Question About The Klonopin Years
 

Now, I know this is a touchy subject, but this has been on my mind a little bit. I know that Stevie was perscribed Klonopin after her cocaine addiction. She produced 2 albums during this time. OSOTM in my opinion is magical, and doesn't seem as bland or whatever as Street Angel.

I guess my question is, when did Stevie really slip into her Klonopin haze? Was it really right after she was perscribed it, or was it later on? Also, when did she go to rehab for Klonopin? Was it before the Street Angel Tour?

For some reason, this is just one thing that I am not really sure of and would greatly appreciate some answers :nod:

Hope Everyone Is Doing Well,:nod:
Ethan

From what I understand, she was first prescribed klonopin (which can be used as an anticonvulsant, antianxiety, or sedative) around '87 or '88. I don't think she started getting messed up on it until around '90. By '92/'93 she was gone. She has said that at first, it was something to calm her nerves, but any time she'd complain it wasn't working, the MD just increased the doseage.

TOSOTM was a bit of a surprise hit for her, I believe. I remember reading that her dad told her it was the worst album she had ever made, but it ended up doing pretty well so she was happy about that. That tour was iffy, IMO. A couple of really nice shows, but generally pretty bland, monotone & occasionally out of tune. It was between this tour & Timespace that she started getting more lethargic, less prolific in her writing. She was not in great shape for the Clinton inauguration, IMO. She looked bloated, her coloring was bad, and she looked tired.

She has said that she was still on klonopin during the making of the Street Angel album. She went into rehab while the album was being finished up & when she got out, she was very disappointed in it. Says she "tried to fix it" but wasn't happy with it. By that time, what's done was done & she had to release the album. So for the SA tour itself, and promo apprearances, she was off the drugs. Those shows are some of the best I've heard - yes, her range was diminished, but her voice was so powerful. It was like she was making up for all those bad years by pouring her heart out & tearing up those tunes live.

Just on a side note..I have been on it for nearly 2 years...at first it wasn't helping and they kept upping my dosage...it is really a horrible horrible drug...I almost rather have a panic attack than take the pill...No lie...it is horribly addictive. They say take it 4 times a day and it is so easy to do...I take it when I need to but even when I do...I don't even want to do anything...it's tough...but not easy to come off it....and Stevie is right the doctor's don't want to take you off of it..they don't even want to lower the dosage...just take 1/2 a pill they say...BS in my opinion.

I have always thought that while she took too much Klonopin, either by Rx or my her own choice, it was not totally the Klonopin. I think she mixedit with too many other drugs like Valium. Plus, she drank and smoked pot as well. All of those are downers. I also think she had days where she was fine and days when the Judy Garland cocktail was too piked even for a pro like her.

In my opinion, the whole 'haze' thing started in 1987. You can't always go by what Stevie says in interviews anyway. She sounds fine on the TITN album, same old Stevie. But when I caught FM on the 'Shake The Cage' tour in early October of '87, it was apparent that something was very different. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but she seemed less 'engaged' and more distant. Her vocal style had changed too, no more of the throaty singing and wails that we had heard on the RAL tour. When TOSOTM came out, I was pretty dissapointed at the blandness of it. So different from her previous works.

It is not a "horrible horrible" drug, this (and other meds in the same class like Valium and Ativan) medicine can be a life-saver for some patients who are crippled with anxiety or have issues with agitation.
All Benzopiazopenes are addictive, which is why they are usually prescibed in a judicious manner by clinicians.

I agree. Klonopin helped me through a rough period of insomnia. Everyone is different and if you're an addictive personality- any drug will do. What makes Klonopin so addictive, in my opinion, is that it works so well.

I should have clarified...for me...it just makes me not want to do anything but yes it has really helped when I am at the mall and I have an attack....so I guess there are pro's and con's to any type of meds really.

Yeah - It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that feels this way. To be competely - uhm - honest -

I have a pet peeve about this. Love Stevie to death, and I'll be one of the FIRST ones to call her a genius. But a Medical Doctor she is NOT and in my opinion she shouldn't be badmouthing a drug just because she personally had a bad experience with it while she was taking it along with other things such as Valium, as mentioned above.
In my opinion, that Psychiatrist - YOU know, the guy that went to Medical School for 4 years? And then did a seven-year long Residency? (Or whatever it is.) He or she knew EXACTLY what they were doing. Stevie has often said that she came very close to DYING. In fact she even says that, as almost the last thing, in CV. What that guy did, in my opinion, is understand completely that she was still an addict and would have gone right back out again eventually and gone back to it, hard-core. He knocked her down (i.m.o.) so that things could "clear out of her system" and she could recover from being an addict. The guy perceived that she was still in an environment where being on drugs would be encouraged - and he GOT HER THE HELL OUT OF THERE. In my opinion he literally saved her life. And honestly, I feel that I'm not putting her down, but it was Stevie's choice, ultimately, to take as much as she did. (I think she must have "subconsciously" known it would save her, even if she still publically badmouths the stuff.)

Anyway, I honestly wish she would change what she says to something like, "Well, I can TELL you that in MY experience . . . well, I had a rough time with it, I can tell you that." Stevie's an expert on writing music, singing, surviving in the music business, maybe some other things. She's not an expert on medicine or psychiatry.

^^^^

I think you are missing her point, which she said is that she was done with the coke and did not need the Klonopin. But, the doctor told her to take it anyway. If he had listened to her, he would not have perscribed it.

As for personal responsibility -- addiction is a disease. So, yes, La Nicks shoulders some of the resp. -- but my understanding of addiction is that it is not as simple as making a conscious choice to take the pill.

heh, everyone's a pharmacologist! :laugh:

I totally agree with the second thing you're saying - I think that Stevie was still an addict, and will always be. In that environment (the Record Business and Rock Music back in the 80s) I think that she was at very real risk of getting back to it. (By the way, I don't know if it's true, but there's rumors that she was doing coke again during the Dance Tour....) So, yes, I honestly do feel that the Psychiatrist was trying to "knock her down" in order to try to help her. I think this may be one of those situations where there's "more to the story than meets the eye."

Anyway I didn't mean to imply that addiction isn't a disease or anything like that, I totally get that. I just didn't phrase it very well, maybe. At any rate I really do wish she would change it to something like, "Well, it was really bad for ME; and I feel like I'd like to warn people off of it because I had a bad experience with it. But . . . I dunno - - - talk to your DOCTOR, I ain't an M.D.!"

^^ but who thinks stevie's a doctor? who would take medical advice from her? stevie's not changing any minds with her statements. any rational person is going to take her words with a grain of salt.

:laugh:

no ****.

She got fat due to taking steroids, not Klonopin.

Dont blame a doctor for an addictive personality.


(I'm for Klonopin, as you can see)

^^ yeah. gotta agree. i don't think anyone's listening to stevie for medical or psychiatric advice.

i think her comments about klonopin are pretty obviously about her own personal experience.

The timeline and details have already been covered.

The point is, Stevie takes ZERO responsibility for most of her own actions. The coke they "didn't know was dangerous," the Klonopin was " the doctor's fault." I am sure she would say no one told her smoking cigarettes and pot could damage her voice too. She would have people believe she was an illiterate creature raised like a veal in a box. Nothing is ever her fault.

Any person with the ability to read knew coke was addictive and dangerous as soon as 1950. Anyone with a PDR knew Klonopin was addictive. Her recent statement about the inauguration, "I am totally on tranquilizers" is what I knew all along. No veteran drug user doesn't know when they are HIGH. She only stopped when she damn near killed herself falling into a fireplace from being so wacked out.

I noticed her zombie act on the Tango tour. Vocally and physically. It only got worse. When I first moved to LA in 1993, I met someone who spilled the beans. It so happened that this persons's GF worked in a pharmacy in Beverly Hills. The one Stevie used. I mentioned Stevie and this individual told me that she was on a staggering amount of tranquilizers of varying types, and in very extremely high dosages. It explained everything. She also told me a variety of women picked them up for her, never Stevie herself. You can imagine I recognized the physical descriptions of said messengers. Or should I say enablers?

So, from the weight to the drugs, it is all about abdicating responsibility for one's actions. I will never doubt Stevie's genius as a writer, fleeting as the fertile years were, or her charismatic presence as a performer. Nor can I question her caginess at crafting and maintaining her image. But as a human being? Addict or not, my respect for her has continually plummeted the more I know about her. She is an excuse factory of the highest order. When it comes to self indulgence, she is world class royalty.

^^ ITA with most of that. The idea that she was just on klonopin is a joke to me. An addict is an addict is an addict. It has always bothered me that Stevie accepts zero responsiblity publically for her actions. She does it is ALL aspects of her public career, from her drug use, to the problems within FM, to her relationships. Alot of fans have bought into it, too. Honestly, I do think she is rather lucky that certain people have not stood up and defended themselves more. (Lindsey.)

As to the original question, I skipped the STC tour but noticed something immediately when I saw a few Mirror shows. I had seen coked out RAL Stevie and OSOTM Stevie was pretty much a zombie in comparison. She was disconnected from the audience and her band, appearing to be in her own world. Her vocals were also completely uninspired. I remember handing her a stuffed bear during the Edge walk (yea I was a kid and now I am utterly embarrassed that I brought her a stuffed "gift") and when she took it, she looked at me for a few seconds. It was like she looked right through me. Nowadays during Edge, she looks you directly in the eye and you can tell she is really looking at you......but then? Yikes. Nobody was home. It sort of freaked me out to be honest.

Stevie has also said that most of the Mirror songs were written before she got too bad on the klonopin so she got "lucky with that album". I tend to agree with Jess that Mirror is one of her worst records.
Lindsey has said quite a few times that he could not "look Stevie in the eye" during the making of TitN. If she supposedly wasn't on the klonopin at that time, what was the problem with her? Maybe she came off the coke and went on the klonopin right away. She does say she was on klonopin for "eight years"...so 86 to 94.

Wow, that is too bad. I could only imagine......... :distress:

She has said in more than one interview that if you need Klonopin, then that is one thing. But, she did not, etc. I think alot of what happens is she is talking about her experiences and then translates that into her telling people to run if they do not need it. I think if asked, she would say do what your doctor says, just be careful, etc. I think this because she has said it before. I think those interviews were around The Enchanted Tour. Here is one:

I think LB hated her so much during TITN that anything she did would have caused an uproar from LB. I also think he saw what a deformed creature she had become prior to the Betty Ford experience - she appeared bloated and I am sure she was doing several lines an hour. Remember, he had not really been around her in a professional setting for like four years dueing Mirage. I also think LB was still doing coke then and people who are doing coke really do not want other people not doing it, much less a rehaber, around. It takes away from the high.

Interestingly, there are no rumors of La Nicks not getting along with anyone else during that time :shrug:

Having said that, certainly by the TOSOTM tour, she was a zombie and it was tres scary. Remember the Arsentio Hall appearance :eek:

Anyway, my $0.02.

What are you high? The Aresenio Hall Stand Back was almost better than what shes doing with that song today.

Yes, the 'Arsenio Hall' appearance was a bright spot in those dreary years. I think that was the debut of her long silky straight hair look too. Her performance of 'Stand Back' was pretty darn good!

You want to see scary numb Stevie? Check out the TV special for the 'Very Special Christmas' album which was in '88? (or '89?). Stevie recounts a story of how she caught her father assembling a baby stroller for her on Christmas eve when she still believed in Santa Claus. Her eyes are completely vacant, and she's decked out in full shoulder-pad, weird hat, bleached out hair, rhinestone bedecked finery.

As for Stevie being bloated during the TITN sessions, I don't know if that's entirely true or not. Because in the promo pics for the album she looks rather sunken and sallow. Any one I know who was sniffing or smoking coke always looked rather thin, as eating became less of a concern. Stevie's bloating came later...does anyone remember when 'MTV' premiered the 'Rooms on Fire' video?? I was like 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!' I couldn't believe how wide Stevie's face had become...

i agree with that. i think what happened between lindsey and stevie at that time (during TITN) had to do with a whole lot more than her just being newly off coke and newly on klonopin. it was their personal history, it was their professional history, both their drug histories. i'm sure it was hard for him to look at stevie and see what a wreck she was becoming. he may have even tried to help - and been rejected. addiction is not a pretty thing, and it takes a lot for the people who love an addict to hang in. it is a horrible thing to watch a friend self destruct - and especially if that friend was once someone you loved. and i think that, often, the so-called "enablers" of stevie are given way too little credit, or they are blamed too much. they were doing what, at the time, they probably believed they had to do to stay in her circle - where they could keep an eye on her. an addict who does not get her drugs (be the scrips or coke or heroin or crack) is NOT going to keep around her the people making it hard. and sometimes, out of desperation, out of a need of wanting to make sure that person stays alive, you give them what they need, and try to help at the same time. we have no idea what the girls, or lindsey, or mick, or christine, or her parents did during that time. we all watched her deteriorate from out here. and we hated it. imagine what they all went through.

i'm not at all surprised lindsey had to get away from it all.

but i don't agree with thsoe who say she never takes responsibility for it. i think the fact that she admitted to it all and spoke publicly about it all was a huge thing for her. that WAS the way she took responsibility for it. and i think she does blame the doctor who gave her klonopin, and has a right to, because she knows she didn't go asking for it. in her mind, she went to rehab for the coke. she got off it. and then her doctor turned around and put her addictive personality on another drug. hello?? i don't blame her for being angry. as someone else mentioned earlier, addiction is NOT a choice.

I would be angry too, and certainly there are instances of doctors being either in bed (figuratively) with pharmacutical corporations, or at least influenced enough by the "science" to prescribe it a little too readily, and not consider other, more involved, forms of help, such as getting to the root of hte problem in the first place.

(This seems to have only gotten worse since the 1980's, now parents are even feeling pressure to pump their children full of these drugs. Certainly for some people it's the right choice, but for the millions of people being prescribed these drugs, they don't ALL need to be taking them.)

That being said, I honestly think it was part of Stevie's compulsive personality that went along with the Klonopin thing just as readily, I think she actually did enjoy it on some level, or was at least afraid to be completely drug-free in the 1980's.

It makes me really sad to hear that! :distress: That sort of thing would really upset me.

As for Arsenio Hall, I thought it was a very fine performance. She pulled off Love's A Hard Game to Play in great style as well -- I always hated that song until I saw it that time. And it just really brought it alive to me!! As for Stand Back, I still get the shivers every time I see the screen come up and the shawl spinning!

I agree with you. Plus, I've heard interviews where she has confessed to "not being a very nice person" during those years, "and firing lots of people." She has also said that when she recovered from the Klonopin and realized what she had become and how she had treated the people around her, she was devastated and tried to make amends with those she hurt. That was all a part of taking personal responsibility for what happened.

A lot of people trust what their doctor tells them... even intelligent people you would assume should "know better"... and only realize later (if they're lucky) that it wasn't the best course of treatment or that they should have gotten a second opinion.

I think she still has lingering bitterness about that time-period, and perhaps some of it is even directed at herself for not "knowing better" (even if she doesn't articulate that in interviews), and maybe that's why she tends to avoid the songs and albums from that era... they bring up too many bad memories.

To me, she lloks like she is looking into la la land throughout this song - and that fake tear at the end - OY!!!!




In SB - first of all at about 3:00 - I thought she sang "one man did not fukc off" :laugh: -- Second - I still think that though she is lively in this - she is high as a kite.



But - to each their own cool:

I always say this about this article - take it with a grain of salt because it contains inaccuracies. The video interview of the same gives a different version of events.

Yes. I knew she had one abortion, but four?? I'm pretty sure that is inaccurate. Also, I didn't think Tom Petty and Stevie ever had a relationship. Any insight?

^^^ ITA!!!
Her vocals are flatter than her hair.
The SB spins out of the gate is cool..her vocal is not.:cool:

^^^^

La Nicks consistently denies any relationship other than friendship with TP.

Also, there is a video interview where she talks about the four things she lost or gave up for her career - it is pretty clear that she is talking about loves of her life and not children.

Note - this discussion has turned into a flame fest in the past. I am not flaming anyone, just saying what I remember. A little research on this topic on this board and on Nancy's board (www.buckinghamnicks.net) should yield some of those past threads, which I think were interesting despite the flaming :cool:

I do not have it - but maybe someone can post the video interview I am talking about.

Honestly, one of the only things that really bothers me about this time was the weirdness in Stevie's voice when she went for the high notes. In just about every video I've seen from 89-91, when she sings a high note, it almost sounds like she is underwater. Listen to when she sings "hard game to play" in the Arsenio Hall performance above. I don't understand why her voice sounds that way. It really sounds like her lungs are filled with water.

I agree - though I think it started on the RAL tour. She did have some killer sets in this time period though. I like the Paris OSOTM tour. Even Alice was good in that one :laugh:

As opposed to a silly doctor? :laugh:

This? Is serious. :cool:


God, I love you Stevie. :angel:



BTW - Strand, great take on the Mirages vs. TITN eras as far as her relationship w/LB goes. I had never really thought about it before, but it really must have been shocking for him, after not seeing much of her for a few years, to see her like that. He probably thought "OMG, what the f*ck happened to you?!"

There is nothing unusual about being prescribed Klonopin/ativan during and after rehabing from hard drugs. Stevie probably did need it for some time, the doctor picked up on that, and prescribed it. She obviously didn't take it as prescribed or indicated.

No doctor would keep her going on it for several years, so I'm wondering if she went around and got prescription from different doctors. If it was the same doctor from start to finish, then I think she is justified in slamming him/her because no decent doc would just write scripts for Klonopin for years without seeing that she was clearly addicted.

That was the only solotour I ever saw her do: That experience (with a soulwrecking Richard Marx-gig as a support:eek: ) has ruined more of my Steviefandom than LB could have EVER caused.....;)

I am sure he thought that. I did.

Thank you!!

And then, once she got out of rehab, I bet she thought, I am supposed to work with these people/users SOBER :eek: I mean most times most rehabbers stay well away from the very source of the high, not to mention LB who was likely not very nice to her at times to say the least. She did not have that luxury. Well, actually, she did, but she chose not to let everyone down and quit, esp. when at that point in time, she did not need FM at all in terms of being a success, though in hindsight, her star never show brightly again until 1997, when she did need FM - how ironic. Anyway, I have always thought the pre and post TITN sessions were night and day regarding the dynamic of LB and La Nicks.

Ohhhh to have been a fly on the wall.

Sorry it has taken me soooo long to thank those of you who have contributed and have given me the answers that I was looking for. I am glad that now I have a better idea of the whole timeframe thing. Thanks :nod:

My mother was also prescibed klonopin, she took it for only three years but it was a nightmare. The doctors upped her dosage she became more and more dependent on it until she was just this blob sitting in front of the tv, isolated, disconnected and just hollow. My mom was once a very pretty lady,very put together, and sophisticated (she reminded me of Mary Tyler Moore). She was optimistic and generally happy after three years on klonipin, she was more like Rosanne Barr heavy, cynical, pissed off and sometimes just plain mean. It took along time for her to see the change in herself and also it is very hard to for her to believe she had a problem when her doc kept giving her the scripts.It validated to her that she needed it. I can see how Stevie felt because my mother felt the same way.She lost herself for awhile, it was hell.