Alice Cooper’s touring guitarist Nita Strauss recently had a conversation with Matt Stocks and talked to him about her alcohol addiction. To her fans’ surprise, the help she needed while trying to overcome it didn’t come from Alice Cooper but from Black Label Society’s lead singer Zakk Wylde.
Strauss has been working with Alice Cooper since 2014, and they are known to be quite close with each other as Strauss always mentions her adoration towards him. In her recent interview, she also talked about how much she loves Alice Cooper but, he wasn’t as helpful since he said that ‘God’ helped him overcome his alcohol addiction.
Even though Nita Strauss is a spiritual person, she said God didn’t help her but instead gave her the desire to drink. Therefore, even though Cooper wanted to help, he couldn’t. She continued to state that she went around while on tour, looking for people who have struggled with addiction so she could get a piece of advice. She also revealed that she asked Mötley Crüe’s iconic bassist Nikki Sixx once as well.
The ultimate advice she got was from Black Label Society’s Zakk Wylde, who instead of giving her advice shook her up with a pep-talk. Stating the importance of how alcohol doesn’t control you, Wylde made a significant impression on Strauss, which helped her to overcome her addiction.
Here is how Strauss talked about Wylde’s help:
“Zakk was a big influence on my sobriety as well, and I’ll tell you why. Because if you hear Alice’s story, everyone always assumes that because I play in Alice’s band that he was sort of my sober mentor. I love the guy but, his story is so different from mine. I adore Alice. He will talk to me if I need advice about anything that I want, but I went to Alice with my heart in my hand and said, ‘I’m having a really hard time, what did you do? How did you do this? Because I’m struggling.’
He sat me down, and he said, ‘Well, Nita. It was God. God took my desire to drink away from me.’ I said, out loud, ‘Oh wow, that’s wonderful.’ But inside, that didn’t happen for me. I am a spiritual person, but that wasn’t the way my journey went. God gave me my desire to drink if anything, no one took it away from me. I still have that desire, still, now, I mean six years every day.”
She went on to say:
“So I was going around, seeking advice. Got on tour with Mötley Crüe, so I asked Nikki Sixx questions, and then we did a festival where Black Label was playing, I was chatting with Zakk, and I said, ‘What can I do? How can I get over this feeling of missing out? How can I get over this feeling that everybody else is having fun and not me, and I was just sort of ranting.’ He put his big giant hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘Listen, little hurricane, don’t be a f*cking p*ssy.’ He gave me this real locker room pep-talk. ‘That liquid means nothing, it doesn’t f*cking control you. You control yourself. You’re a strong badass b*tch, and nothing controls you. Only you control you.’
I wanna cry just thinking about it because it was just so heartfelt and so meaningful and so raw, and I was like, ‘F*ck yeah I do. No one controls me, I control me.’ It’s really easy to get this thing and go, ‘Why not? I could just have a little bit, and then I will relax. Everybody else is relaxing, I am tense.’ And you sort of, spiral through this whole thing.
And the fact that Zakk said so raw and real ‘Don’t be a pussy.’ It seems like underselling alcoholism. But this is a serious thing, and we all struggle with that. I struggle with it and millions and millions of people around the world but having Zakk Wylde, my hero, saving me, ‘Hey listen, don’t be a little b*tch. That doesn’t control you, only you control you.’ That was a good kick in the ass for me. I think about it very often.”
Strauss’ biggest problem with overcoming addiction was that she thought she couldn’t enjoy life without it like other people did and let it control her. Among all the people she went to, including her longtime friend Cooper, only Wylde was able to convince her she was strong enough.
