Wheelchair user Eric Howk used drugs and alcohol to blunt the physical discomfort brought on by his disability. As the saying goes, it worked until it didn’t. Now two years into his sobriety, Howk, a guitarist for the rock band “Portugal. The Man“ reflects on his past usage and his recovery journey.
A Fairtytale of a Career
I’m sitting in seat 2D, looking down toward the shadow of my airplane out of a window at 37,000 feet. I’m somewhere between the Wyoming-Colorado border, where the Rockies give way to the sprawling Pawnee grasslands. It’s an indistinguishable patch of brown national vastness, yet I can’t help but feel like I have stared at this exact same break of the rolling foothills from the same seat of the same airplane hundreds of times over the last 20 years while traveling in a rock and roll band.
I’ve had a fairytale of a career, bound by a ton of hard work, a fair amount of luck, and an unbelievable amount of travel. In the early days, it was rented vans, U-Hauls, and station wagons. Lately, it’s more centered around buses and jets. The family has grown, but the pace has remained relatively unhindered, running breakneck until Covid slammed the brakes on our entire industry.
The logistics of touring post-Covid look a lot different for us today than they did just a few years ago. Instead of breaking off a whole chunk of shows in a tour bus at once, we’re finishing our year doing a couple of dozen fly-out shows. We grab all our gear, jump on commercial flights, and build each show from scratch, unique to the city we’re playing at any given night. That sort of variability used to scare the hell out of me.
If I’m completely honest, a lot of things in this job used to scare the hell out of me. I’ve probably played close to 2,000 shows at this point, and most of those shows have been as a T4 complete paraplegic, traveling alone. No safety net, no caretaker, and for many years no health insurance, doctors, care plan, or consideration for my well-being.
View this post on Instagram
Alcohol for Paraplegia and Cocaine for Drunkenness
I am fortunate enough to have an injury that insulates me from constant pain, but I still deal with it in waves. A flood of neuropathic charges here and there, always at the most inconvenient of times. A dose of autonomic dysreflexia while I’m trying to do a morning radio interview. A jab in the ribs right in the middle of a guitar solo. If there is a shred of monotony in my job, the unpredictability of my body keeps my day-to-day experience far from routine.
To deal with those episodes, I used to drink. A lot. Too much. More than anybody else around me. All the people in this life are roadies and rock stars, yet I still drank on a level that raised the eyebrows of the saltiest of road dogs.
To manage my drunkenness, I turned to cocaine to try and increase my functionality. A little at first, very rarely, until it was in my pocket more often than not. For the harsher edges of my new reality that I couldn’t smooth with drinking more, I turned back to some of the pills I had been prescribed early in my injury.
I was like a town with a rat problem that hired snakes to deal with the rats, gorillas to handle the snakes, and tigers to manage the gorillas. It was unsustainable. But as long as I kept moving to a different city every day, the deep cracks forming in my foundation didn’t have a chance to show on the surface.
Of course, people knew.
I Was Broken
My wife was terrified of my shaking and my obviously deteriorating state. The people closest to me vacillated between being sick of my crap to horrified and fearful for my safety. But hell, I knew what I was doing, and I had been doing it this way for a long time.
It wasn’t until Covid, when my whole, marvelous, internationally jet-setting calendar disappeared, that the deepest chasms of my lifestyle were fully obvious.
Suddenly I was in complete control of my days, and I spent them getting absolutely wrecked. I would wake up, make a cup of coffee as a performative gesture, and start chugging right out of a brown bottle. A fifth of whiskey, which used to last me a month, became a daily requirement. I plowed through cocaine at a rate that bemused my dealer. I was an absolute wreck. My body hated me.
It wasn’t until we got back to work that it became clear — I was broken.
View this post on Instagram
Journey to Sobriety
We booked a multi-day video shoot for a virtual concert in Portland. I showed up the first day, hugged my friends, tuned my guitars, returned to the hotel, and got obliterated alone. I didn’t wake up on the second day at all.
No concerned bandmates, terrified wife, furious manager, or insistent hotel clerk could roust me. I had tranquilized myself into a 36-hour hibernation. When I finally came to, it was made very clear to me. It was time to call in the big guns. It was time to go to rehab.
Finding an accessible rehab facility proved difficult but not impossible . After a few days, I found a place about 20 minutes from home. MusicCares was incredible and helped me foot the bill a bit.
I will have two years of sobriety this week with much patience from my incredible wife, the support of my band and best friends, and a renewed, grateful spirit.
As I finish writing this entry on my phone, the plane rumbles through light turbulence, and the flight attendant offers me a drink. I smile, ask for a ginger ale, close the window shade, and rest easy. Because tomorrow is another day, and I can’t wait to see what it brings.
View this post on Instagram
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction ,help is available. Visit Findtreatment.gov to find a treatment center near you . Please contact United Spinal Association’s Community Supports team for more information or assistance. Join our community by signing up for a free membership. To support our mission, donate here.