LAMB OF GOD's RANDY BLYTHE: How I Got Sober

LAMB OF GOD vocalist Randy Blythe took part in a book-signing event and question-and-answer session for his memoir, "Dark Days: A Memoir", on July 15 at Huntington, New York's Book Revue. You can now watch the chat below (courtesy of Artisan News).

Asked about his battle with alcoholism and how he got sober after a couple of decades of drinking, Blythe responded: "Most people, when they stop… It's entirely individual… Some people hit bottom because they wake up in jail, because their wife has left them, because they don't have any money left, because they lost their job, or because they just can't… they can't take it anymore."

He continued: "When I woke up the morning… I wrote about this in my book; I wrote about the last night I drank and the first day of sobriety. I woke up, and I was on tour. I was in Australia. I was opening up for the biggest band in metal, in the world — ever, in the history of metal. I was in a beautiful place. I had money in my bank account. My wife hadn't left me yet — and she still hasn't, somehow amazingly. And everything on the outside of my life, to anyone looking at it, beyond the fact that I looked kind of busted, everything would look good. Like, this dude is in this band, he's on this tour in this beautiful place. It's Australia, it's paradise. He's getting paid…. Not millions of dollars; don't get me wrong. But he's making money. I woke up one day and I just did not want to do anything. It's the strangest feeling to not want to… I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted to do. I didn't wanna eat, I didn't wanna sleep, I didn't wanna read a book, I didn't wanna go to work, I didn't wanna… drink. I couldn't imagine not drinking. I didn't want to do anything. I felt completely empty."

Blythe added: "So, for me, it was a very emotional flatline… like, bottom. It wasn't anything traumatic whatsoever. I just reached a point where I was, like, 'I've gotta do something else, or else I might as well be dead.' And I firmly believe I would be dead [by now if I hadn't stopped]. So it was just a weird thing. I don't know why. I drank 22 years — heavy — and finally I got enough pain where it's, like, 'Okay, this sucks. I've gotta stop.' But it's different for everyone. Anybody who's ever had a drinking problem can tell you that it's different for everyone."

"Dark Days: A Memoir" was released on July 14 via Da Capo Press. Random House purchased the foreign rights to the book and is acting as publisher in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The memoir, which puts emphasis on the past year of Randy's life, is an incredible, harrowing, heartbreaking, and redemptive story told in Blythe's already well-recognized writing style.

Book synopsis: "In 2010, a nineteen-year-old super-fan rushed the stage during a LAMB OF GOD concert in Prague. To protect himself, singer Randy Blythe pushed the fan away. Unbeknownst to Blythe, the young man hit his head on the floor when he fell and later died from the injury. Blythe was promptly incarcerated on charges carrying a prison term of five to ten years. Thirty-seven days later, he was released on bail to await trial. Although legal experts told him not to return to the Czech Republic to face the charges, Blythe explained that he 'could not run away from this problem while the grieving family of a dead young man searched hopelessly for answers that [he] might help provide.'"

After a five-day trial, Blythe was acquitted on March 5, 2013.