
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Alice Cooper and Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss revealed her struggles with alcohol and substance abuse. Despite appearing outwardly successful, Strauss said that her addiction significantly impacted her life.
“I wouldn’t say I hit rock bottom, Nita said. “I’m not like Nikki Sixx, but I was a dangerous addict, because whether I was doing drugs or drinking, I was very highly functional. I was doing all these things that could have got me in trouble, but I never played a bad show, I was never falling-down sloppy.
“But it was really insidious, because it was bleeding into my personal life,” she continued. “Some of the guys in the band had noticed it, but it took my partner Josh, who is now my husband, saying to me: ‘If you’re gonna be like this, I don’t know how long I’m going to be with you. I can’t watch you destroy your life like this.’ This was the highest point of my professional career so far, and it just seemed unfair – I couldn’t understand why I was getting picked on, and why I had to be boring and go to sleep early.”
Strauss admitted that her initial attempts at sobriety involved self-reliance rather than seeking support from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. She attributed her shyness as a barrier to seeking help. However, she acknowledges that maintaining sobriety while touring remains a significant obstacle.
“It is difficult, it really is,” she said. “My husband still drinks, my friends still drink, Alice has been sober a long time but he doesn’t mind if people drink, so there’s bottles of wine in the dressing room and bourbon on the tour bus. The only thing we do differently on my [solo] tour is that we don’t put alcohol on the rider and don’t stock it on the bus. People can have a beer on the bus, but I say, ‘Please don’t keep a bunch of beer on the bus.’ But it’s hard. It puts your ethics and morals into perspective – I have every opportunity to drink and no one would know, but sobriety, for me, is what you do when no one’s looking.”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.