Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey has opened up about a seven-year addiction to drugs and alcohol.
In a chapter of L.A. punk rocker John Doe's book More Fun in the New World, she recalls going to England in 1978 with her then-boyfriend Leonard Phillips of the band The Dickies. While overseas, Caffey got into "all sorts of trouble... I snorted something the size of a matchstick tip, thinking, 'Oh, it’s not much -- I probably won’t feel it,'" and was proven wrong. That one fateful decision changed the direction of my life. I instantly became addicted, and I spent the next seven years trying to hide it from myself, my band and everyone else in my life."
Charlotte recalls that while The Go-Go's were recording their Beauty and the Beat LP in New York, "I quickly discovered Alphabet City in the East Village. It was THE place to score. Even though those were some of the scariest streets in the city, my need to get high was so strong that any fear, logic or sense of self-preservation went right out the window."
Despite the band's success -- including being on the cover of Rolling Stone -- Caffey realized things were out of hand. She closes her essay: "As big as my life looked on the outside was exactly how small it really was." (Billboard)