Recovering Alcoholic SLASH Gets Beer Gift From U2

An act of kindness by Irish rockers U2 appears to have backfired when the band sent a case of Guinness beer to welcome Slash to Dublin who was in town to play a gig at the 3Arena.

The problem? Slash is a recovering alcoholic who has spoken publicly about his battle with the bottle.

"I come from, not an alcoholic background, but my dad was a drinker and people in my family were drinkers, and being born in England that was just part of pub culture," Slash previously said in an interview with Classic Rock.

"[I] know that if I thought I could casually have a drink or casually do whatever, that would leave that door open. I know how that works, because I've done it before, so I just abstain from it altogether."

Slash appeared to laugh off U2's mistake when he took to Twitter to thank them.

"Many thanks to @U2 for the 'Welcome to Dublin' case of Guinness! The only thing I miss about being sober," he wrote.

Slash recalled during a recent interview with BBC Radio 6 the first time he ever performed sober after years of drug abuse. Slash, who got clean in 2006, told interviewer Shaun Keaveny that he was with VELVET REVOLVER and still in rehab when he first stepped on stage straight. He recalled, "There was a point when VELVET went out and did a real quick tour around California. And so I left rehab and went out and did this tour, and it was the first time I'd been on stage sober — ever. [Laughs] That was a trip and it was a little shaky, but you get past that pretty quickly. 'Cause you're in the moment; you can't just sit there and go, 'Oh my God, I can't do this.' You have to do it. So I got over that pretty quickly."

Slash told The Pulse Of Radio a while back how he knew it was finally time to get clean. "When I was doing all that stuff and I woke up at the hospital enough times or on the kitchen floor or whatever the deal was, there was a point there when all of a sudden I realized that these near-death experiences are too commonplace and I probably shouldn't be here," he said. "And I think at that point I figured I probably only have a few more trump cards left, if any, so I figured it's probably time to sort of focus on trying to be a little bit more responsible."

Tom Zutaut, a former Geffen Records executive who was responsible for signing Slash's first band, GUNS N' ROSES, was famously quoted as saying that at the height of the band's success he was worried that he would one day turn on the radio and find out that Slash had died of an overdose.

Slash's third solo album, "World On Fire", was released on September 15.