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 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.

The tavern, and its warm, nonjudgemental embrace, foster a culture of indulgence, which can lead to an environment that promotes addiction. And stories like Tweek’s are not uncommon among people from all walks of life. But working night after night in that welcoming, partyfriendly environment makes it all the more common among working musicians and their supporting teams.

Honky tonking and its harddrinking, hard drugs and hangovers take a toll on many of its best. And while it’s unlikely that honky tonks will stop the steady flow of booze from the bar and drugs from the back, it’s also possible that entertainers critical to this culture who deal with substance abuse addiction won’t survive unless they make drastic changes to their lives.

Dallas Burrow, a Texas-born altcountry and Americana artist who will be sober three years in January, said, “Getting sober has been nothing but positive for my personal and professional life as an entertainer. There have been no drawbacks.” Since quitting, Burrow is always on time, has the stamina to get through the entire show at top speed, and is “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” the following day. Cutting out the drink “cuts out a lot of the BS,” he said in a recent phone interview.

To stop you need to understand why you started

“I’m not tempted to drink because I’ve completely changed the way my brain regards alcohol; it’s no longer viewed as a reward or respite,” said Sarah Shook of Chatham County, N.C., who uses they/them pronouns. For Shook, the journey toward sobriety started when they realized that these substances were more of a crutch than anything else.

“All of my years of binge drinking and recreational drug use were the result of not having healthy coping mechanisms I needed to deal with major depressive disorder and severe social anxiety,” Shook explained, who lends their name to Sarah Shook &The Disarmers. “And my depression and anxiety were directly caused by years of compounded trauma and traumatic events that I also didn’t have healthy coping mechanisms to deal with. I stopped using because I realized that feeling better and getting better aren’t the same thing.

“Sobriety for me is not just ‘not drinking,’ it’s a brand new take on life. [Sobriety is] constantly improving my relationship to myself by coming to terms with my past and gaining confidence in my ability to navigate the present.”

In a social media post from October of last year, Shook noted that they were worried that ending their use of drugs and alcohol would change who they were and what they produced. Listening to their music from those earlier years could leave one asking the same questions.

However, as Shook wrote in the post, eliminating the use and abuse of substances did not remove their “fire.” Shook explained they were “still heartbreak, dark humor, righteous indignation [and] an artist, a creative, a maker.”

Staying dry in the well

Surrounding a recovering addict with booze and drugs seems like a recipe for disaster, or at the very least relapse. An environment in which the addictive substance is actively consumed and sold presents nearly endless opportunities for failure. Burrows said that finding ways to remain connected to the people and the barroom culture without partaking has helped.

“I started drinking a lot of Topo Chico,” said Burrow of his first days of sobriety while working the bars and clubs across the Lone Star State. “With so many folks wanting to buy you a drink, you need something that they can get for you,” he said. And that bubbly cult classic “provides a perfect placebo — it’s the right weight, has a nice fizzy feel, and is refreshing."

And while there are always temptations, he explained, remembering that your job is to be the entertainer on the stage and not the drinking buddy at the bar keeps things in perspective for Burrows. “To best do my job, I need to be healthy and energetic, and it doesn’t require you to have a drink.” But it is not that easy for everyone. Shook notes that “touring is a very unnatural way to live, and it’s really difficult to stay healthy on the road, even as a sober person.”

“Without whiskey and blow to lure me out into social situations, I spend a lot of time alone in my hotel room reading and writing,” they said in an email interview from the road. “Getting sober has made being away from my son and my partner a great deal harder.”

Embracing the past to move forward

Many programs that support addicts through recovery stress the importance of accepting the choices and mistakes made while using or drinking. And for those who make a living off of telling personal stories — or ones fans may assume are personal — from behind a guitar and a microphone, making peace with the past is essential.

“I needed to stop drinking because I was destroying myself with alcohol,” said Shook. “But I’m not ashamed of my struggle with addiction; it’s an important part of my story.” At shows, that means they still perform songs about heavy drinking and drugs with the same energy as they did before getting clean — but with a new perspective.

“It will be weird to play those drinking songs now,” said South Texas Tweek of his upcoming dates at venues in Texas and beyond. “But it wouldn’t do it justice to leave them out. I don’t want to leave out the big picture,” he said, just because he is not drinking anymore.

Getting to this point took a lot of what Tweek calls “inner work.” He meditates and uses spirituality to address the drivers of his addiction — a practice he started while in the treatment facility and continues at home.

“The reality is that I had a me problem with a drinking solution,” Tweek said in what easily could find itself on to a lyric sheet in the future. “I’m now learning how to be OK with being myself and being OK with not being OK, without drinking.”

Dallas Burrow

Sarah Shook and the Disarmers