Friday, March 07, 2008

Jeff Tweedy in the New York Times

Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer and songwriter in Wilco, writes today in the New York Times about his ongoing struggle with headaches and his battle against addiction to prescription painkillers.

Shaking It Off

By Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy is primarily known as the lyricist, lead singer and guitarist of Wilco, one of America’s most popular and critically successful rock bands. He is also a lifelong migraine sufferer whose headaches were for decades compounded by bouts of depression and panic disorder.
In 2004, Tweedy suffered a collapse and entered a rehabilitation clinic in Chicago to treat his conditions and a resulting addiction to prescription painkillers. In Tweedy’s estimation, his new found ability to treat and manage his depression and panic has helped him to remain migraine-free for the past four years. In a conversation this month, Tweedy spoke about how migraines and mood disorders impacted his childhood, his musical career and his creative and personal life.

Boy Meets Pain

I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I did not have headaches, and know what they were and know they were called migraines. My mother was a migraine sufferer, and my sister is as well. Now, if I was having legitimate migraines or I just called every headache a migraine because my mother had them, I don’t know for sure, but, like I said, I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t having them.

READ THE REST HERE

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