Categories > Celebrities > Guns n' Roses > Through The Eyes Of...
Slash
I wake up the next morning next to a very bleary-eyed Duff. One look at his face tells me he hasn’t slept, is totally drunk, and really, really, angry. I just look up at him but I don’t say anything but he does. “Don’t you dare even open your mouth and tell me you’re sorry; I don’t want to hear it, you’re always sorry. I sigh and close my eyes and roll over so that my back is to him.
“You wanna talk about it or not?” I ask.
“Well if we do I’m really drunk and really angry so you might not like the outcome,” he answers.
“Well that’s something we need to talk about too so we might as well go on and start hashing it out. You want some coffee? They have a coffee maker over there and creamer and stuff,” I tell him.
“That sounds great, thanks,” he answers.
I get up and start walking towards the coffee maker and he grabs my hand. I look down at him in surprise. “Slash, I really love you, I’m mad and I’m worried but I love you. I love how you make me coffee even when you know I’m mad at you and I love that you don’t avoid difficult conversations with me. Most of all I love your sweet heart.”
I sit down next to him and take his hands in mine. “ I love you too Duffy. Even though you’re mad I know it’s because you were worried and I should NEVER have put you through what I did last night. No problem with the coffee; it’s a little thing, I’d walk through hell for you babe and I think you pretty much did for me too last night. Thank you. You’re my heart”. He pulls me close and holds me against his body for a few seconds. I squeeze him back and rub my hand up and down his back. “I’m so glad you’re mine; even when you’re mad at me baby,” I whisper.
“Me too,” he says back. “Now how about that coffee?”
“Sure thing babe,” I answer. I head over to the coffee maker and get it started and then go into the bathroom and take a piss and brush my teeth. I want a fix but I’m not about to ask Duff for one, not in the mood he’s in right now. I fix two cups of coffee making sure his is loaded down with cream and sugar the way he likes it and sit down next to him. I hand him his coffee and he sips it and sighs.
“Perfect Slash, just the way I like it, a little coffee with my cream and sugar.” He drinks some more and then looks at me. “What the fuck happened to you last night?”
“I don’t know Duff, just took too much I guess, I know sometimes I come off as a dumb kid but I’m not. But Duff I really didn’t know how to deal with you being angry at me like that. Even our last fight wasn’t that bad and it involved you cheating with a girl. Duffy you called me a stupid addict son of a bitch and you were so drunk you could hardly stand up; it was like I was watching you turn into Axl or something calling Izzy names. It hurt Duff; it hurt a lot, like broke my heart a whole lot. So I went over to Izzy’s room and got Stevie to trade rooms with me and took a shower and shot up but I shot up a lot. I don’t remember anything after getting into bed until I woke up in the shower freezing my ass off.”
“Well, you stopped breathing; Izzy just happened to look at you before he turned out the lights and your fucking lips were blue and you weren’t breathing at all. You barely had a pulse. He threw open his door and called me and started giving you CPR but you wouldn’t breathe on your own. He was breathing for you. So we moved you into the cold shower and that did it; you finally sucked in some air. Baby it was like watching Sarah die all over again, you weren’t breathing and I couldn’t make you and I was holding you and Izzy was crying and Stevie was pacing around. When you started breathing I was so fucking relieved and scared and happy and sad and just fuck Slash what were you thinking? I could have lost you; I thought I was going to lose you! Then when I was holding you you were so cold; your blood pressure was so low that I had a hell of a time getting you warm. Putting you in that steaming bath was the only thing I could think of but I was so afraid you were gonna have a heart attack from the rapid temperature change with your heart beating so slowly. Then I sat up and watched you all night to make sure you didn’t stop breathing again. You have to stop Slash; it started as a way to cope with having to fuck half the music industry but that’s over and this addiction has got to stop. We’re turning into Axl and Izzy and we swore that would never happen but even you see it happening, you just said it! I don’t want that! I want to be us! I want to do nothing but absolutely adore you. I don’t want to fight over smack or anything else. I just want to be happy with you. I’m weaning you off understand? No arguments. I’m not making you go cold turkey again but I am gradually cutting you off; ya got it Baby?”
I look up at him from under my curls. “Yeah Duffy I got it, last night scary for me too; I don’t want to die; not right now; not when our band’s just taking off and you were crying so hard and you were so afraid; I don’t ever want to do that to you or me again. Duff you’re my heart, what would I do without you? I can’t stomach the thought of you leaving me because of that shit. I don’ want to be Izzy and Axl either. I just want to love you. No fake girlfriends, we can fuck groupies but no girlfriends. We both lay off the drugs and booze some. Duff you’ve got a coke habit and you’re and alcoholic. Let me take you to the doctor and get you something to ease the DTs. Alcohol withdrawl is dangerous and you’ll get really sick. You can die from it. I might want to die from smack withdrawl but it won’t really kill me. Docs don’t know us in this city. Please? They’ll give you something to help you through it alright? If you want me to do it to I will. But I don’t want to watch you kill yourself anymore that you want to watch me kill myself. I don’t want to watch your skin turn yellow from cirrhosis or find you dead because you drowned in your own vomit.” He looks at me and sighs.
“Ok, let’s go now, we’ll go to the local ER or no, better yet, doctors come to hotels for big name bands so if we say we’re with the cult they’ll come here. I’ll call the front desk and ask for a doctor but I’ll ask for him to call the room before he leaves to come here. Ok? Then we can tell him what we need. Is that ok?” Duff asks softly.
“Sounds fine baby, more private that way. Go ahead,” I tell him and kiss him on the forehead. His hazel eyes search mine for confirmation that this is really what we should do. “Make the call Duffy,” I say firmly and he nods. He asks the front desk for a doctor that makes house calls or hotel calls as they may be but asks for the doctor to call us before coming. About 10 minutes later the phone rang and it’s the doctor. Duff explains some of the situation to him and what we want and about half an hour later a doctor in a white coat with an old fashioned medical bag shows up.
He talks to us both for a while about getting clean and the reasons we started using although we were both pretty reluctant to talk about that. They guy got the idea and at least had some compassion on his face rather than disgust or something and he didn’t treat us like loser junkies or drunks. I even managed to drag Izzy into the room to listen to him. In the end he set us all up with a shit load of valium to taper ourselves down with, some suboxone for Izzy and I which was new but said to work well and some Librium for all three of us to help with the shakes and seizures which can come from alcohol withdrawl. He also gave us all a bottle of antidepressants with several refills and said to try them. So I guess we will. All three of us agreed to try. I don’t know if it will go anywhere but at least it’s worth a shot.
We thanked the guy and he left and we trudged down to the pharmacy on the corner to fill all of the prescriptions. The pharmacist gave us all weird looks but she didn’t say anything and within 20 minutes we had what we needed. When we got back to the hotel we all gathered in mine and Duff’s room and took the antidepressants, the nausea medicine, Izzy and I stuck a sub patch on and Duff took a Librium because I hadn’t let him drink that morning and he was already shaking. Izzy went back to his room and dragged Axl back into his bed, apparently he had put Erin on a bus that morning back to LA. He said he was going to try and explain things to him; maybe it would help if Axl saw he was trying. Duff and I collapsed back into bed wrapped our bodies around each other both full of valium and other stuff and Duff was feeling a little strange from the Librium so he needed to lay down for a little while. Admittedly he had a little vodka but only a few swallows.
“Baby Boy, please never turn into Izzy, please don’t become a walking ghost like him; stay my sweet boy, please really try.”
“I’ll try Duffy; I’ll really try, this strip I took makes me feel weird and I’d rather have heroin but what the fuck I’ll try. Are you ok? You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t feel so good. It’s going to be a long process isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but nothing like those seven days of hell you put me through before. Trust me, nothing was that bad. We’ll be ok. I love you Duffy.
“I love you too baby boy. I have to throw up!” He jumps up and runs to the bathroom and I follow him, toweling him off and giving him some more water to rinse out his mouth. I give him a higher dose of nausea meds and several more valium and take him back to bed. I wrap the blankets around him and then wrap my body around his shaky form and watch him and stroke his hair until he finally sleeps. Poor baby. He’s so exhausted. The valium is kicking in for me too and I slowly drift into sleep feeling the weird high from the strip of suboxone I just dissolved in my mouth I don’t like the way it makes me feel but I’d do anything for the man in my arms; I just wonder how long this detox is going to last for either of us. It kind of just sucks.
I wake up the next morning next to a very bleary-eyed Duff. One look at his face tells me he hasn’t slept, is totally drunk, and really, really, angry. I just look up at him but I don’t say anything but he does. “Don’t you dare even open your mouth and tell me you’re sorry; I don’t want to hear it, you’re always sorry. I sigh and close my eyes and roll over so that my back is to him.
“You wanna talk about it or not?” I ask.
“Well if we do I’m really drunk and really angry so you might not like the outcome,” he answers.
“Well that’s something we need to talk about too so we might as well go on and start hashing it out. You want some coffee? They have a coffee maker over there and creamer and stuff,” I tell him.
“That sounds great, thanks,” he answers.
I get up and start walking towards the coffee maker and he grabs my hand. I look down at him in surprise. “Slash, I really love you, I’m mad and I’m worried but I love you. I love how you make me coffee even when you know I’m mad at you and I love that you don’t avoid difficult conversations with me. Most of all I love your sweet heart.”
I sit down next to him and take his hands in mine. “ I love you too Duffy. Even though you’re mad I know it’s because you were worried and I should NEVER have put you through what I did last night. No problem with the coffee; it’s a little thing, I’d walk through hell for you babe and I think you pretty much did for me too last night. Thank you. You’re my heart”. He pulls me close and holds me against his body for a few seconds. I squeeze him back and rub my hand up and down his back. “I’m so glad you’re mine; even when you’re mad at me baby,” I whisper.
“Me too,” he says back. “Now how about that coffee?”
“Sure thing babe,” I answer. I head over to the coffee maker and get it started and then go into the bathroom and take a piss and brush my teeth. I want a fix but I’m not about to ask Duff for one, not in the mood he’s in right now. I fix two cups of coffee making sure his is loaded down with cream and sugar the way he likes it and sit down next to him. I hand him his coffee and he sips it and sighs.
“Perfect Slash, just the way I like it, a little coffee with my cream and sugar.” He drinks some more and then looks at me. “What the fuck happened to you last night?”
“I don’t know Duff, just took too much I guess, I know sometimes I come off as a dumb kid but I’m not. But Duff I really didn’t know how to deal with you being angry at me like that. Even our last fight wasn’t that bad and it involved you cheating with a girl. Duffy you called me a stupid addict son of a bitch and you were so drunk you could hardly stand up; it was like I was watching you turn into Axl or something calling Izzy names. It hurt Duff; it hurt a lot, like broke my heart a whole lot. So I went over to Izzy’s room and got Stevie to trade rooms with me and took a shower and shot up but I shot up a lot. I don’t remember anything after getting into bed until I woke up in the shower freezing my ass off.”
“Well, you stopped breathing; Izzy just happened to look at you before he turned out the lights and your fucking lips were blue and you weren’t breathing at all. You barely had a pulse. He threw open his door and called me and started giving you CPR but you wouldn’t breathe on your own. He was breathing for you. So we moved you into the cold shower and that did it; you finally sucked in some air. Baby it was like watching Sarah die all over again, you weren’t breathing and I couldn’t make you and I was holding you and Izzy was crying and Stevie was pacing around. When you started breathing I was so fucking relieved and scared and happy and sad and just fuck Slash what were you thinking? I could have lost you; I thought I was going to lose you! Then when I was holding you you were so cold; your blood pressure was so low that I had a hell of a time getting you warm. Putting you in that steaming bath was the only thing I could think of but I was so afraid you were gonna have a heart attack from the rapid temperature change with your heart beating so slowly. Then I sat up and watched you all night to make sure you didn’t stop breathing again. You have to stop Slash; it started as a way to cope with having to fuck half the music industry but that’s over and this addiction has got to stop. We’re turning into Axl and Izzy and we swore that would never happen but even you see it happening, you just said it! I don’t want that! I want to be us! I want to do nothing but absolutely adore you. I don’t want to fight over smack or anything else. I just want to be happy with you. I’m weaning you off understand? No arguments. I’m not making you go cold turkey again but I am gradually cutting you off; ya got it Baby?”
I look up at him from under my curls. “Yeah Duffy I got it, last night scary for me too; I don’t want to die; not right now; not when our band’s just taking off and you were crying so hard and you were so afraid; I don’t ever want to do that to you or me again. Duff you’re my heart, what would I do without you? I can’t stomach the thought of you leaving me because of that shit. I don’ want to be Izzy and Axl either. I just want to love you. No fake girlfriends, we can fuck groupies but no girlfriends. We both lay off the drugs and booze some. Duff you’ve got a coke habit and you’re and alcoholic. Let me take you to the doctor and get you something to ease the DTs. Alcohol withdrawl is dangerous and you’ll get really sick. You can die from it. I might want to die from smack withdrawl but it won’t really kill me. Docs don’t know us in this city. Please? They’ll give you something to help you through it alright? If you want me to do it to I will. But I don’t want to watch you kill yourself anymore that you want to watch me kill myself. I don’t want to watch your skin turn yellow from cirrhosis or find you dead because you drowned in your own vomit.” He looks at me and sighs.
“Ok, let’s go now, we’ll go to the local ER or no, better yet, doctors come to hotels for big name bands so if we say we’re with the cult they’ll come here. I’ll call the front desk and ask for a doctor but I’ll ask for him to call the room before he leaves to come here. Ok? Then we can tell him what we need. Is that ok?” Duff asks softly.
“Sounds fine baby, more private that way. Go ahead,” I tell him and kiss him on the forehead. His hazel eyes search mine for confirmation that this is really what we should do. “Make the call Duffy,” I say firmly and he nods. He asks the front desk for a doctor that makes house calls or hotel calls as they may be but asks for the doctor to call us before coming. About 10 minutes later the phone rang and it’s the doctor. Duff explains some of the situation to him and what we want and about half an hour later a doctor in a white coat with an old fashioned medical bag shows up.
He talks to us both for a while about getting clean and the reasons we started using although we were both pretty reluctant to talk about that. They guy got the idea and at least had some compassion on his face rather than disgust or something and he didn’t treat us like loser junkies or drunks. I even managed to drag Izzy into the room to listen to him. In the end he set us all up with a shit load of valium to taper ourselves down with, some suboxone for Izzy and I which was new but said to work well and some Librium for all three of us to help with the shakes and seizures which can come from alcohol withdrawl. He also gave us all a bottle of antidepressants with several refills and said to try them. So I guess we will. All three of us agreed to try. I don’t know if it will go anywhere but at least it’s worth a shot.
We thanked the guy and he left and we trudged down to the pharmacy on the corner to fill all of the prescriptions. The pharmacist gave us all weird looks but she didn’t say anything and within 20 minutes we had what we needed. When we got back to the hotel we all gathered in mine and Duff’s room and took the antidepressants, the nausea medicine, Izzy and I stuck a sub patch on and Duff took a Librium because I hadn’t let him drink that morning and he was already shaking. Izzy went back to his room and dragged Axl back into his bed, apparently he had put Erin on a bus that morning back to LA. He said he was going to try and explain things to him; maybe it would help if Axl saw he was trying. Duff and I collapsed back into bed wrapped our bodies around each other both full of valium and other stuff and Duff was feeling a little strange from the Librium so he needed to lay down for a little while. Admittedly he had a little vodka but only a few swallows.
“Baby Boy, please never turn into Izzy, please don’t become a walking ghost like him; stay my sweet boy, please really try.”
“I’ll try Duffy; I’ll really try, this strip I took makes me feel weird and I’d rather have heroin but what the fuck I’ll try. Are you ok? You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t feel so good. It’s going to be a long process isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but nothing like those seven days of hell you put me through before. Trust me, nothing was that bad. We’ll be ok. I love you Duffy.
“I love you too baby boy. I have to throw up!” He jumps up and runs to the bathroom and I follow him, toweling him off and giving him some more water to rinse out his mouth. I give him a higher dose of nausea meds and several more valium and take him back to bed. I wrap the blankets around him and then wrap my body around his shaky form and watch him and stroke his hair until he finally sleeps. Poor baby. He’s so exhausted. The valium is kicking in for me too and I slowly drift into sleep feeling the weird high from the strip of suboxone I just dissolved in my mouth I don’t like the way it makes me feel but I’d do anything for the man in my arms; I just wonder how long this detox is going to last for either of us. It kind of just sucks.
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