In the epic rockumenary simply called Woodstock, one of my favorite scenes comes from the yoga class. At Bonnaroo, I work in Planet Roo and witness the wonders of people doing their morning yoga each year, so whenever I watch this sequence in that movie, it takes me to those warm sunny memories. But yoga class teachings give me something else entirely to ponder that’s central to my love for Bonnaroo and life in general today, and it is true of yoga but true of still so much more than that.
The
teacher makes an audacious claim that practitioners of breathwork and
stretching and meditation and all that makes yoga practical and meaningful will
“get high” off that experience, a high that the Woodstock instructor suggests
would rival any high produced by the drugs popular among the youth
countercultures. We now address the possibility that this is true, that such a
natural high is entirely possible, not just in 1969, but in the 21st
century as well—and not just for yogis but for recovering addicts and
alcoholics too.
Having
completed four Bonnaroo music festivals as a clean and sober fan (with three
before that “still out there”)—“getting high” from music, dancing, friendship,
hard work, good food, and exercise, but not from drugs or alcohol—gives me
gratitude and the desire to pause and reflect on some of the ingredients that
make this incredible “natural high” experience possible, even easy, not just at
Bonnaroo, but every day of the year. I’m not talking about a buzz but something
broader and more beautiful. The sober euphoria shows up less suddenly, more
gentle and subtle, without the comedown and with fewer jags of nausea and
regret.
Tunneling
back on life’s timeline, I remember the runner’s high achieved after competing
in track and cross country. I remember the mountaintop experience given by God
at the church summer camp. But I also recall when I got high on something I
could put in my body, as with the epic parameters of my first drunk or my first
“trip” on psychedelic substances.
Around
the age of 20 in the late 1980s, life pulled in all directions: art and
activism, sexuality and spirituality. But for a time, the charming and
cascading colors of the counterculture captured me, and I slipped, without
quite noticing it, into the lifestyle of a full-blown addict and alcoholic. So
simply, what Theodore Roszak calls the “counterfeit infinity” of drug-induced
mysticism provides a quick-and-easy but ultimately painful and pricey path. But
at the time “one of us” discovers the alcohol and drug high, it works and works
well. For me, it worked for about 20 years.
Given
the progressive nature of our disease, I’d reached a period of pretty dark
debauchery by the time of my first Bonnaroo in 2006. On the last morning of the
festival, I hiked to the outer reaches of the dusty campgrounds in search of a
strong and dirty Bloody Mary for breakfast. With a good morning buzz blistering
my brain, I put on a white suit, headed to Centeroo, and convinced some friends
to pass me the microphone for the Solar Stage where I preached a Sunday sermon
about the glory of sin, of the holy trinity of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. My
addictions weren’t just recreational—they were religious in nature. What may
have resembled creative rebellion on the outside tumbled towards demonic
possession on the inside.
At the
Roo of 2007, I danced drunk, pranced drunk, stupidly ran drunk, and finally
tripped, flew, and fell drunk onto a massive metal circus tent stake. After the
all too compassionate crew at the medical tent said the bruise was really bad but not so bad that I had to
leave the festival, I proceeded to get even drunker with the added placation of
pain pills. In 2008, we ended up next to a brewery in guest camping, a brewery
that had an open tap for the entire festival. Any pretenses I may have had for
a moderate Roo that year were lost. Granted through all this, I thought I was
having fun. I managed to stay sober enough to work. The music made me cry, but
I thought they were tears of joy and gratitude. Yet in the middle of a
rain-soaked Saturday morning Jacket set, I got lost inside my head, in part
drawn inward by other substances. I didn’t like what I saw. My conscience
confronted confusion and regret and personal demons demanding more.
Like
some other playgrounds, like another festival where I finally had my “bottom”
or a particular bar walking distance from my work, I could have left the music
festival scene behind, beginning with Bonnaroo 2009. But with responsibility to
help manage a crew, with folks depending on me, with then vague knowledge of
the sober support available at the festival, I decided to go back.
In early
June 2009, I went to Bonnaroo with 40 days free of alcohol. I felt as
“spiritually fit” as I could be with so little time. For the first several
weeks of my ride on the wagon, I immersed myself in the fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous and was reading voraciously the literature of recovery. On
a brief trip back to Michigan to see my parents, I picked up a 30-day chip at a
morning meeting I’ve dubbed my “home away from home group.” It wasn’t just a
chip, though, for the chair that day dug into the back room of the clubhouse to
find an intricate and heavy and possibly antique one-month medallion.
Still
learning about my disease, I’d been taking an undecided, wait-and-see attitude
towards some other substances, such as marijuana and mushrooms. But at
Bonnaroo, although alcohol-free apart from one accidental sip in camp from
someone else’s cup, I indulged in the others. Just two days into it, I sensed
something empty and sickly superficial about mushroom maintenance. On Sunday at
noon, I found my way to the table with the yellow balloons, then to the meeting
in the circle in the field behind a smoothie stand.
As I sat
grateful and listened to the shares, my heart swelled and sank. I sensed something
special in what I heard, something that I wanted. Some of these people came
from NA, identified as much as addicts as alcoholics. As I heard their stories,
a catastrophic “Duh” kicked me in the guts and kicked my brain into gear.
“These people don’t do drugs,” I realized. “They are sober from everything and
for everything. Sobriety for them is not just not drinking, it’s a whole new
lifestyle.”
It was
Sunday, and I had an afternoon show in mind. How good would the concert feel
under the influence of nothing stronger than coffee and as strong as God? I’d
been “clean and sober” for most of
those first 40 days, but on that Sunday, it finally started to sink in what the
combination of those words really meant for this alcoholic-addict. I’ll never
forget dancing my butt off at that Okkervil River set at The Other Tent. Folks
around me surely thought I was messed up as I flailed around and hailed the
holiness of live music.
For the
sake of my own personal precision and perspective these past three years, I maintained
that May 2nd was a sobriety date and June 14 was a clean date. But clinging
to my convictions about those distinctions might be softening significantly to
accept that Bonnaroo is my more genuine sobriety birthday. That’s when the
lights really came on in terms of total abstinence from the substances that
were combined in one disease to form my former higher power.
We don’t
hear a lot about a program called “Shroomers Anonymous,” and even with the NA
culture and NA literature and rhetoric notwithstanding, psychedelics seem to
command a different kind of attitude. We all know that AA founder Bill Wilson
experimented with LSD under the tutelage of Aldous Huxley well into his
sobriety. And I know that on the Friday and Saturday of Bonnaroo 2009, I faced
a fork in the road. Given my drug and alcohol history and spiritual
experimentation, I could have easily justified continued psychedelic use as
part of some kind of sacred path. But my heart knew differently. That option
was no longer safe, and the freedom afforded by the choice I made that Sunday
still feels phenomenal, doing more for my spiritual growth than doses ever did.
Bonnaroo
since that year just gets better and better. And the Soberoo community
strengthens its roots in the festival. Shocking as it may sound, I actually
feared I would never cry for gratitude and joy again at a Bonnaroo show, at
least not how the whiskey made me weep. But truth be told, the music moves me
even more than the booze, as one of the stickers from a sober show-going
fellowship states, “It’s All About The Music.” At Mumford and Sons in 2010, the
lyrics to “Roll Away The Stone” lit me with spiritual lightning more than the
liquor ever could. The Mumfords duet with Old Crow for “Wagon Wheel” was one of
those moments when time stopped. Arms linked, my sober sweetie and I swayed
with the masses.
That
same year I woke up extra early one morning and found my way over to That Stage
where Disco Biscuits dared to play until the sun came up. I know we recovering
folks “can’t make it to the late night shows like we used to” because bodies
need sleep. But just like a fisherman or hunter or truck driver can plan ahead,
so might we go to bed before 11 and rise just before the first light to find a
great show still in progress. Years ago, I once subscribed to the cliché that
one could only get a jam band while
intoxicated. But with so many in the sober fan community being followers of
jammy acts, I knew there was more. It may be positive peer pressure from these
fellow fans or it may be my still throbbing hippy heart, but last year’s String
Cheese Incident and this year’s Phish were legitimate highlights of my entire
Bonnaroo experience. And I am so looking forward to dancing to Furthur while
clean and sober later this summer. When I last saw the Grateful Dead in the
late 1980s, I was blazed on multiple substances.
Between
high-energy dancing, listening attentively to deep lyrics, and praying
constantly, I connect with my higher power throughout the festival experience,
with these ingredients providing that unrivaled and now not-so-elusive “natural
high.” Besides live music and Bonnaroo playing roles in my personal path of
recovery, staying sober at the festival has this fabulous communal aspect found
in the meetings. For an alcoholic who is known to say “I really need a meeting”
like I used to say “I really need a beer,” meetings at Bonnaroo take on such
transcendent qualities that I get the goose-tingles just thinking of them. This
year, I listened with love as someone shared what her sponsor had said before
her journey west to Tennessee from the east coast; the advice was to just focus
on: “You, God, and Bonnaroo.” Because of the physical demands that the festival
places on our bodies and how quickly it passes, a “keep it simple, stupid”
approach especially works.
While
seeing others around us drinking and using may mean temptation to some, it
means teaching to others. Because Bonnaroo still equals a whoop-it-up kind of
freedom to many attendees, we get to see public displays of the worst kinds of
abuse. People stumbling, slurring, and shouting or pissing, puking, and passing
out—these parades of indulgence don’t look like that much fun. People this
wasted are generally not that appealing; no, they’re sad and disgusting. It’s
only that we used to be some of the ones too wasted to notice.
Although
the campsites, sober tents, and fellowships go by different names depending on
the band or the festival, the clean and sober fan community is an expanding and
inspiring phenomenon. With roots in the Grateful Dead group called Wharf Rats,
it’s a growing grassroots movement. For the first time this year, Bonnaroo
printed the Clean and Soberoo preamble (as it were) and meeting times in the
official Bonnaroo Guide. For the first time this year, we had
professionally-produced signage, a more prominent location near the main
information booth, plus an excellent shade tent and chairs for meetings. The
anti-drug language in the official Bonnaroo literature remains strong, and it
seems less police-like when fully grasped in the context of the festival as a
whole. (I've come to disagree with a friend who suggested to me that the corporate side of Roo covertly condones drug use while preaching against it.)
Practicing
the principles of recovery at a massive rock festival induces smiles, hugs,
tears of joy. An ample supply of lollipops is there just in time to stave off
an unwelcome jones. The yellow stickers function sweetly like a secret
handshake. They also inspire inquiries. Who doesn’t want to support the ethos
of “One Show At A Time”?
Heck,
I’ll admit it. I always thought drinking and using and partying my toots off
were about “living in the moment.” Facts are I never lived in the moment much back
then. There are some things disturbing, disembodying, and disorienting about
drug and alcohol abuse that destroy our sensitivity at the very second we think
we’re heightening our senses. That I once tried to proselytize the very
opposite as a post-punk disciple of Timothy Leary only makes sharing my
recovery that much more of a necessity. It’s refreshing this year to meet a
teenager who doesn’t drink or drug and wants one of our stickers as a reminder
that she never needs to go down that road if she doesn’t want to.
The
diversity inside the tent of Soberoo resembled the amazing rainbow I see at AA
and NA around the rest of the continent. Share after share, people express an
untenable joy, a pink cloud among pink clouds has enveloped the room. At our
home groups out in the world, when we say “keep coming back,” we really mean
“stay,” since the meetings are so frequent and needed as to become a healthy,
daily routine. But with Bonnaroo, we need to come back, because it’s only once
each year for some of the best concerts you’ll ever see and some of the most
special meetings I’ve ever experienced on the planet. Like the Beach Boys sang
to me this past Sunday, we experience some very “Good Vibrations.”
