美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Send Me A Friend': Anders Osborne Helps Musicians Stay Sober On Tour

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Recovering alcoholics¹ tend to avoid the bar. But what happens when the bar is your office? New Orleans bluesman Anders Osborne figured out how to get back to work despite the temptations. Now he's starting a program to help sober musicians who have to work where everyone else is partying. NPR's Debbie Elliott has more.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE²: Drugs and alcohol nearly destroyed Anders Osborne's career and his family. The guitarist and singer-songwriter was showing up for tour dates unable to perform. At his worst, he was spending nights on a park bench. He got into recovery and was putting his life back together when he remembers counselors³ telling him to take a year or two off.

ANDERS OSBORNE: You can try some different until you get on - I'm like, I don't understand, guys. I'm in bankruptcy⁴ and foreclosure. I mean, I'm in a bad situation. I'm going to take a minimum wage job at McDon (ph) - what am I supposed to do? So that frustration⁵ led to me thinking - well, there should be a support system for this.

ELLIOTT: Specifically for people in the music industry. This is what typically greets a musician showing up for a gig in New Orleans.

(SOUNDBITE OF COCKTAIL⁶ SHAKER SHAKING)

ELLIOTT: The bartender is shaking a cocktail at Chickie Wah Wah, a popular music venue⁷, where you have to walk past the bar to get to the stage. Osborne says that's tough for an addict⁸. These days, he comes with a game plan.

OSBORNE: Here's how long I'm going to spend at the bar. I'm not going to show up an hour and a half before. I'm going to show up 10 minutes before the show. That's all. And you have to really stick to that. I've designed the whole situation according to my comfort because I'm here to work. I'm not partying.

OSBORNE: The once-notorious partier, now 50, has been sober for about eight years. He's working with the nonprofit CAN'd Aid Foundation to help musicians navigate⁹ that fraught¹⁰ setting. The program is called Send Me a Friend, taken from an Anders Osborne song title.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SEND ME A FRIEND")

OSBORNE: (Singing) Send me - hey, send me - won't you send me a friend, oh, yeah? Come on now.

ELLIOTT: The idea is to pair volunteers with musicians trying to stay sober on the road. A network of friends with more than a year of continuous sobriety is available to come to performances and act as a buffer¹¹, for instance, when fans want to buy you a drink. Osborne says Send Me a Friend is different from Alcoholics Anonymous¹² or other recovery programs.

ELLIOTT: It's all about going back to work. It's not about getting anybody sober. That's not my job. It's just - if you have chosen to not drink or drug anymore but you want to stay in the music industry, you want to go back to work - well, we're going to provide one small little service, which is we're going to send somebody out to sit there with you.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: So you just send in your dates, and they send you friends (laughter). It's pretty awesome¹³.

ELLIOTT: This Boston singer says she has relapsed once when a friend was backstage at her concerts. We're not using her name because the program guarantees anonymity¹⁴.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: For me, this couldn't have come at a better time because it just got to a point where I didn't know what else to do. I thought I was going to have to stop. And I don't know what's worse, to be honest with you, you know, having my life spiral out of control but being able to play music or being steady and stable and not getting to play music. I know that sounds very extreme, but that's what music is for me.

ELLIOTT: Anders Osborne says this is not just for the rock star who hits rock bottom but anyone who's there for the gig - dancers, sound techs, roadies...

OSBORNE: You can just be a piano player down on Bourbon Street. I mean, you have four or five sets you're playing, small breaks. There's no backstage. There's no tour manager that keeps people away. There's just - you just sit there in the bar waiting for the next set. And that's - wow, that's difficult.

ELLIOTT: Osborne says this is about treating the music industry as a legitimate¹⁵ business, not some hobby you have to give up just because you're sober. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, New Orleans.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING DOWN")

OSBORNE: (Singing) This ain't no relapse. It's more like a bounce way up in heaven and back to the ground. Keep your arms wide open, baby. Yeah, I'm coming down. I've got the mind of an army and a single man's heart. I might look like a wild one, but I would never, never, never, stray far from you. So keep your arms wide open, baby. I'm coming down. Yeah, you know I talk too much...