Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It (11 page)

My friends were yelling, “Do what he says, he’s a cop!”

I was so drunk. I didn’t realize he was an officer until it was too late and he slammed me up against the vehicle telling me that I was under arrest. People from the bar were laughing at me and it was this big scene. It was so embarrassing.

After the cop said I was under arrest, I tried to act tough to impress my friends. At first, I thought being arrested was sort of cool, but once you get thrown into the backseat of a police car and they lock the door, you realize what’s really happening and your view quickly changes. This was just another example of my not caring enough about my responsibilities and not learning from my mistakes.

I realized that I’d lost control of myself and I remember crying on the way to the station. I was so embarrassed. I said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t do this.”

The headline in the New York Post later read, “Backstreet Boozer Busted For Brawl.” The tabloids portrayed me as doing everything from grabbing a security guy by the neck to exposing myself—none of which was true.

The police charged me with a misdemeanor of “resisting arrest without violence” apparently because “drunk and belligerent” wasn’t a category. My memory of that night is fuzzy, for good reason. The Tampa police said they asked me to quiet down more than ten times and I refused each time. They claimed that they gave me a three-count to get out of the bar and I still didn’t leave. So they handcuffed me and put me in a squad car.

I was ashamed, of course. I defended myself on MTV’s
Total Request Live
(TRL) and on other occasions, saying that I just didn’t move quickly enough when an officer told me to clear out of the bar. I apologized to the Tampa Police Department, the members of BSB and our fans. Basically, I was just trying to uphold my reputation and do whatever damage control I could. TRL host Carson Daly said being arrested would probably help my reputation. I guess Carson thought I needed to rough up the Backstreet Boys’ image and be more of a bad ass. I’m pretty sure Carson had me on to help his ratings, but on some level, I thought maybe he was right and something positive could potentially come of this mistake. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn from it. I just kept compounding my problems by continuing the same unacceptable behavior and messing up. No internal alarms went off for me, despite what the other guys in Backstreet said. I rolled on, repeating the same self-destructive pattern for quite a while longer.

The previous summer A.J. McLean had entered rehab. But A.J. did something that I refused to do. He acknowledged his mistakes and began correcting them. Now, he’s human and he’s slipped up a few times, returning to rehab again in 2002 and more recently in 2011. My heart goes out to him. I have nothing but admiration and empathy for his efforts to face his demons. A.J. and I have discussed our shared battles many times. He has helped me more than he will ever know. I’m incredibly grateful to him.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

After the incident in Tampa, I could tell that my BSB family felt I’d let them down and that I was hurting our relationship. As the “baby” in BSB, I never wanted to disappoint or harm our group in any way. But my responsibility to the others was something I couldn’t seem to handle for the longest time. Even though I loved my “job” and my bandmates, I kept messing up. I was self-sabotaging, in part because I didn’t feel like I deserved the fans’ respect and affection. They loved me, but I didn’t much love myself at that point.

Some of it was just the typical rebelliousness most young guys with a lot of energy and a false sense of immortality experience. This was around the time I asserted my independence as a member of BSB by opting to stay with The Firm management group after the other members left that agency. I also decided to make a solo album, which turned out to be
Now Or Never
. The other guys weren’t happy with those decisions, but I was angry at the world. I had it in my head that music was the way to vent that anger.

THEY LOVED ME, BUT I DIDN’T MUCH
LOVE MYSELF
AT THAT POINT.

I really wasn’t concerned about the repercussions of my actions or the feelings they’d stir in others. I was very selfish. I actually felt resentful toward Backstreet because I’d spent so much time and energy on my career, I believed I was missing out on other things. I didn’t appreciate all that being in the group had done for me. I was more focused on what I thought I’d lost.

I wanted to write songs about my feelings and use the solo tour as an outlet for them. I went on the road and did just that, screaming at the top of my lungs as I sang track after track from my album. I don’t know how the audience felt, but it was very therapeutic for me. The first single released was “Help Me” and though I didn’t write it, the chorus reflected my state of mind:

Help me

Figure out the difference

Between right and wrong

Weak and strong

Day and night

Where I belong and

Help me

Make the right decisions

Know which way to turn

Lessons to learn

And just what my purpose is here

The songs on my
Now Or Never
solo album truly helped me to get over those feelings of resentment and anger. It was like writing a diary and then reading it to thousands of people. I wanted
everyone
to know what I was going through. I wanted them to hear my pain. It was the only way I knew how to fully express myself. It was sad, really. I was this overweight, unhealthy solo artist who was sweating profusely and wearing clothes on stage that I could barely fit into. It was heart-wrenching. I almost ruined my relationship with BSB over it. I was so mentally unhealthy at the time I wouldn’t let family members come around me.

I WANTED THEM TO HEAR
MY PAIN
.

Then again, if I hadn’t done the solo album and expressed those feelings, I might never have been able to distinguish what was good in my life from what was bad. I discovered that a lot of fans related to my pain and anger because they had gone through similar challenges. They could feel my angst and so many of the lyrics hit home for them. The album did well, but I wish I had been more prepared for that solo venture, more responsible and healthy. I think I could have appreciated the experience more and made the most of the opportunity it represented.

I did learn from many of the mistakes I made during that time though. For example, I discovered that I wasn’t prepared to handle the workload that comes with a solo career. I didn’t have a plan and I wasn’t comfortable in a position that required me to direct people and be the leader. I thought I could just cut some songs and let my manager do all the work, but that’s not the way it is.

In some respects, I’m glad that my solo career didn’t take off with that album. Who knows what might have happened? I might not have made the decision to change my lifestyle and behavior. Things worked out with Backstreet. I’m much happier and healthier now than I have been in many years and am thrilled to be celebrating 20 years of hard work and success with the group.

I was stepping out in a lot of ways during that solo period. It occurred right around the time my parents finally divorced. I had a lot of mixed feelings about that. My father and I had developed more of a friendship than we had previously, but I was uncomfortable when he asked me for money and advice. Aaron’s efforts to assert his financial and career independence also forced me to choose sides. Naturally, I sided with my brother because I’d been through the same issues with our parents as he’d gone through.

When I became a celebrity at such a young age no one handed me an instruction manual or warnings about how to behave under the media spotlight. I felt like I was under a magnifying glass and that people were judging me all the time. The pressure got to me. The only place I was comfortable was on stage or in the studio. The rest of the time I wanted to run away and hide. I just wished I could be “normal.” I remember the conflict of having huge responsibility, success and power, but not feeling worthy of it. It seemed that I craved normalcy so much because I felt I didn’t deserve what I had been given. That attitude caused me to be irresponsible with my money and my relationships and my life. I rebelled against everyone’s expectations of me. The immaturity, insecurities and bad habits I had learned in childhood quickly led to turmoil and trouble.

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

When you fail to learn from your mistakes, you don’t only repeat them, you inevitably crash and burn. I was headed for such a crash and burn after my 21st birthday. Nobody was trying to shoot me down. I was the one “piloting my own plane” so to speak, and heading for certain disaster.

Marijuana was my starter drug, after alcohol, and then I moved into my Ecstasy phase, and prescription painkillers in my early twenties. I did a lot of Ecstasy over one particular three or four month period and I probably regret taking that illegal and dangerous drug more than anything I’ve done. I’m afraid the amount I did caused chemical changes in my brain that are responsible for bouts of depression that I now struggle to control.

THE PRESSURE
GOT TO ME.

Like I said earlier, I thought I was invincible, just as many young people do. I was wrong. None of us are immune to the side effects of these drugs. Even if you disregard every other piece of advice I give you in this book, please take to heart my warnings about Ecstasy. This is a drug that can destroy your brain and ruin your life. I’m lucky that it hasn’t had a worse impact on me. But who knows what the effects will be down the road? It’s very scary to think about that because my brain already seems to operate differently than it did before.

Because of the problems I had after using this illegal drug, known scientifically as MDMA, I’ve done some research into it and found that it increases the activity of serotonin in the brain, which regulates mood, sleep, pain, emotion, and appetite. The increased serotonin causes the high that comes with taking Ecstasy. The problem is that the high lasts about two or three hours while the negative after-effects can last much longer. The negative effects include anxiety, paranoia, vertigo, memory problems and depression. People who use Ecstasy a lot often talk about having dark moods or overwhelming sadness for days or weeks afterward. And that’s not the worst problem with Ecstasy. There have been studies suggesting that the more you use it, the more you can damage your brain, maybe even permanently. It also has the potential to affect your body temperature so dramatically that it could lead to heart failure and even death. Some studies have also found that Ecstasy can interact with other drugs—especially uppers or stimulants—to kill you. It can potentially raise your body temperature high enough to trigger hypothermia.

As with many illegal street drugs, you never know what you are getting when you buy what you think is Ecstasy. It’s pretty common for dealers to mix MDMA with amphetamines, caffeine or ephedrine to stretch their supply and make more money. Then there are those people mixing Ecstasy with alcohol, pot and other drugs simultaneously, which is crazy. Please hear what I’m saying, take my warnings seriously, and stay away from drugs, especially those that can permanently alter your brain functions and your behavior.

HIGH LIVING

One of the mistakes I made during this period of time was not removing myself from the environment or the sort of people that fed my worst impulses as far as drinking, drugs and partying are concerned. My membership in Backstreet Boys took me into a world I was not prepared for. The temptations I encountered were far greater after I became known as a pop singer. They came at me in a mad rush that never seemed to stop. Hollywood and Beverly Hills were not the places for me to be at that particular stage of my life and career. Neither were the Hamptons, Park Avenue, Greenwich Village, or any other haunts of the rich and shameless.

Paris Hilton was probably the worst person in the world for me to hook up with at that time. And of course, I did just that.

I’m not putting her down at all. She is a great lady in many ways that most people aren’t even aware of. She just wasn’t the right one for me to be with at that shaky point in my life. We grew up in different worlds—at times it even felt like different planets. I didn’t choose my parents or my family and she didn’t choose hers. It’s just that all of her life, Paris has been able to have anything she’s wanted. That was not my reality. So, while we shared certain interests in music, movies, travel and other things, our perceptions and expectations were very different. I think in some ways, we became each other’s crutches. We leaned on each other because we were not sure of ourselves. We were young and the relationship was something new and fun, but the truth of the matter is, when you go chasing waterfalls sometimes you end up in an empty river. I’m just a normal dude, no matter what I do for a living. I enjoy simple guy things like video games and music. From my perspective, Paris’s lifestyle was over the top—just too extreme for me.

There’s no doubt that Paris and I had a strong mutual attraction physically. We dated for seven months or so in 2003, so there was obviously a connection. But early in our relationship she told a friend of mine that she posted my pictures on her walls when she was a teenager. I believe she saw me as that pop star instead of the regular guy I really am underneath it all. I wasn’t surprised, but it still made me a little uncomfortable. Paris didn’t date blue-collar dudes. She’s always dated celebrities and other rich and famous people.

WE LEANED ON
EACH OTHER
BECAUSE WE WERE NOT SURE OF OURSELVES.

I think she saw being a celebrity as a means to an end. Many other people feel the same way and I say “God bless ‘em,” but I wasn’t as interested in being famous as I was in making music and entertaining people, building on my strengths and using my gifts. Fame is just something that came with success as an entertainer. I want to do things that uplift people and make a difference in their lives.