大象传媒 Radio 5 Live - Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts - The music that helped me recover from addiction

The music that helped me recover from addiction

(Jade and Melissa, the Hooked podcasters)

How much of a role can music play in helping people to recover from addiction?

Hooked podcasters Melissa Rice and Jade Wye shared their experience of listening to music both through their addiction and afterwards, and the tracks which inspire them.

They also spoke to songwriter Amy Wadge, who co-wrote Thinking Out Loud with Ed Sheeran, about how music has played a part in her own recovery.

Click here to listen to the episode on 大象传媒 Sounds.

(Lorde)

Melissa said: "When I was in active addiction, music felt painful, there were so many memories attached to most songs; the good and the bad.

"So when I was at my lowest and wanted to hide from the world, music was gone; like family life, friends, jobs, happiness and hope, only to return when I came into recovery.

"Before my drinking took hold, music, gigs and festivals were a huge part of my identity, so to hear, love and appreciate music again is a gift of recovery."

(Freddie Mercury performing at Live Aid in 1985. Photo: PA)

"I have been to gigs and a festival sober, heard the music I have always loved and cried with joy.

"I listen to songs that were played in rehab, tracks that remind of who I was then and who I am now and I do this now with no fear or shame.

"Music is powerful, provoking and healing and I never want to be parted again."

"Music for me is like breathing," said Jade.

"When I was in active addiction, I tried to punish myself in every which way, to the point I stopped listening to music.

"In early recovery I rediscovered my love for something that can take me back to an exact time and place (there’s good times too!) and not only evoke, but also portray emotions and feelings, in a way I simply can’t always do on my own."

(Frank Turner at the Reading Festival in 2016)

"Music reaches people on a different level to anything else. It brings people together by giving them a common ground, whether that be simply love for a tune or realising someone else has way of describing similar emotions.

"I think this is exactly what we need to help bring people in to the podcast!"

(Tracy Chapman performing live in 2007 in New York City. Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

On the Hooked podcast, Melissa and Jade spoke to singer-songwriter Amy Wadge, who won a Grammy award for co-writing Thinking out Loud with Ed Sheeran.

Amy has been in recovery for six years.

"When you initially give up, you can’t imagine your life without alcohol," she said, "I'm an addict through and through and I'm just addicted to music."

Amy said she's used listening to music, and writing music to "heal" herself: "I find it incredibly hard to express myself emotionally in any other way other than song writing and it's like a gift."

She spoke about the country singer Brandy Clark, who Amy now writes with "She had an album called 12 Stories that I discovered literally, really early in recovery, and I've even said to her: 'Like 12 Stories, was it like 12 steps?' And she said, 'no.'

"But for me, that entire album was like a recovery album."

(Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge accept award for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 58th GRAMMY Awards. Photo: Getty Images)

Amy explained the process behind writing with Ed Sheeran: "Four months into recovery I went to see Ed and I said to him ‘I’m not drinking anymore’ and he said ‘we’ll I won’t’ and we wrote Thinking Out Loud.

"Everybody said your life will get better and for me that was a pretty big affirmation of what I was able to achieve without having alcohol, to even just relax in situation of just chatting with someone.

"I really appreciated my sobriety for everything that happened after that. The Grammys and all those things, I wouldn’t have remembered any of it.

"Now everything is like high-definition."

Listeners to the podcast got in touch using #大象传媒Hooked on social media, with their music suggestions: