1994.08.07 - The Houston Chronicle - Ex-Gunner recovering (Steven)

Ex-Gunner recovering

Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler said he is recovering from an overdose of heroin and cocaine, and hopes he can kick the addictions that forced him out of the hard-living band in 1990.

"I'm detoxing after doing heroin and coke and I'm just thankful I'm alive and that I was able to get in here," Adler, 29, said from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "It's great waking up in the morning and not being sick."

Adler said he checked himself into Cedars-Sinai last Sunday and is waiting for the substances to pass through his system. He hopes to check out Monday and take a cruise around Mexico with his brother. He said he had been taking drugs almost nonstop since being sacked from the band. "It's such a terrible, terrible sickness. I wasn't shooting it (heroin), I was smoking it. If I didn't save some for the next morning my eyes would water, my nose would run, I'd be throwing up, dry heaves."

Adler, who co-founded Guns N' Roses in 1985, played on their first album "Appetite for Destruction," which has sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. since its release in 1987. He also drummed on the song "Civil War," which appeared on 1991's "Use Your Illusion II," but by then he had been replaced by Matt Sorum. Last year he extracted a $2.5 million settlement from his former bandmates and management.