This quote from an interview with Saxophonist and artist Peter Brötzmann in Wire Magazine meant a lot to me when I was getting sober:
"The best decision I have made in my life was to stop boozing,” he reveals. “I would have died earlier than (Paul) Rutherford.” Near the end, Brotzmann was kickstarting his mornings with a cocktail of rum, champagne and mixer that he admits was “mostly rum”. “I didn’t drink beer anymore, I didn’t drink wine anymore, it just was booze all the time,” he says. “And then I got what Rutherford had in the last years of his life. I think you English call it gout. It starts mostly in the toe but it’s fucking painful because there are some crystals in the joints and so whenever you move it hurts. I came home from a tour in Poland, a cheap tour, everything was really shit. I was sitting at night and suddenly it was like someone put a spear through my leg..."
#PeterBrotzmann #PeterBrötzmann #Recovery #Sobriety #TheWireMagazine
https://savoystomp.flannestad.com/2013/08/05/die-like-a-dog/index.html