Drug Rehab Chronicles - Alcohol Addiction Can Strike Anyone, Even a Genius

For every person who needs a successful alcohol and drug rehab program, there are millions who never get started. Charlie Frazer was one of them.

A popular jazz musician, Charlie, was a friendly and outgoing young man without the huge ego one expects of a truly talented player. Charlie was generous with himself and his talents, sharing musical insights and advice with musicians and fans who frequented the jazz clubs where he played bass with a popular quintet. And as local custom dictates, Charlie's admirers rewarded him with rounds of drinks. And Charlie always accepted, and drank, and drank and drank. No one suspected that Charlie was unusually sensitive to alcohol, and had his own private demons as well - a prime candidate for alcohol addiction and abuse. Nor did they suspect how badly he needed to admit himself into an alcohol and drug rehab program.

His band members were the first to notice it. Slight lapses in memory, sloppy playing, coming late to the job. Charlie assured them it was just a couple of shots to relax, not to worry. But his bass playing got worse, and his relationship with the guys in the band deteriorated. There were arguments, promises and apologies - but nothing got resolved. Charlie drank afternoons, evenings and through to dawn. When his mates suggested an alcohol and drug rehab program to help with his obvious alcohol abuse, Charlie laughed it off, insisting there was no need for anything so serious.

Alcoholics are self-delusional about their alcohol addiction and abuse. In fact, that's one of the major reasons they don't enter alcohol or drug rehab to get help. It can take a lot to break through the veneer of lies and deception and see the real situation. For Charlie, the opportunity for such a moment of truth came on opening night at the city's most prestigious jazz venue, the Jazz Tavern, the band's most important gig to date. Everyone who was anyone in the jazz world was there - famous musicians, critics from the media, a movie star or two and dozens of fans. Predictably, Charlie arrived drunk, and the band warily launched into the first number. During the second chorus, everything unraveled. While patrons watched in horror, Charlie staggered, fell off the stage, and crash-landed in the center of a ringside table, out cold and still holding his bass. The shocked audience didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

No one at the table was injured, and Charlie revived enough to be led outside and sent home in a cab. After the dust settled, a local bass player in the audience stepped up and finished the gig - not a total loss. But for the band, and especially for Charlie, the shine was off the gold.

Over the next few days, band mates, friends and family urged Charlie to get into an alcohol and drug rehab program. But Charlie's moment of truth had come and gone, unrecognized. He brushed it all off as a hugely amusing, if unfortunate, incident, and kept on drinking. Within weeks, the band had broken up. Charlie found it difficult to get work. A few shorts months later, Charlie could be found in the seedier sections of the city panhandling for money, or hanging around jazz clubs hoping to score a few dollars for booze.

Within a year or two, not many jazz fans remembered Charlie Frazer. His fellow musicians talked about him in the past tense, as if he had died. And in fact, as a musician, he had. Working part-time in construction, drinking every night and still denying to himself and anyone who cared to listen that he had a problem, Charlie Frazer had become another tragic statistic, a victim of alcohol abuse. And another person who's future would have been far different had he gone to a successful alcohol and drug rehab program.