Wife of a Doors Rocker Warns About Drug Overdoses

I can't help but think back 40 years ago; to the time I got up close and personal with overdose. The Sunset Strip scene of 1966, 1967's "Summer of Love" and the Monterey Pop Festival were my rock 'n' roll training grounds. I was working in the A & R department of Liberty Records, and by 1968 I had moved in with and was soon married to rock icon John Densmore of the Doors.

A most fabulous lifestyle; all fun and no consequences. I often look back and wonder what the world would be like if we knew then what we know now.

I remember an intimate birthday dinner party for Jim Morrison before he went to Paris. We all laughed when another Doors wife and I rolled up the birthday present we had found for Jim - a Courvoisier cognac bottle decanter on wheels made to look like an antique war cannon. Today I might choose something different.

Even then there were whisperings about some of our favorite musicians; friends being "real" junkies - Tim Hardin, James Taylor? It was hard to believe. Then came the news - both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were dead.

But the real shock came when my own mother died at 47 of an overdose. Still I saw it as a fluke - expected, after all my mother had a long history of problems.

Then Jim. Jim Morrison! Even our own little rock circle didn't seem to know an overdose killed Jim. Today I have no doubt that it did - and that his life could have been saved.

Suddenly hearing about someone you knew from the music scene dying from overdose became commonplace. "Remember so-and-so, the drummer from so-and so?"  "Yeah why?"  "He OD'd." "Far out."

Only it wasn't really so far out, it was just sad. I developed a drug habit right along with my second husband, Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron. We took ODs in stride, happy to survive, part of the price, part of the game.

Who knew we would survive long enough to look back in sadness on the wasted lives and unsung songs, the unwritten poetry, the unpainted art.

My own life was saved twice by Narcan (naloxone), administered by the private paramedic some of us big shots kept on call. In 1984, my own baby sister died of a drug overdose. 1985 would find me checking into rehab at Cedars hospital, never to shoot heroin again.

As time marched on I would see my own son on life support, another overdose! OK today, though, and in recovery, thanks to medical intervention. But not so lucky were all the rocker parents who did lose their children. Oscar Scaggs, Jessica Rebennack, Andre Young Jr - so many kids of music legends lost.  All lives that could have been saved, like mine, if we had known how to prevent a drug overdose from becoming fatal.

 Today we know that all life matters and things can change. Now that I am a cleverly preserved rock dowager, relying on my stories and memories for thrills, I've painfully watched a younger generation of rockers die of overdoses. Their numbers are legion, the sadness intolerable - they would have practiced their art for another 40 years like my lucky living peers have. Alive today, long gray hair, our leather pants bursting a little bit at the bum. We are still full of stories and music, all the promise that rocked life in the '60s. I want that young life and music to continue.