Free Not Dead & Not For Sale by Scott Weiland Page B

she shot speedballs. It was one of the craziest nights of our crazy life.
    Next morning, when the nurse came into my room, she saw Mary lying on top of me, both of us passed out from dope exhaustion. They put us in wheelchairs and rolled us out. A counselor, who had treated Mary and me, was standing there with her hands on her hips. She sighed and said, “Mary and Scott, what in the world am I going to do with you two?”
    The hospital called the head of the sober living house, who called the judge to report my deviant behavior. I was given a court date, and I was sentenced.
    Mary and I, two junkies passed out on top of each other on a hospital bed.
    Romantic, isn’t it?
    We may have been side by side in wheelchairs, but I was the one going to jail to get clean. Mary, at least for the time being, kept getting high. She found a friend and got fucked up.

T HE JUDGE GAVE ME A YEAR , which was reduced to five and a half months. Fortunately, I avoided the downtown county jail and was put into a drug program that was run in a former Japanese internment camp in California. We slept in barracks rather than cells. We were put on work details, given no privileges to speak of, but were lucky enough to have therapy sessions. A twelve-step model, with which I was already familiar, was used. I understood the concept of admitting the unmanageability of my addiction, recognizing a higher power, and the necessity of turning my life over to that power, as opposed to my own broken-down willpower. I needed to surrender my willfulness, my ego, and my need for control. The question was: Could I?
    I could get along with the other inmates. We were more afraid of the tough-ass counselors than we were of one another. The one thing we wanted to avoid was being sent to the Mainline—the general jail population. The counselors had the power to send you there in a heartbeat. They didn’t need a reason. I worked hard not to give them a reason, and I succeeded.
    Mary wrote me practically every day. Hers were letters of extreme passion and longing. I answered her with equally impassioned words of love. My loving mother wrote as well. So did my stepdad and even my blood father, Kent, but no one really knew what to say. The truth was that after fucking up countless times I had landed in jail.
    The salvation was music. When Christmas 1999 came rolling around, I organized a musical program. In our singing group we had blacks, skin-heads, and Latinos, but harmony ruled.
    Inside jail, I felt okay. It was great being off drugs, exercising, participating in therapy, reading books, and putting together a choir. It was great being straight. My goal—as always—was to stay straight. My goal was to put the nightmare of opiates behind me. I had everything to live for. Mary and music were waiting for me.
    What could go wrong?

    Wedding dance to “At Last”

    Mary envisioned this moment from the first day she met me.

“Celebrate the immoral youth that wasted you
Peel the skin back from all the lies that blistered you”
    —FROM “REGENERATION”
    O UT OF JAIL, READY TO ROCK , ready to re-promote No. 4 , I joined up with STP to relaunch the record. The campaign was twofold: First, Dean and I went around the country, playing acoustic versions of the songs for select radio stations. Second, the full band went on tour, co-headlining with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’d been a big fan of the band in their early days and was thrilled to be on a bill with them. Most of the reviewers thought that we dominated the shows. The Peppers weren’t happy about those articles, but a little friendly competition among rock bands is good for the fans. Being that close to a group as powerful as the Peppers certainly brought out our best.
    I MARRIED MARY FORSBERG IN 2000 at the Little Door restaurant in Los Angeles. Some 120 people attended. Because I was divorced, a Catholic priest wouldn’t marry us, but a liberal rabbi, with deep respect for all loving theologies, officiated