ROCK STAR LEAVES BETTY FORD CLINIC JUST TWO DAYS AFTER CHECKING IN
By James McCandlish (printed in the National Enquirer 1985)
"Two days in that place were enough for me" rock'n roll wild man Jerry Lee Lewis told The Enquirer after fleeing the Betty Ford Center only two days alter he'd checked in. "I'm gonna beat booze and drugs my way - not theirs! "Jerry Lee don't follow nobody's orders or toe nobody else's line. "When the counsellors told me that I'd have to make my bed and scrub the toilets just like everybody else I knew that I'd checked into the wrong place. "I'm a rock 'n' roll star, not a janitor. My hands fit fine on a piano keyboard - but not around a broom handle!
"In two days I spoke to more psychologists, therapists, counsellors and do-gooders than I have in my entire life. They designed a round the clock program of group therapy and one-on-one meetings with counsellors for me - enough spill your guts bull sessions choke a horse. It just wasn't Jerry Lee Lewis!"
Last week in The Enquirer Jerry Lee, 51, told his own story about fighting a lifelong drug and booze problem and his decision to quit out of love for his pregnant wife and the son they will soon have. "My wild days are behind me you can't rock n'roll in a coffin," he said.
Jerry checked in on December 8 and left abruptly December 10. In a revealing exclusive Enquirer interview after leaving the centre, the piano-pounding star declared: "I vowed to Enquirer readers that I was quitting - and I aim to keep that promise. I want my unborn son to have a drug-free daddy. I want to keep rocking until I am 100. But I'll have to do it my way. I'm a bull headed stubborn son of a gun. When I make up my mind to do something, I do it! People think that the Betty Ford clinic is some sort of celebrity country club where you are pampered to death by nurses catering to your every whim" said Jerry Lee. "It ain't like that all. No Sir! Everyone had to get up at 6am and take a morning "meditation walk". After that there was a prayer circle. Then work - hard work. Patients are supposed to clean bathrooms, take out garbage, sweep floors and pick up after people. Hey that may be fine for Suzie Homemaker but it ain't my style. I've never scrubbed a toilet in my life and at 51, I am not about to start. Jerry don't sweep the floors for nobody. I leave the kitchen chores to other people".
"That first day I made my bed, tidied my clothes and went on an all-day series of interviews, talks, evaluation sessions with psychologist, medical doctors, counsellors, and other drug abuse experts. As the long, long day wore on I knew this wasn't going to work. That night I was glad to get to bed but I knew I would have to go. The next morning I met again with the experts. They laid out the four-week plan of constant round the clock therapy sessions, lectures, drug abuse movies and brain washing that lay ahead. Come lunchtime I knew I had to leave quickly. I packed two bags, called a cab, hopped in, and told the driver, "Don't spare the horses!". A few hours later I was on the plane home to Memphis.
I'm not knocking the Betty Ford Clinic. It works for a lot of people. But I've got to find my own way, my own style, I am 51 and I'm not about to be regimented, lectured to and have to bare my soul to psychiatrists. Jerry Lee Lewis bares his soul in his music only - and that's the name of that tune. Period.
This was written by the Enquirer guy who broke my tabloid cherry