Woody Giessmann will sign copies of his new book, “A Life of Recovery: Breaking The Chains of Addiction,” and give a musical performance at Somewhere Works, 235 N. Emporia Ave.
Giessmann has been an addiction specialist and interventionalist since the 1990s. Before that he was a musician, serving as a founding member of The Embarrassment, one of Wichita’s earliest punk bands and a group whose flirtations with major success are chronicled in the documentary “We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember.” Later, he left Wichita for Boston and became a member of The Del Fuegos, recording a series of respected LPs and touring with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.
But by the time he was playing at Madison Square Garden, a musician’s dream, he was more concerned, he says, that someone might sneak into his dressing room and steal his drugs than enjoying the moment. As he chronicles in “A Life of Recovery,” he’d been trying to escape a troubled family life and the pain of his older brother’s suicide for years by that time. Eventually, he got the help he needed and then devoted his professional life helping others working through their own struggles.
While Giessmann does touch on his life in rock ‘n’ roll, the focus of the book is how individuals and families can recover. “A Life of Recovery: Breaking The Chains of Addiction,” is available at WoodyGiessmannbooks.com. Learn more about Giessmann and his services at recoveryour.life.
Giessmann lives in the Boston area where he continues to pursue creativity through writing, painting, and music.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Your brother’s suicide, which you write about in the book, had a tremendous impact on you and was a complicating factor in your life for a long time.
I’ve turned this awful darkness into a blessing or a gift. I can’t tell you how many times people have come into my office and said, “I want this over with.” I’ll say, “I get you. You’re not suicidal. If so you wouldn’t be telling me this. You would just go do it.” In three decades I’ve had two cases where people were actually, truly suicidal. I was grateful that they trusted me enough to say something because typically people don’t. They just go away and do it.
Music was a major factor in your life early on as well. You left Wichita, went off to Boston and found yourself in The Del Fuegos. Dan and Warren Zanes from that band had experienced their own loss as their father had died. Was there any sense that loss was something that drew you together?
Back then I wanted to join a band that could drink like me and play music like me. The whole sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll thing. I would agree that there are bands that have a shared experience and that that [can be central to their existence and behavior]. The lowest common denominator says, “I know it’s not Happy Hour but let’s have a drink.”
I was self-medicating all along. I can remember showing up at the airport at 7:00 in the morning, completely exhausted, and having to fly to the next gig and I’m in pain from keeping up with this tour schedule and going to the airport bar and tipping the guy 20 bucks to serve me early. I was not alone in that.
We often hear, “There are so many addicts in music and the arts in general.” But picking up a guitar doesn’t make you an alcoholic and being an alcoholic isn’t going to make you a great painter, right?
I’m not sure how much I discussed in the book the genetic predisposition to being a creative person which is specifically the DRD4 dopamine gene that exists in 10 percent of the population. Ninety percent of the population would love to sit down with a guitar and play a song or sit down at an easel and paint or write a poem but 10 percent have that creative gene. It’s just a hypothesis that it’s [a gene related to impulsiveness] that puts people at a high risk for addiction. But they’re creative, they take chances, they do things.
As a young person, I was a painter and a musician. I thought, “Oh, gee, if I’m going to be a great painter like Pablo Picasso, then I’ve got to drink. If I’m going to be a great musician, I have to look at Keith Richards and say, ‘Well, that’s what I’ve got to do.’ People look at their idols and say, “If they do it, I’ve got to do it.” I say that’s foolishness. I’ve been clean and sober for 35 years and I’ve never played better in my life.
But I understand the hesitation. Back in 1990, I thought, “Will I ever be able to go onstage and perform sober?” It scared the heck out of me. But I surround myself with great people in my recovery.
You wrote about how you got sober and had a good amount of time behind you and then relapsed. Some people might see that and say, “Ah-ha! 12-step programs don’t work.” But I read that differently, I read that as something that was part of a larger process in your sobriety.
Thank you for paying attention to the details. I did get 90 days of sobriety. And then I went out to celebrate. I’m facetious here: What I was actually doing was more research. [Laughs.] I had been in an AA meeting that day. The person who served me a martini on the ninetieth day was at my morning meeting. [When I ordered the drink], they said, “Are you sure you’re OK?” I said, “Yes, could you please just serve me a martini and keep them coming.” She said, “OK.” What an interesting thing here: If you order a drink they will serve it you because that’s what they do. I was in a very painful place.
But let’s get down to the science here: My brain, at 90 days, was beginning the process of healing. My functions were beginning to normalize. Beginning. I emphasize the importance of treatment and length of time that someone should be in treatment [in the book] for the purposes of getting through the early stages of hell! [Laughs.] You have to get to a place where you’re getting ready to function and you’re getting ready to be well and inviting things into your life that are going to help you.
You mentioned in the book that the younger one is when they have their first exposure to drugs or alcohol, the more at risk they are for addiction. If someone starts drinking at 13, then sobers up at 35, there are some things that they’ve missed along the way in terms of development and maturity.
I’m going to turn to Dr. Jacquelyn Small. In her book “Transformers,” she writes about how we want to avoid early exposure [of drugs and alcohol] to an adolescent brain, knowing that the national average for first exposure is age 14, which I qualified for. [I went to] my friend’s Bar Mitzvah and had my first exposure to alcohol. What we know is that that exposure to alcohol developmentally delayed the brain, specifically the limbic system in the brain, your emotional response to the world around you.
Whether you’re using or misusing or abusing or dependent on substances, whatever they are, you are most likely delaying the development of your emotional response to the world around you. Years ago I had a 55-year-old man in my office and he was lovely man, alcoholic, but he was acting very childish at times and I said, “Can we stop right now? Tell me: When was the first time you were exposed to alcohol?” He said, “When I was 15.” I said, “Did you drink very heavily at 15?” He said, “Yeah, as soon as I picked up a drink, I was just trying to numb myself from the world around me.” I said, “Isn’t that interesting? I hear you acting like a 15-year-old. You’re acting out.”
Do you ever think about the young you who was growing up in Wichita and having a tough time?
Yes. I had this creative discipline to not give up on my hopes and dreams and to be true to my authentic self. Look, I may not be a great musician or a great painter but that’s what I want to do and that’s where I find my joy and my happiness.
