Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries-A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rockstar

*=Staff's pick

Genre	Autobiography/Diary	Nikki Sixx	Writer
Tracks	--	Ian Gittins	Co-writer
Running time	413 pages	-	-
Label	Simon & Schuster Ltd.	-	-
Release	25 September 2007	-	-
Country	USA	-	-
Similar artists	---

If you found The Dirt, about the life and living of Mötley Crüe, to be shocking - you'd better prepare for a glimpse of hell with The Heroin Diaries from Nikki Sixx.

This is not a "story-telling" kind of a book, or a regular autobiography either for that matter. This is a journey to dark corners of the mind of Nikki Sixx where we follow the writings he made in his diary for a year in his life. December 25th 1986, that is when the horrific yet enthralling endeavour towards destruction begins as Nikki starts up his diary for a few different reasons, one being that if he dies, at least he will leave a paper trace of his life. In addition, another reason for the diary is so that he can look back and remember what he did the day before.

To get a glimpse in to the mind of Nikki Sixx was equally amusing as it was scary, to read about the paranoia, the hallucinations, the pain and the absurd things the drugs and his addiction made him do. Many times my initial response to what I read was laughter, but when my mind started to put things together the laughter was stuck in my throat as the shocking and destructible world of a rock star in a downwards spiral revealed itself.

Although, reading about his drug paranoia and that he ran around his house armed believing he was stalked and that his phone was tapped is perhaps not ground for laughter, but it seems so absurd when you read about it and the consequences it resulted in, it was hard not to put on a smile. As when he points his guns to the security people coming to his house responding to his alarm, and it was more than once that they responded to his alarms caused simply by paranoia. And there is a lot of situations in likeness to this that is amusing as well as scary. One thing that made it hard for me to really understand his situation is that I myself never has been addicted to drugs, and the hell that I think I am going through by laying off regular cigarettes seems like cat-shit in comparison.

When Nikki wrote this diary it was about the time when Mötley Crüe recorded and toured for the Girls, Girls, Girls album, and how any member of that band can still be alive is still as big a mystery as it was when I read The Dirt, and even if Nikki is the only one that has been "dead", all of the them should probably be according to the logic rules of life.

Apart from occasionally fun situations and the more awkward moments, one of the main reasons for this book to actually be worth reading is the honesty it is being told with. As I feel when I read, all shit in his life of this time is being brought to the surface and I have a hard time believing there is much of censorship being executed within these folders. Nikki shows strenght putting himself on the line like this and to expose his life and all its mishaps in such a naked way.

What further makes this book rise above and beyond is all the liner-notes that disclose a lot of noteworthy information. Not least, it gives a view on his upbringing and that must surely has left its marks and can perhaps in someway explain some of his behaviours as a grownup. In addition, the interviews and comments in the book put a splendid final touch to it all, as it makes out a major portion of The Heroin Diaries. Moreover, this is where the credit goes to co-writer Ian Gittins who has conducted the interviews with many people connected to Nikki Sixx at the time, and their view on what happened and their relation to Nikki puts a whole other dimension to it all.

December 23rd 1987, that is when the time-line of this journal ends with Nikki overdosing. When you have read this book you would think that Nikki ought to be dead, not least after all the various drugs and the amount of alcohol he has consumed. Luckily, he is not, and hopefully he will not be, not for a long time yet.