To Sum It All Up… –
July 16, 2019 – Steve Baltin: How did getting sober affect you musically?
Deryck Whibley: From six years old I wanted to be a musician and so I followed that path. But once all the partying and everything I had done had caught up to me and I ended up in the hospital and I felt like I was about to lose it all, getting sober sort of re-solidified more than ever all I care about is playing music. Once I felt like it was gonna be gone forever I started respecting the fact I play music and it’s taking care of myself to play music.
Baltin: Looking back on it do you know now what prompted the partying?
Whibley: In a way you get to a point where you start taking what you do for granted because the cycle continues, you make music and you go out and you play. And there’s all this party aspect to it and it’s all just one big thing. For me, the thing that took my drinking to a different level was I also have a back injury and I was self-medicating that pain with alcohol. My back started getting really bad when I was 30, 31, 32, every year it seemed to get a little bit worse. So I started drinking a little bit more because of that on top of the partying. So I was drinking at times when I wasn’t partying because I had pain. But then I would party that night too. So I was doubling it all up and that’s what got me into trouble.
