Neil Young Sobers Up

Legendary rocker Neil Young is off the sauce—and the green—according to a lengthy profile in the New York Times Magazine. The story is pegged to the release of the cantankerous Canadian’s new autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, which hits bookshelves next week. In fact, the book itself provided the impetus for getting clean, which Young decided to do “after talking with his doctor about a brain that had endured many youthful pharmaceutical adventures.” He also was just looking for a change, telling Times writer David Carr, “I did [drugs and alcohol] for 40 years. Now I want to see what it’s like to not do it.” But it’s not been all sunshine and lemonade (Young’s current tipple of choice) since he put the plug in the bottle and the pipe on the shelf. As he notes in his autobiography, living life unaltered hasn't been easy—perhaps making a case for the value of using drugs and alcohol to modify one’s perspective. Young writes, “The straighter I am, the more alert I am, the less I know myself and the harder it is to recognize myself."