Life is So Sweet Sober

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike McGowan: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting, the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition, and by a grant from the State of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality Real Talks. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike McGowan: Michael Massey is an award-winning and accomplished musician, speaker, author, composer, producer. He's also a recovering alcoholic, whose book MORE: A Memoir chronicles his downward spiral into addiction and his climb out of it. I gotta be honest, it is an honest and amazingly interesting story that is almost impossible to put down. Michael lives outside Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Robin and joins us today.

Mike McGowan: Welcome Michael.

Michael Massey: Hi, Mike. Nice to meet you.

Mike McGowan: Well, I'm so glad you could do this. I told you off the air. I really loved your book. It was great. Like a lot of folks who go, what you went through especially those of us in the midwest you started early with your drinking and your memoir more is full of laughable to me, laughable, ironic coincidences.

Mike McGowan: Let's do the first one. Your first drunk at age 15 was where?

Michael Massey: Well, I wasn't quite 15. It was on a church trip to Houston, Texas. (laughs)

Mike McGowan: There we go.

Michael Massey: And I was an incoming sophomore in the choir, and we were doing a trip to Houston for the world's largest gathering of Lutheran youth in the Astrodome that then, like the ninth Wonder of the World or the eighth Wonder of the world.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: And a senior had smuggled vodka in his luggage and we were in a dormitory. At a college we were staying in on the way down. And wow, talk about a revelation, you know, it's kinda like a, a 1-year-old with chocolate cake.

Mike McGowan: Yeah. So what was the revelation?

Michael Massey: Well, all of a sudden I was funny and I was social and I was smart and I was making people laugh, and I felt like a million dollars.

Michael Massey: I've read in different places that alcoholics on their first drunk feel differently than normal people. That it does affect them that way that euphoria is pronounced in an alcoholic.

Mike McGowan: You know, Michael, I've worked with young people my entire life and what you just said I've talked about a lot and it encapsulates a lot.

Mike McGowan: One of the things that's terrifying to me about a young person drinking is what they discover in their personality when they drink, especially the second time they drink you can duplicate it. That's very attractive to some kid, guy, especially 14, 15 years old.

Michael Massey: Yep, yep. Oh yeah. Give you courage.

Michael Massey: Give you courage to maybe approach that young lady that you wanted to talk to. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know.

Mike McGowan: Well, and you, but it did just stop with one drunk. You went head over heels with it. You were lucky to come outta high school with a diploma.

Michael Massey: I was you know, I credit my girlfriend for getting me back into school, but I ended up with a 2.5 grade point average.

Michael Massey: I had 4.0 freshman and 4.0 senior, but in the middle there it was a wasteland. You know, I was lucky to pass. I was lucky to pass. I read the World Book Encyclopedia from cover to cover in 1969 and 1970. My brother and I both did. And so in a western civ exam as a sophomore that I attended one day for the semester, I aced the final exam because of that encyclopedia, and she had to pass me. She had to pass me.

Mike McGowan: Oh my God. For those of you who were younger, that would be like diving headlong into Wikipedia for hours on end. Right?

Michael Massey: Right. Yeah. Yep.

Mike McGowan: Holy cow!

Michael Massey: Michael are we that old?

Mike McGowan: Well I am. I don't think you are. But you know, music though was your gift from early on.

Michael Massey: I guess you could call it a gift. It was my chosen profession almost. It was a calling, put it that way. I knew from a very young age that that's what I wanted to do with my life. So therefore everything else became kind of inconsequential, you know, it and everything was then to pursue that end as opposed to college was not important.

Michael Massey: I wanted to be a rock star. Let's face it. It was in my blood. But as far as a gift, yeah, I, I'm lucky that I'm able to do it. But I do say I think one of my favorite descriptors of myself is that on a really good night, I come close, but never quite achieve greatness.

Mike McGowan: Mm, wow. Why not you?

Mike McGowan: Others see it differently though, Michael. I'm sure others see it differently.

Michael Massey: They may, but when I think greatness, I think Paul McCartney, I think...

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: Well I think the Eagles, I think, you know, the songwriting and the performance that I just watched the Billy Joel documentary and his voice is just pristine even now.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: You know, pushing 80 years old. I don't have that. I mean, I'm okay. (laughs) I've made a living, but I'm not great.

Mike McGowan: This is also for those of you who are younger who don't quite get what I'm about to say. Back in the day, bands were really popular and they were everywhere.

Mike McGowan: High school dances, CYO and so I laughed again out loud. You actually got hired to play church festivals with a band named what?

Michael Massey: Lucifer. (laughs)

Mike McGowan: Come on.

Mike McGowan: And we were all, I mean, I was the minority of being a Lutheran and everybody else was Catholic in the band. Yeah. But not only that there was another band on the east side of Madison named Satan.

Michael Massey: Yes. Yeah.

Michael Massey: And we were friends, but still competitors.

Mike McGowan: Well, I wish I would've been in the gym to see you introduced by the monsignor.

Michael Massey: (laughs)

Mike McGowan: Here's Lucifer.

Michael Massey: Yeah, yeah. Oh, dear.

Mike McGowan: And you continued to get better clearly, right? And your band achieved bands 'cause that wasn't your last one.

Mike McGowan: You achieved some success, but you seem to sabotage that success over and over. There's a sense in your book of getting to a point and then coming back down and getting to a point and coming back down.

Michael Massey: Yeah. And it wasn't intentional sabotage by any way, shape, or form. It was alcohol that was doing it to me.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: Always alcohol.

Michael Massey: Always alcohol. Thankfully other drugs weren't really a problem for me. I mean, they were present. Because I was a rock singer, so drugs and alcohol were everywhere, but other drugs didn't really interest me. It was all alcohol.

Mike McGowan: Did you feel almost like you had to do it, there was a persona you had to...

Michael Massey: Well, that was part of it.

Michael Massey: It fueled that raucous wild front man, Stephen Tyler, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Mick Jagger-ish personality that I was coming across. I don't think that there was a show from the time I went on the road in 1978 until I quit drinking that I didn't have some amount of alcohol in my system regardless of the time of day.

Mike McGowan: Wow. Well, there's stories back in those days of people who had it on stage. I think there was a story about Janice Joplin, I'm on a quart of Jack on the stage while she sang. Right.

Michael Massey: Everybody did. And, and you know, I've often said, depending on their degree of professionalism or addiction, it may or may not have been colored water.

Mike McGowan: Huh. Interesting. Yeah. I often wondered that same thing. I was at a concert one time with Stevie Ray Vaughn, where Stevie Ray Vaughn played, and he showed a clip on the big screen of him playing intoxicated and he was then in recovery and he then played, said, if you think that it enhances your performance, think again.

Mike McGowan: Here's how I play now. That was very powerful. Although when he said, here's what I used to sound like drunk, people cheered!

Michael Massey: Of course they did.

Mike McGowan: Wow.

Michael Massey: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Mike McGowan: It had to seem surreal though, for you to be playing at a bar like the Stone Hearth in Madison. That's for those of you who are from around here one day and then a little while later, you're at Rod Stewart's place in California.

Michael Massey: Yeah, I'm blessed with an amazing memory. I can remember details that people look at me funny, like, how the heck can you even possibly remember that stuff? And I have no business because of the amount of alcohol I was drinking.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: As well. But to think about those those times. I mean, our management elevated us very quickly and he had connections in the LA record industry. But yeah, I mean, my good friend Mike Ripp, the guitarist in the band and I were at Rod Stewart's house not long after playing locally in the Midwest. And it was, of course, it was surreal. And we were star struck and everything else trying to make it seem like it was normal because we didn't want to seem like, you know, green kids from the Midwest.

Michael Massey: But we were. You can't really hide that. And in retrospect, I wish we would've embraced that more because people would have seen my daughter's success and embracing her Midwestern roots. People are loving that on both coasts.

Mike McGowan: She's also a musician.

Michael Massey: Yes. And very talented and achieving success that is transcending my own.

Mike McGowan: Yeah, it's very good. You have some on your website and you all know who listen, that we have links to all of this. Her music is really good. Really good.

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: You certainly lived the lifestyle, right? Was there a sense, though, you just indicated where you needed it to feel like you fit in? That there was... what would the kids call poser?

Mike McGowan: Sorta like, I don't deserve this you know, what am I doing?

Michael Massey: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think to a certain extent, I still feel that, you know, the imposter syndrome. We talked before on air about writing a book. I have no business writing a book. I don't know what I cannot do. I guess it comes down to. In retrospect at that point in my life, in the early rock and roll days, that, and we were flirting with the record labels and stardom in Hollywood. I think becoming a rock star was more important to me than the music as I look back there. It was a very superficial pursuit at that time, even though we were coming up with some pretty darn good music.

Mike McGowan: Mm-hmm.

Michael Massey: It seemed secondary to the pursuit of fame as opposed to after I got sober where everything flipped and I concentrated on the quality of the music I was creating.

Mike McGowan: Do you like the stuff you wrote and performed back then?

Michael Massey: I do, and I do. It, it's, there are some really amazing stuff, you know, I mean.

Michael Massey: It wasn't always a life altering and destroying thing, the alcohol, until later in my life. I wasn't drunk 24/7. At that time it was very exciting and we were living that lifestyle and every moment of every day. Eating, sleeping, breathing it. And so we were, the camaraderie was amazing and the creativity was amazing.

Michael Massey: So, yeah. And we still, we have played recently some reunion shows with that band and, and done quite well with it.

Mike McGowan: That's gotta be fun.

Michael Massey: Yeah. Almost 50 years later. Dare I say it..

Mike McGowan: Well, because they weren't all terribly pleased with your drinking.

Michael Massey: No. No. No, but you know. Some of them weren't far behind me.

Mike McGowan: You're nice to them in the book then.

Michael Massey: I am. I blame myself for a lot of the negativity surrounding that because I was the front man. I was the first person that they saw and management, agents, and record labels, if they can't see past the front guy who's representing this and putting that vocal forth.

Michael Massey: There's no sense in looking further.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: Well, you guys thought you were and you thought you were on a straight line train, right?

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: And then all of a sudden it, it just got derailed when one of the production companies said, nah, we'll take a pass. We'll go with another band.

Michael Massey: It was Atlantic Records. I mean, one of the biggest record labels in the world. And they had spent $35,000 on us in 1981, which translates to about 200 and some thousand now by, if you adjusted for inflation. So it was a major investment, but it was an investment for two bands and they chose the other one.

Mike McGowan: Hmm.

Michael Massey: Which you think about the amount of money that label has to throw around and it's just, it's like, wow!

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: But they had the Stones, they had Led Zeppelin, they had AC/DC, they had, you know, Atlantic is a gigantic label. Aretha Franklin, you can go on and on. Foreigner, you know, that were, that were all selling millions and millions of records, so, and the artists weren't making the money. (laughs)

Mike McGowan: No, no. That's what we've all learned. Right. You didn't make a lot from that at all.

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: The only way for them to make money now do you still own your catalog? 'cause that's what, that's what they're all doing now is selling their catalogs.

Michael Massey: We do.

Michael Massey: Yeah. And I'm having a little bit of success placing stuff in TV and film, but I'm also in a new band and writing really exciting new music that is some of the best stuff of my life.

Mike McGowan: That's really good.

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: Well, another ironic coincidence, I think you go and you meet people and there's a great part in the book with Andy Warhol, which is just... (laughs) well, it defines surreal, doesn't it?

Michael Massey: Oh, it really does. It really does.

Mike McGowan: And then for those of you who are, again, too young, there's a show you were on Star Search, which is the current, you know, the current version of The Voice. Hosted by Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson and Star Search Fame. Not that I compare Andy Warhol and Ed McMahon.

Michael Massey: (laughs)

Mike McGowan: But and all of these people all around. And then where do you meet your wife?

Michael Massey: In a mall. (laughs)

Mike McGowan: In Madison.

Michael Massey: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike McGowan: So you're around all the glam and then what? Okay, so you gotta talk about that.

Michael Massey: Well, yeah, and it's a great story. You know, we talked about those first flirtations with alcohol, giving you courage to talk to women. I had been afraid to talk to women my entire life, but when I became a rock singer, I didn't have to be the one to initiate it. It was initiated to me. So all of those years I didn't ever had to be that social animal. After getting fired by my dad from selling cars at his used car lot, I went to work in a music store in a mall that sold pianos and organs.

Michael Massey: And this young lady used to come out and sit taking her breaks out in the mall and listen to me play. And I was enamored with her. She was gorgeous. I thought, wow, I gotta meet that woman. And through a coworker who rode the bus with her, we got introduced and I gave her a ride home from work.

Michael Massey: We stopped and had a beer on the way home. And after I dropped her off, I went to my parents' house and told my brothers that I had just met the woman I was going to marry. She was everything, every good quality of every woman I had ever dated. Wrapped up into one package and I didn't need to look any further.

Mike McGowan: There's a saying today when you know, you know, so you must have gotten something from just that first meeting.

Michael Massey: Yep. Yep. And now 38 years later, we're still together.

Michael Massey: I credit her with helping me to achieve sobriety. There's no doubt.

Mike McGowan: What would she say to that?

Michael Massey: She would say that I was the person that did it.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: But to have her support waiting for me on the other side was priceless. I don't think that I could have done it without her, without her support.

Mike McGowan: Well, I don't think it's just support either Michael. 'cause for me, there's an important part in your book where she basically says, I'm out unless you do X.

Michael Massey: Right.

Mike McGowan: And so what she drove you to detox.

Michael Massey: Well, she said, I'm out unless you quit. And then I moved in with a buddy in a bad part of town. And then after some just realizing how I was ruining my life, asked her if I could come home. And I quit drinking on October 13th, 1993. And came home three days later, two days later, and four days after I quit, I finally went into hallucinatory withdrawal.

Michael Massey: That's when she took me to detox and five days in the hospital in intermediate care and 15 days in treatment.

Mike McGowan: Let's go backwards for just a second. 'cause when you get the DT's, when you go through that, alcohol can kill you. For those of you listening who don't know, this alcohol withdrawal can kill you.

Michael Massey: It's the only drug that can.

Mike McGowan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: And so how much were you up to, how much were you drinking then? Because it had to be daily. It had to be a 24/7 thing almost.

Michael Massey: Oh it was definitely a 24/7. I had a fifth of brandy underneath my bed, and I had pints in the car and pints hidden everywhere.

Michael Massey: It was 24/7. When I would wake up, I would hit the bottle and 50% of the time I would throw it back up.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: But even doing that, kept enough in my system to stop the shakes. So that I could, I could drink more. Yeah. The movie Leaving Las Vegas with Nicholas Cage just shocked the hell outta me when I watched it because it was so realistic in its portrayal.

Michael Massey: I could not believe how realistic it was and that was me basically. At that point in alcohol addiction, you really don't care about anything. You just, all you really care about is getting that next hit of liquor.

Mike McGowan: What was detox like?

Michael Massey: Well, I don't remember a lot of it.

Mike McGowan: Yeah, I figured that. (laughs)

Michael Massey: Yeah. I remember getting to the emergency room and then my memory leaves me and I'm told that I was singing Hey Jude, at the top of my lungs in the ER. I was violently thrashing on the table and the ER doc told Robin that he wished it was being videoed so that he could show young people the horrors of actual alcohol addiction.

Michael Massey: And I woke up in a hospital room with my wrists and ankles lashed to the bed.

Mike McGowan: Oh man, that's gotta just be like, what the heck?

Michael Massey: Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, in the grand scheme of things, Mike. I'm glad that it happened. Because in my mind, being that far down, being, I mean I was as low as you can be on this side of the grass and it was almost beneficial to my recovery to be that far down and have nowhere to go but up.

Michael Massey: And that's why I wanna tell my story to people. 'cause the people that think that it's hopeless, it is not. It is not. I am living proof. It can be done

Mike McGowan: And a lot of people have to do this. 3, 4, 5, 10, 12 times. This stuck, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, surprisingly to me, reading the book, it stuck.

Michael Massey: I had tried to stop on my own, but never seriously, and I did go to one outpatient treatment a year before that. I lasted a week before I was drinking and lying to 'em, and I, I went for a month. So, yeah, I mean, I had my failures as well, but, but like I say, to be that far down, it almost became easier.

Mike McGowan: Because there's nowhere else to go.

Michael Massey: Nowhere else to go besides dying.

Mike McGowan: This is theoretical, but you can answer it however you want to. How many bottoms does somebody have to hit before they hit their bottom?

Michael Massey: Hold that question. I didn't answer your other question. How much was I up to drinking? I was doing at least a fifth of brandy a day. At least that and a 12 pack of beer.

Michael Massey: Most times probably more than that.

Mike McGowan: Were you eating.

Michael Massey: Very little.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: Very little. I would literally go days without anything, without needing anything. I was getting all my calories from alcohol.

Mike McGowan: Wow.

Michael Massey: How many bottoms? And that kind of goes along with the failures to achieve sobriety, you know?

Michael Massey: I had so many bottoms that should have been a bottom.

Mike McGowan: Mm-hmm.

Michael Massey: In my performing career. My partner. You know, telling me if you come to work drunk one more time, I'm done. I'm not gonna play with you anymore. That wasn't my bottom is telling. I mean, how far down do you have to go?

Michael Massey: Mine was literally on the precipice of death.

Mike McGowan: Mm-hmm.

Michael Massey: Had I not gone, had Robin not taken me to the hospital that night, I would have died from withdrawal. I would've died. They filled me full of Valium and Haldol.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Michael Massey: To bring me back.

Mike McGowan: I had Dion DiMucci on a couple of years ago on the podcast from Dion and the Belmonts.

Michael Massey: Legend.

Mike McGowan: Yeah. And he's in recovery. And he told a story about being new into recovery and being in a limo with a bunch of folks. He mentioned them and I don't recall them at the time, but very famous and somebody offered him a drug. And I said, what would you say? He said, well, I just said I'm good.

Mike McGowan: And then he proceeded to say, everyone in that limo is dead and then he said, and I'm still making music. That's you.

Michael Massey: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. You, you alluded to 27 people I went to rehab with. 90 days later, two of us were sober and one was dead. Two of us were sober, and it was and older woman that was the other sober person, and I ran into her about 10 years after rehab.

Mike McGowan: Awesome.

Michael Massey: In a store and we just, we embraced and it was such a happy reunion because we were both still sober 10 years later. And it was amazing. But all, you know, the 25 others. 24 others, the other one was, it sure hits home and that, you know, that might even be a better percentage of success than the actual average.

Mike McGowan: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: Well, you know, you never know. When I used to do this, Michael, sometimes you would say, well I think this person will, or that person will, or this per... you don't know, even the pros that, you know, we don't know. You know, you watch these show Intervention.

Michael Massey: Oh boy. Yeah.

Mike McGowan: And people who seem to have everything going for him.

Mike McGowan: And then the little last little tagline, they relapsed in nine days and then some dude living in a refrigerator box down by the river. He's been sober for nine months. You know, you, you don't know. Right?

Michael Massey: My counselor gave me the least chance of success out of the 29 people.

Mike McGowan: Wow. So October, 1993.

Mike McGowan: So what is that? You're now on 30 years.

Michael Massey: 32. It'll be 32 in October.

Mike McGowan: Wow. My math is used to be better.

Michael Massey: Mine too.

Mike McGowan: That's outstanding. Congratulations. Well, there can't be a better sober birthday present than the birth of a child. Who was born on your sober birthday?

Michael Massey: Emily, my musician daughter who's got over a hundred million streams on Spotify.

Mike McGowan: Unbelievable.

Michael Massey: Yeah. The day to the day, two years to the day that I quit drinking, she was born. And it just solidified that decision, you know? I mean, the, the universe was smiling. It was very powerful.

Mike McGowan: What did it do? I mean, I know you said solidified it, but how did then being a dad, and of course Robin is of course still incredibly supportive, right?

Michael Massey: Mm-hmm.

Mike McGowan: How did being a dad change your view of sobriety and recovery?

Michael Massey: It just made life that much deeper and sweeter.

Michael Massey: And to be able to experience knowing that when you're as far down the alcoholic wormhole as I was, you know, you wouldn't be able to enjoy that. We tried early in our marriage to have children and I would've been a horrible father. So it's a really good thing that we weren't successful.

Michael Massey: Being a father, just, it changes everything for everyone. You know, I tell my friends now that after they have the birth of their first child, your life will never, ever again be the same. It just won't.

Mike McGowan: Yeah, yeah.

Michael Massey: You know so to love every moment, to experience everything fully.

Michael Massey: You know, is the gift of sobriety.

Mike McGowan: Oh, that's great.

Mike McGowan: You know, I'll let you end it with this. You, you and I both live in Wisconsin, right? And you're a Packer fan. You have to be. If you're not, then move. Alright.

Michael Massey: (Laughs)

Mike McGowan: So you tell a story where you had an aha moment during the Green Bay Packers Victory Parade.

Mike McGowan: For those of you living in Minnesota, that's what you get when you win the Super Bowl.

Michael Massey: (laughs) Oh, careful there.

Mike McGowan: Sorry. Yeah, right. I just lost a state. And after they won the Super Bowl in New Orleans in the mid nineties, you had like an aha. You defined winning as...

Michael Massey: Well, you and I both know. That the seventies and eighties were the pinnacle of mediocrity.

Mike McGowan: Oh god, that's what makes the jokes fun, right?

Michael Massey: Yeah. Eight and eight season was a success. Yeah. You know? Wow! We're, and, and almost making the playoffs in 1989 was amazing. Anyway to live through all of that. Every week in the fall, as we all did, as Wisconsinites, and to see that success after 20 plus years.

Michael Massey: I became a fan the year after they won Super Bowl II, so I knew nothing but mediocrity, nothing except mediocrity for my entire fandom. I thought the Packers are winning and, and I looked at my 16 month old daughter next to me, and, and I'm blubbering like an idiot. I've got snot coming outta my nose and just crying, watching Packers in their open air buses going through streets of snowy streets of Green Bay.

Michael Massey: And my daughter says, daddy, why are you crying? I said, they're happy tears, Emily. Because, you know, it was at that moment that I thought, you know, this reaction, which was so visceral and so almost violently crying was not just for a football team. It was also for me. It was also maybe, maybe I'm winning, maybe, maybe I do deserve this happiness in this modest little home and in my beautiful family that I've got now.

Michael Massey: And looking at a musical career as a means to a living as opposed to trying to be a rock star. It was an epiphany. It was an eyeopening moment, and I carry it with me. I carried that awakening with me. And after that, the Packers were just a football team and not an obsession as well.

Mike McGowan: Wow. That's incredible. That's just such a great definition of winning too.

Mike McGowan: For those of you listening and watching please go to the links provided and listen to some of Michael's old music and new music. And his daughter's music that you're featured on in several of them, right?

Michael Massey: Yeah.

Mike McGowan: It's just, it's just wonderful.

Mike McGowan: Michael, thanks so much. It's an inspiring story. Your work. Pick up the book. It's just a great read.

Mike McGowan: We hope that those of you listening, find love, courage, support wherever you are. Thanks for listening. Be safe and I'm gonna borrow a line from Michael to end it. Life is so sweet, sober.