Hey Josh, you’re my favorite drummer. I try to go beast now, when I play my new kit.
I had an opioid addiction for years. It made me drop out of college so I could get my pick up in time. My “go to” was tramadol and it was hell getting off of it. In your latest video you talked about how you lost joy in things you love and that resonated with me.
Thank you for this forum and giving people a space to talk to because this is hard.
1 thought on “Fellow Drummer Loses Joy”
Man, I hear ya. One of the greatest gifts of leaving drugs behind is finding the joy in life again. Movies, music, BASEBALL, etc… but maybe the biggest one is finding joy in relationships, finding joy in listening to other people, hearing their stories and connecting to fellow human beings. I sometimes feel like I shed the skin of the man I was, because in my 20’s I was painfully shy, cripplingly insecure, and quite frankly afraid of people. Fast forward to now and I find such satisfaction in merely getting to know strangers (who often become friends!!!), and hearing about their lives. Drugs mute all things. Sure, it may dull the sharp sting of heartache briefly but it’s so artificial. Not working through the pain, I fear I only prolonged that very same hurt and blanketed everything I held dear and cared about at the same time. This went on for years. I’ve told the story many times, but searching the TV stations in 2006, high out of my mind, I came across my beloved NY Mets and they were in the playoffs! I sat stunned, and even I had to acknowledge how far I’d come from the person I was. Just a few short years before that I’d move heaven and earth to watch a Mets game, and there I sat not even aware they were in the playoffs. I was ashamed of what I’d become, and that shame only fueled more years of heroin to numb all of it. Today, it serves as a reminder of how far drugs can steer you away from the things you love.
Thank you for sharing… we are each other’s people.
-JE