God didn’t make sober honky tonk angels BY DONALD C. CUTLER HTT Contributor “If I didn’t quit drinking, the doctor said I wouldn’t see 30,” said 27-year-old rising country music singer and songwriter who goes by South Texas Tweek. After what had been the best year of his music career, playing classic Texas venus with artists he admired and enjoyed even before he started in the industry, it was hard for him to come to grips with the fact that his lifestyle was killing him. “This was the first time I started touring,” he said. “And I fell into partying just a bit too much. It was the first time I was being paid to party, you know?” A regular drinker since the age of 10, this husband and father of two’s drinking habits had ebbed and flowed over the years — alternating between “just a tallboy after work to a handle of vodka a day.” Over the past year or so, he was more often than not finishing off nearly two liters of booze each day. “If I was being honest, I needed help for more than a few years,” Tweek said of his drinking. But in the spring of this year, his addiction landed him in the hospital. His liver and kidneys had about enough of his drinking, and he vowed to stop. But that lasted only a few days until he got back on the road, drinking and partying three nights a week. On Sept. 16, there was an abrupt stop to the ride when early-stage liver failure, kidney infection and pancreatic inflammation landed him in the hospital. This six-day stint provided him with a forced detox and the time to consider what the
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After suffering from early-stage liver failure, kidney infection and pancreatic inflammation, South Texas Tweek, above, checked into a residential rehabilitation center. “The reality is that I had a me problem with a drinking solution,” the now-sober father of two recently told Honky Tonk Times. doctor had said earlier in the year. “I need to be there for my kids and wife,” and while sitting in the hospital, alone with his thoughts due to COVID-19 safety regulations limiting visitors, he accepted that he needed help. “I wish I saw the whole picture before this, but once that demon takes hold of you, it’s hard to see straight.” A day after his release, he checked into a residential rehabilitation center.
The trite inspiration of a truck breaking down, the love of a dog, or a woman leaving has nothing on the omnipresent muse of substance abuse in neo-classical and altcountry music. The genre leans hard upon its hard-drinking image. And not without good reason. These themes reach back to civilization’s earliest days, or at least as far back as there were places to get a drink after a hard day’s work.
HONKY TONK TIMES
