{"id":178,"date":"2014-02-27T18:38:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T18:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/?p=48"},"modified":"2014-02-27T18:38:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T18:38:13","slug":"radio-great-gerry-house-has-a-heart-for-addicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2014\/02\/27\/radio-great-gerry-house-has-a-heart-for-addicts\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio great Gerry House has a heart for addicts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Nashville radio superstar Gerry House \u2013a guy I admire greatly \u2014 is out with a book on his life and career, and there are stories and references throughout to the stars and drug use and drinking too much.<\/p>\n

Those references in the book, \u201cCountry Music Broke My Brain,\u201d are sometimes funny, sometimes moving.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Johnny Paycheck, Gerry says, \u201cwas in rare form\u201d before a TV interview one day: \u201cHe was so wired I thought he was gonna burst into flames at any second.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Gerry talked about one of his favorite singers (whom Gerry didn\u2019t name) who quit drugs cold turkey after an afternoon of smoking marijuana next to the ocean with a chimp trainer and a chimp: \u201cMan,\u201d the singer explained to Gerry, \u201conce you\u2019re smoking grass with a monkey on the beach, you know it\u2019s time to quit drugs and try something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u201cI also once told Keith (Urban) how much I admired him for facing up to his \u2018problems\u2019 and doing something about \u2018em,\u201d Gerry wrote. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine how difficult that must have been. He worked hard to get his priorities where they should be, and that takes an enormous amount of courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"gerry\"<\/a>And then there was Gerry quoting Tanya Tucker about her post-show use on her tour bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re pumped full of adrenaline and excitement and there\u2019s nobody there to share it with. That\u2019s how I got into trouble. Something \u2013 anything \u2013 to either keep that feeling going or to make it go away,\u201d Tanya told Gerry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere you are in a bedroom on a bus, bouncing down the road, and you turn to something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerry adds: \u201cTanya wasn\u2019t making an excuse or justifying anything. She was just explaining, from one friend to another, what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had the chance to interview Gerry for\u00a0The Tennessean<\/i>, for a story coming out Sunday (March 2) on the Portfolio section cover.<\/p>\n

And for this blog, I asked Gerry about this empathetic view he seems to have of substance addictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably drink too much wine myself. But I\u2019m OK,\u201d he started.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people get blamed for addiction, like they\u2019re doing it on purpose. It\u2019s like depression,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"countrymusicbrokemybrain\"<\/a>\u201cEverybody says, \u2018Get over it.\u2019 \u2018I can\u2019t. I\u2019m depressed and you\u2019re depressing me more by telling me to get over it! Leave me alone.\u2019 [Addiction] is the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

So where did the empathy and understanding come from?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was never around addiction. It wasn\u2019t in my family. But I\u2019ve known so many people who\u2019ve dealt with it. It\u2019s so hard. And when they break through to the other side, I really celebrate it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gerry adds, grinning, \u201cIf somebody said I could never drink wine again, I don\u2019t know whether I could do it. I would have to have a long discussion with somebody: Tell me again why I can\u2019t. Explain it to me again?\u201d<\/p>\n

You can get a copy of Gerry\u2019s book, \u201cCountry Music Broke My Brain,\u201d at\u00a0www.gerryhouse.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your time and for sharing your talents with us for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Nashville radio superstar Gerry House \u2013a guy I admire greatly \u2014 is out with a book on his life and career, and there are stories and references throughout to the stars and drug use and drinking too much. Those references in the book, \u201cCountry Music Broke My Brain,\u201d are sometimes funny, sometimes moving. \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}