Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It (19 page)

One of the big benefits of being a friend to yourself is that it opens you up to being a friend to those around you. I’ve learned that when I am more of a friend to myself, I also get along much better with my brother and sisters. I focus on the positive things in their lives instead of the negatives, and I encourage them instead of trying to direct them.

My siblings and I share many of the same dysfunctional behavioral patterns, but we also share many good traits, and many good experiences too. Aaron and I have recently found that when we meet on that common ground, our bonds grow stronger. We feel better about ourselves and about each other when we talk about gratifying, mutual interests, like our music.

Rather than trying to fix what I perceive to be wrong with my younger brother, I’m now trying to focus on listening to him and understanding where he is coming from. The fact is that we are very much alike on many levels, so we get each other. Because I wasn’t around a lot in his teenage years—and because I haven’t been the greatest role model—he’s made many of the same mistakes he’s watched me publicly make. Of course, Aaron is another reason I’ve written this book. It’s up to him to avoid some of the pitfalls that I plunged into headfirst, but perhaps the example of how I pulled myself up from those depths can be of some use to him on his own personal journey. The best thing about healing my relationship with Aaron and other family members is that having them back in my life makes me want to be a better person. I want to be there for them. I want them to be proud to share the same last name with me—and that is something I think I can control.

REALITY CHECK:
BAD THINGS
WILL STILL HAPPEN.

PERSONAL NOTES

CHAPTER EIGHT

HEART SICK

I
’M NOT SURE
if it was in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but somewhere in Russia during our
Unbreakable
Tour in 2008, I decided I was unbreakable too. I abused my body with booze and drugs like I was indestructible, a human Humvee.

Surprised? I wasn’t.

The way I partied on that tour was just crazy, especially since there’d been warning signs that my parts were already out of alignment. I’d been feeling crappy for most of the four months preceding the tour. We’d already done something like forty shows and I was dragging.

I’m a bit of a hypochondriac anyway, but I had plenty of reasons to think something was wrong. I’d hit 224 pounds and was so out of shape that I could hardly catch my breath when we were performing. Then there were the pains in my chest. I’d wake up at night convinced I was having a heart attack, but I’d talk myself down, thinking it was just my hypochondria kicking in.

Did that stop me from binge drinking? No, not Nick Carter. Sad to say, I’d gone back on the bottle just six or seven months after my self-rehab at the Cool Springs house in 2006.

You may remember that I bought the place as a getaway from the Hollywood-party crowd while we were recording part of the
Unbreakable
album.

This was after I’d walked out of Promises, the Malibu rehab center used by many burned out celebrities suffering from the same issues I had. I decided that it would be better to conduct a D-I-Y rehab than to lock myself in with the Promises professionals. As we’ve already established, I was a control freak at the time and I generally don’t like using crutches or relying on other people. Kicking booze and drugs on my own would be a confidence builder, or so I thought.

THEN THERE WERE
THE PAINS
IN MY CHEST.

I went for it. For six months I lived like a monk (except for the whole abstinence-from-sex thing). Then I dove headfirst off the wagon and just kept rolling farther and farther down into that big black hole. By the time we launched the world tour behind the
Unbreakable
album in February of 2008, my plan for kicking booze and drugs had been wiped off the whiteboard I’d used successfully back in my Tennessee home.

I did cut back on drugs and pills, though not completely. Mostly, I drank on the tour bus and off it too. I’ve always had trouble sleeping on the road. Drinking myself into a stupor wasn’t the best way to get a good night’s rest, but it was my favorite home remedy.

Heavy drinking usually depresses me and makes me paranoid, so you might say I kept pouring gasoline on the fire. In a feat of magical thinking, I used the chest pains as an excuse to get wasted every night. My totally illogical thought process was:
I’m already dying so I’m going to keep drinking and partying
. Apparently, I had decided to go down as a
Nick flambé
, soaked in alcohol and burned out.

MOSTLY,
I DRANK
ON THE TOUR BUS AND OFF IT TOO.

That’s not a very safe approach anywhere, but it is particularly dangerous in Russia where the locals guzzle huge shots of vodka for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously, I looked it up: Russians drink nearly twice as much as Americans, consuming on average about four gallons of pure alcohol per person annually. There are more than ten million Russians between the ages of 10-14 who drink booze, and about half a million of their people die each year from alcohol-related accidents, crimes or illnesses.

So, while on tour I figured:
When in Russia, drink as the Russians do.
I downed rivers of vodka, but it was the Sambuca that kicked my butt. I was out one night and some locals in a bar were having a last-man-standing contest to see who could down the most shots of the licorice-tasting stuff before passing out. I probably took about 20 shots of Sambuca for the American team. Unfortunately, I missed the medal ceremony. To this day I have no idea how I got back to my hotel.

When I woke up the first thought that hit me was,
Oh my God, I’m dying.
My heart was doing a dance routine in my chest. My lungs felt like someone was stomping the air out of them. My gut was swollen. I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. When I tried, my head started spinning.

I DOWNED
RIVERS OF VODKA
, BUT IT WAS THE SAMBUCA THAT KICKED MY BUTT.

We were supposed to head to South Africa for four shows after Russia, but Howie Dorough’s father, who had been battling lung and brain cancer, took a turn for the worse and was dying. Howie went home to be with him, so we canceled the South Africa shows, which gave us all of June and most of July off before we were scheduled to resume the tour in Canada and the U.S.

In the interim, I grieved for Howie and his family, which led to more boozing. Finding reasons to drink was one of my major skills. I hadn’t reached the point where I was getting up in the morning and chugging vodka, but I was headed in that direction. The question that kept running through my mind was whether I’d drink myself to death or die from whatever other illness was making me feel as if an alien predator was feasting on my internal organs.

I headed for Florida during the unscheduled break and went to my doctor for a complete checkup. I ended up in the office of Dr. Richard Polakoff, a Ft. Lauderdale cardiologist, who put me through two days of tests.

I ran on a treadmill with wires taped to me like the
Bionic Man
. By the end of the second day, I was freaked out. Dr. Polakoff wouldn’t say much. He kept telling me that no matter what the results were, I needed to change my lifestyle by drinking less, staying off drugs, losing weight, exercising and eating healthier foods. I was told I’d have the results by the next morning.

So, that night, I did my usual sensible thing: I partied like it was my last night on earth. I hit the bars and clubs around Ft. Lauderdale and Miami and went freaking nuts. I drank like I was trying to drown the demons inside my body. Then I did enough blow to make up for the six months I’d stayed clean.

I DRANK LIKE I WAS TRYING TO
DROWN THE DEMONS
INSIDE MY BODY.

Yeah, that didn’t help much.

At least when I went back to Dr. Polakoff’s office to get my results, he couldn’t say that I looked good for a sick guy. I’m sure I looked like a dead man walking because that’s how I felt. Still, I hadn’t killed myself.

“Nick, you have a condition known as cardiomyopathy. It’s the result of a buildup of toxins in your heart, which weaken it so that it has difficulty pumping blood,” he said.

Thinking the worst, I assumed this was a death sentence, but the doctor said mine was not a full-blown case—yet. He told me if I didn’t make serious and immediate changes in my lifestyle, the toxins would eventually kill me. He explained that it has killed a lot of young guys who partied like me, including the singer Andy Gibb and the actor Chris Penn.

“We don’t want you to end up like them,” said Dr. Polakoff.

“I don’t want to end up like them either,” I told him.

I was so relieved that it wasn’t cancer or something worse that I didn’t take the doctor’s warning seriously. I headed for South Beach instead.

You are probably thinking:
Nick has a death wish.

Maybe I did. Bad news. Good news. It didn’t matter. Booze and drugs were my answer to every situation and every occasion. South Beach was the perfect place for death-wish fulfillment. I drank, did drugs, and partied until I was paralyzed and passed out.

I woke up in a hotel room with my head pounding so hard I couldn’t focus my eyes. The room was all white; so white, I wondered if I was in a casket, dead and buried six feet under.

If I’m not dead, I should be and if I don’t stop this, I will be soon.

My heart was pounding so loud I thought someone was at the door. I decided my body was trying to get my attention one last time. I stayed in bed, flat on my back, trying to slow the battering inside my chest with deep breaths. My doctor’s warnings played out in my head.

Andy Gibb died of cardiomyopathy at 30.

I was 29.

Every time I binged on alcohol and drugs, it weakened my heart. The doctor said if I kept it up, my energy level would keep dropping until one day my heart would just stop. They call it
sudden death disorder
, but I’d been slowly crawling toward death for a long, long time. If I had died of this, my tombstone should have said, “He wasn’t so
unbreakable
after all.”

I hadn’t listened to the warnings of Kevin Richardson, Brian Littrell, or any of the people closest to me. The DUI hadn’t done it. The horrible Night of the Zombies didn’t do it either. I’d stayed mostly clean for six months but then I’d fallen farther and deeper than ever before.

…I WONDERED IF I WAS IN A CASKET,
DEAD AND BURIED
SIX FEET UNDER.

Now I was poisoning my own heart. The binge drinking and drugs were pumping toxins into it—and so was all of the lingering bitterness, resentment, and anger I felt toward my parents.

I needed a massive physical, mental, and emotional detox. I stayed in bed for hours, trying to calm my heart and stop the marching band in my brain. When I finally had the strength, I packed my stuff, checked out of the hotel, got in my car and headed for Cool Springs.

This time, I had no choice. It was change or die.

BREAKABLE

If you’ve ever thought you were indestructible and that you could binge drink, do drugs, and just keep partying because nothing would bring you down, think again. I was committing suicide and so are you if you continue to follow that crazy lifestyle. There is nothing cool about a death wish. It is just a waste of a life and a stupid, stupid thing to harbor.

IT WAS
CHANGE OR DIE
.

I was great at justifying my self-destruction, though. For the longest time, it was my parents’ fault. I was the victim of their horrible parenting, their bad examples, and their broken marriage. Then, the justification sort of shifted into:
I’m sick and dying, so I might as well drink and do drugs.

Either way, I was taking my own life.

Guys and girls in their teens and twenties are probably the worst when it comes to abusing their bodies and endangering their health, whether it is with alcohol, drugs, poor eating habits or lack of exercise. Males in general tend to think it’s unmanly to have regular checkups and to eat healthy foods.

I was a serial offender in the health department until just the last few years when my toxic heart gave me a cold, harsh reality check. I seriously never thought drinking and doing drugs could infect my heart. Then again, I didn’t think much at all about consequences of any kind.

That’s yet another mistake I made so you don’t have to. Well, maybe not exactly, but I certainly hope you learn from me and consider the devastating effects of drinking and doing drugs. Scientists who study the human brain say that generally young people in their teens and early twenties are lacking in their ability to see the consequences of their actions or to have a long-term perspective because their brains are literally re-wiring themselves during those years. Old connections are cut off and new ones are being formed up until around the age of 25.

So, maybe
that’s
my excuse?

Though any rationalization I could possibly dream up doesn’t really matter because damage was done. Only time will tell if it was irreparable.

And only time will tell what further toll my excesses may have taken on my body. Remember that I still sweat the fear of Ecstasy’s unforeseen effects.

I hope you don’t have similar concerns. Even if you do, though, your choices are the same as mine. All we can do now is work to repair the damage that is possible to repair, and keep ourselves as healthy as we can in the hope that our bodies will forgive the abuse and neglect of years past.

Unless you’ve been through a serious illness or had someone close to you spend weeks in the hospital, you probably haven’t thought about what it’s like to lose your health. But when you are truly sick or in chronic pain, everything else in your life changes. Your dreams are put on hold. There is no such thing as going out and having fun. You are miserable all the time.

Why would anyone risk that? Most people (men especially, but women too) don’t want to face the realities of their health. They tell themselves that bad things can’t happen to them. Cemeteries are full of people who thought they’d never get sick and die. The reality is, it happened to them and it can happen to you. I’m not unbreakable or bulletproof and neither are you. So here are a few basic suggestions that I hope you will take to heart.

GET A CHECKUP BEFORE YOU CHECK OUT

See a doctor at least once a year for a checkup. If something doesn’t seem right, talk to your doctor about it. Denial can be deadly. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say of a friend or family member who’d died: “If only he’d gone to a doctor . . .”

Checkups are no fun, but most things that can kill you can be slowed, stopped, or even reversed if detected early enough. A doctor can tell you, just as Dr. Polakoff told me, if you are doing something that is endangering your health. I probably would have died within a few years if I’d kept drinking and doing drugs like I was back then.

I’m not perfect now. I still slip up when it comes to drinking. But I’m alive and great things have happened for me in the last few years. I would have missed them. I’m glad I didn’t. Take care of yourself so you’ll be present for the great things in your life, too.

GET YOUR DRINKING UNDER CONTROL

Stop binge drinking and drinking until you’re drunk. If you can’t control it, stop all together. You will need help to do that. Remember there is no shame in asking for help. Alcoholics Anonymous or a trained therapist can save your relationships, your job, and your life by helping you find alternatives to drinking alcohol. They’ve done it for millions of people. I’m one of them.

You may not think you are worthy of living or being sober. AA can help you with that too. In the meantime, think about all of the other people you are putting in danger when you drive drunk, or go to work intoxicated or hung-over. I didn’t want to be that person. Nor did I want to be the person in the newspaper article or obituary that makes readers wonder, “Why didn’t he stop drinking and doing drugs before it came to this?”