Question About The Klonopin Years

[sparky]

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.

[Kelly]

Originally Posted by sparky

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.

[Musicman408]

Originally Posted by Kelly

^^ 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.........

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

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.!"

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:

EW: How sharp are your memories from all these years the boxed set represents? I remember hearing you talk about the '89 tour, when you were on-I believe you've said-a lot of painkillers, and you don't have such a clear memory of that particular tour. Are any of the recordings a blur, too?

Nicks: I'm always amazed to hear what people think I was taking, because it wasn't painkillers. I was taking a thing called Klonopin-like a Valium thing. This was prescribed for me by a serious doctor. I started taking it in 1986. By 1989, it wasn't that I didn't write well, I just stopped writing. Just too blase to care. Any kind of a Valium thing, any kind of a Prozac thing, very bad for people who write-if you're not seriously depressed. If you need it, then that's one thing. But if you're just a person that wants to feel better and feel happier, those drugs don't do a lot for creative people.

EW: You weren't in the kind of depression where you really needed that?

Nicks: No. I don't think I was ever even depressed. Because I didn't need it, I stopped taking 'em. So why was I ever taking 'em in the first place? Who knows? Because somebody said that this would be good for me after my cocaine years, that this would keep my nerves [steady], that this would keep me from going back to cocaine. It almost killed me, this stuff. I fared way better on cocaine and coffee than I did on the Klonopin. And at least on the cocaine and the coffee and the shot of brandy here and there, I could write, and I could write really well, and I was somewhat still there. But have a half a glass of wine with a Klonopin, it's like Rofonal; it's like stuff they put in people's drinks to dape-rate you. It's like you aren't there. So if you're not there, you can't possibly be writing anything that's very good.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Kelly

^^ 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.

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

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

Anyway, my $0.02.

[AliceLover]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

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

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

Anyway, my $0.02.

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

[petep9000]

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...

[catinthedark]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

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.

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.

[no_spoken_word]

Originally Posted by catinthedark

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.

[Sahara]

Originally Posted by Kelly

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.

It makes me really sad to hear that! 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!

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by catinthedark

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 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.

[strandinthewind]

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" -- Second - I still think that though she is lively in this - she is high as a kite.



But - to each their own cool:

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by takenbythesky

Here's an article about "The Klonopin years" that you might find interesting, Ethan. The Blue Letter Archives have a wealth of articles about Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac.

http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...2&id=1181&c=11

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.

[camchristo]

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?

[BlackWidow]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

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" -- Second - I still think that though she is lively in this - she is high as a kite.



But - to each their own cool:

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