got out of rehab,” said Franklin. “He seemed great. I was hoping it would last, but didn’t really expect it to. I think just about every excuse is used by people that get out of rehab to do another hit. One time, we flew to New Orleans, where he ran into a musician that knew where to score. Johnny snorted it, and threw up right away. He offered me some but I don’t have a predisposition for heroin. I wish I could transfer some of that gene to Johnny; he just has the addiction gene.”
Although Johnny escaped a certain death by putting himself into rehab, he had another close call in Austin two years after he left the facility.
“In about ’73, Johnny OD’ed in my apartment,” said Turner. “Me and Jeanne Whittington, a friend of Johnny’s, and my old lady Jill were there. He came into town and we got some heroin. He did the heroin and fell out—basically stopped breathing. We snatched him up, put him in a bathtub full of cold water, and I started slapping him like a rubber chicken, as hard as I could slap him, slappin’ the shit out of him. God, I didn’t want him to die in my apartment. We took his pants off, but I couldn’t get his shirt off quick enough so I just threw him in. I was trying to get his shirt off, and time was of the essence. So I said, ‘Throw him in the tub; fuck his shirt.’ When he woke up, he was mad because I threw him in the tub with his purple velvet shirt on. He didn’t realize what had happened, and when he came to, he said, ‘God damn it—you fucked up my shirt.’”
Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) Page 20
