Nobody knows what really happened in my life until I tell them.” – Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks stands as one of the most influential figures in modern music. She is not only the captivating frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac but also a double inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a visionary songwriter. Nicks has an unrivaled musical ability in modern music thanks to her extraordinary talent as a writer and vocalist. But her hedonistic, lavishly partying lifestyle in the late 1970s is nothing short of legendary, and, amazingly. She was still able to deliver her amazing performances in the face of such excess.
What had begun as a lighthearted pastime quickly turned into something far more serious. Nicks suffered several incidents throughout her partying career – one of which almost left her blind. But even that didn’t stop her from consuming her preferred powder of choice a matter of moments later. The singer has since got ahold of her substance issues and, with it, used her influence to help spread the dangers of cocaine abuse.
Nicks was completely dependent on cocaine by the time Fleetwood Mac released their landmark album Rumours. She was having progressed from occasional recreational use to severe addiction. Nicks was originally hesitant to join Fleetwood Mac and was content to create music with Lindsey Buckingham. However, a phone call from Mick Fleetwood would turn out to be a pivotal moment in Nicks’s life.
When he announced his resignation on New Year’s Eve, Bob Welch had cast doubt on Fleetwood Mac’s future. This left Mick Fleetwood unsure of what to do and needed to find a replacement quickly. It was a festive evening, and Fleetwood wasn’t in the mood to party. Instead, he passed the time thinking of names he could use to replace Welch in the band. He asked Keith Olsen to send out feelers to see if Buckingham would want to jump ship and join the Mac since he knew that Olsen had produced the second Buckingham Nicks record. Olsen clarified that wouldn’t occur unless Nicks attended as well, and Fleetwood believed that the more, the better.
Nicks developed an early fondness for powder while he was in the band. Drugs were everywhere, whether they were in the studio or out on the road. It soon became a pre-show ritual of sorts for the group to join in a ceremonial bump of coke immediately before going on stage. An introduction that quickly became much more and saw Nicks enter into the inescapable trap of addiction.
Nicks has frequently suffered from stage fright. It’s a reasonable theory that the only thing that helped her with the problem was a hiccup before the performance. But more than anything, it provided a brief reprieve from touring. Nicks was having a hard time keeping up with her demanding schedule and was feeling very alone because she had no one to turn to. She and Christine McVie continued to be fascinated by the drug. During the recording of Rumours, they bought ladylike Coke vials, which McVie referred to as “little beautiful Coke bottles“. They wore it around their necks and claimed to be encrusted with “gold, turquoise, and diamonds.”
Nicks was dating Don Henley, but even after things went out of control, she was still excruciatingly lonely. They seemed like the ideal rock couple on the surface. But their hectic schedules prevented them from being much of a couple. It is what led to her beginning an affair with Mick Fleetwood that was fuelled by cocaine. They were the “last two people at a party”. She later opened up to Oprah about the “doomed” affair, telling her that “it was a doomed thing [that] caused pain for everybody.”
Stevie Nicks threw a wild party, even by their heady proportions, with the rest of the band before the first night of the Rumours World Tour. The group celebrated the news that the album had just gone platinum the only way they knew how. But the party almost had dire consequences. This celebration lasted almost 48 hours straight, and the singer forgot to remove her contact lenses, which wore off her cornea, almost leaving Nicks blind. Thankfully, the band’s tour manager bandaged up her eyes at the venue for the first tour date and prevented her from losing her sight.
In the past few years, Nicks has been transparent about her struggles with substance abuse and, more especially, how she lost all control over her behavior during this hedonistic phase. She suffered a physical injury as well as a health concern; the snorting had burned a coin-sized hole in the side of her nose. Her addiction was getting worse faster than it had ever been.
Nicks continued to use drugs heavily even after the band broke up in 1982. If anything, the pressure of pursuing a career as a solo performer made her use drugs even more. At this point, the singer was in a dark place. Her personal life was in disarray as she witnessed multiple relationships end. It was compounded by the misery as her best friend passed away. In those turbulent times, drugs remained a constant despite everything else in her life seemingly disappearing.
Nicks was told by a doctor that she was close to having a brain hemorrhage after she repeatedly passed out while Fleetwood Mac was back in the studio recording Tango in the Night. The next time you do cocaine, Nicks claims she was told, quite clearly. It won’t be attractive.
“We were all drug addicts, but I was the worst at one point,” she would subsequently recollect. “I was doing a lot of coke, I was a girl, and I was fragile.” And that hole in my nose was mine. Thus, it was risky.
Nicks decided to visit the Betty Ford Clinic in 1986 after hearing her bandmates’ advice. Fortunately, her attempt to kick cocaine was successful. She did, however, develop a nine-year valium addiction as a result of her time in rehab. She had to ask her PA to take the drugs that were being prescribed to her. Along with other drug addictions, as a means to stop the spiraling system of prescription drug use that many have experienced. Her doctor was horrified by the move. However, Nicks realized that, by taking a regimented system of prescription drugs, the path was as equally deadly as the one she endured with cocaine. In response, she decided to kick them all into touch and turn her hand to sobriety, something she is now in total control of.
Stevie Nicks’ struggle with cocaine is not unusual, there is no doubt about that. Addiction to this kind of affects countless numbers of individuals worldwide. Nicks’s ability to overcome numerous near-misses and emerge from the muck of addiction is evidence not only of her legendary status as a rock star but also of her tenacity as a person. Just in time for her to be able to relish her legacy as a true great, Stevie Nicks straightened out and got smart.
