I've been reading his autobiography (long, but interesting read -- it's too bad I don't know enough about the people of music to connect to all the names that he mentions). Here's a short bit from when he's in a recovery center for the second time trying to get over his substance abuse problems:

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The one day, as my visit was drawing to an end, a panic hit me, and I realized that in fact nothing had changed in me, and that I was going back out into the world again completely unprotected. The noise in my head was deafening, and drinking was in my thoughts all the time. It shocked me to realize that here I was in a treatment center, a supposedly safe environment, and I was in serious danger. I was absolutely terrified, in complete despair.

At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. In the privact of my room I begged for help. I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, I had nothing left to fight with. Then I remembered what I had heart about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my just pride wouldn't allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn't going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.

Within a few days I realized that something had happened for me. An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that's true, but there was much more to it than that. I had fount a place to turn to, a place I'd always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in. From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do.

If you are asking why I do all this, I will tell you... because it works, as simple as that. In all this time that I've been sober, I have never once seriously thought of taking a drink or a drug.

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I offer no added thoughts or commentary, just the brief transcription.

It sounds like he's found a coping mechanism that keeps him off drugs. Good for him.

I wonder if he had this experience before or after he wrote his classic with Eric Patrick: http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song...Heaven/8291756

This event happened while Conor was alive (in fact, in response to Conor's birth). Tears in Heaven is a reflection on Conor's tragic death.

cool story Aaron.

It's not socially acceptable to hug the blanket and suck your thumb, I guess. Works for me though.

it's a good thing for people like him that faith works without someone actually being on the other side otherwise real life would be too hard.

In a way it seems like his surrendering his pride is allowing him to let go of a coping mechanism (drugs/alcohol).

Regardless of one's religious beliefs, genuine humility and gratitude can be very liberating.