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I’M HAPPY TO SAY THAT I KNOW FOR A fact that as of summer 2007, Steven Adler is doing better. I’ve been helping him help himself to get off of crack, smack, and Jägermeister, which has been a compound addiction that has been ruining his life for the past quarter century. Counting from before he was ousted from GN’R, this is the longest that he’s ever been clean. He has some pretty good people around him now and I’m happy to report that he seems genuinely happy.

Ron Schneider, my bass player in Tidas Sloan, is working with Steven as a tech/moral supporter. It’s funny how things come full circle, even when you think your circle has expanded infinitesimally. At the same time, hearing about Ron’s situation, I couldn’t help but realize that almost everybody that hung around a lot with Guns N’ Roses ended up becoming a junkie at one time or another.

WHEN YOU REVIEW YOUR LIFE LIKE THIS, it’s strange; there have been parts that I’ve looked at as if I wasn’t there—I’ve read a few of these stories as if for the first time. But more than anything you gain perspective; this kind of exercise isn’t easy, but in the long run it’s a really good idea.

It’s a good thing to truly understand how and why I’m the same yet different than I’ve always been. It’s as if my personality remains but my wisdom has grown. If there’s one thing that made my bullshit recede, it’s fatherhood. The reality that I was going to be someone’s dad didn’t kick in until I found myself staring at the assembly instructions for a crib. We’d just finished painting our guest room and there I was having to assemble this thing. There was no going back. And as much as I freaked out at that moment, after that I didn’t want to go back. If anything I ran toward it, not away: I let myself be consumed with baby stuff, which is great, because I enjoy it.

All things considered, it came very naturally. Once I’d gotten the crib together, I knew it was real; I knew that we were going in . By the time that Perla and London and I were photographed for the cover of some baby magazine whose name I can’t remember, I was totally into it. That photo shoot wasn’t the cover of Creem or Rolling Stone, but I was pretty excited—we’d hit the big time on the baby circuit. And I was just as proud.

Being a parent has its moments where you find yourself doing what you are doing, but with this new little person who has integrated themselves into your life who’s just… there. Kids become a part of your everyday existence so instinctually and so naturally that before you know it they’re there… and you can’t remember what life was like when they weren’t.

My boys are three and five and I’ve started catching myself, at least once or twice a day, realizing how fast they are changing and growing. It’s a constant reality check. How can it not be? When your four-year-old stands in front of you defiantly and argues like you’re both equals, how can you not ask yourself “Is this happening ? Am I negotiating with a four-year-old?” I wouldn’t have it any other way: Perla and I made beautiful kids, and our personalities are so strong in them that it’s entertaining to us. They are definitely a product of their parents…. In fact they’re a mirror of their parents: they are both defiant yet sweet.

It felt like a baseball bat to my chest, but one swung from the inside. Clear blue spots lit up the corners of my vision. It was abrupt, bloodless, silent violence. Nothing was visibly broken, nothing had changed to the naked eye, but the pain made my world stand still. I kept playing; I finished the song. The audience didn’t know that my heart had done a somersault just before the solo. My body had delivered its karmic retribution; reminding me, onstage, of how many times I’d intentionally served it up a similar loop-de-loop.

The jolt quickly became a dull ache that almost felt good. In any case, I felt more alive than I had a moment before, because I was more alive. The machine in my heart had reminded me of just how precious this life is. Its timing was impeccable: with a full house in front of me, while I played my guitar, I got the message loud and clear. I got it a few times that night. And I got it every time I was onstage for the rest of that tour, though I never knew when it was coming.

A doctor installed an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in my heart when I was thirty-five. It’s a three-inch-long battery-powered generator that was inserted through an incision in my armpit. It constantly monitors my heart rate, delivering electroshocks whenever my heart beats too dangerously fast or slow. Fifteen years of overdrinking and drug abuse had swollen that organ to one beat short of exploding. When I was finally hospitalized, I was told I had six weeks to live. It’s been six years since then and this piece of machinery has saved my life more than a few times. I’ve enjoyed a convenient side effect that the doctor did not intend: when my indulgences have caused my heart to beat too dangerously slow, my defibrillator has popped off, keeping death from my door for one more day. It also shocks my heart into submission when it beats fast enough to court cardiac arrest.

It’s a good thing I got it adjusted before the first Velvet Revolver tour. I did that one sober for the most part; sober enough that the excitement of playing with a band I believed in to fans who believed in us moved me to my core. I hadn’t been that inspired in years. I ran all over the stage; I basked in our collective energy. My heart raced with excitement hard enough to trigger the machine inside me onstage every night. It wasn’t pleasant but I began to welcome those reminders. I saw them for what they were. Strange moments of alienated clarity, moments out of time that encapsulated a life’s worth of hard-won wisdom.

WE HUNG AROUND FOR A WHILE THEN we headed out to New York City to play a few headlining dates. We had Zodiac Mindwarp opening up for a few, as well as EZO. These gigs were staggered, but I remember playing the Limelight. We didn’t take it all that seriously: our plan was to just fly in and use some other band’s equipment. I took sleeping pills before the flight in L.A., and when we missed our flight because Axl was running late, I somehow managed to stay awake.