Changing My Mindset Was The Most Important Thing

Blacklite District

Cris Cohen: I've talked with a number of musicians who have gotten clean and sober. A common theme among them was that initial nervousness that they might lose that creative edge, the worry that that was somehow tied in with whatever substance they used or abused. Was that a fear with you?

Kyle Pfeiffer of Blacklite District: It's a complex question. When I first stopped drinking… there was a lot of drinking I was doing. Being a young guy in my mid-20s, going out on tour, free booze… we're having fun. We weren't making any money. Sometimes we were paying to be there. But man, we felt like rock stars.

I think you get so used to going out. That's what you do. We go out. We hang with the boys. We have some drinks. Some people don't like my behavior. But in my mind, that's the behavior that makes all this happen.

And yeah, the first couple of months (of sobriety) were pretty tough. The guys I was out with were still drinking and partying. So it was pretty tough for me, just because no one seemed to care that I had to stop.

As time goes on, you get used to it. I think I'm over six and a half years now, no drinking. And I have zero interest in going back.

I then became addicted to opiates, painkillers. Because of the alcohol I got something called pancreatitis. It put me in the hospital. And I went to treatment about four years ago.

Changing my mindset was the most important thing I could have done. I really think the power is in your own mindset. I know it's easier said than done. But I think there was a lot in changing how I looked at things. Not how people looked at what I did, but how I was looking at my own thing.