Profiles Of Addiction Recovery | Ringo Starr

Alcohol abuse and drug addiction can impact anyone of any age, race, gender, or background. However, those with traumatic childhoods are especially at risk, as was the case for former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

Early Life & Hardship

Sir Richard Starkey, better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, was born in 1940 in wartime inner city Liverpool, a community marked by poverty, coal dust, violent crime, and chronic alcoholism. 

Starr had little to no relationship with his father, who left his mother when he was still a toddler, and in childhood he faced a series of serious medical conditions such as appendicitis, peritonitis, and tuberculosis.

It would take him years to recover from these diseases, while Starr has also recalled being exposed to alcohol and having his first blackout as young as age nine. 

However, this difficult road also introduced him to percussion as he was invited to join a hospital band during a two-year stay due to his tuberculosis, leading him to a fixation on drumming and, eventually, rock and roll.

International Stardom & Substance Abuse

Starr’s first drum kit came second-hand as a Christmas gift from his stepfather. 

At seventeen, he had already joined a local band as a percussionist and he would eventually join the Hurricanes, a group that in 1960 was given top billing over another young group of musicians known as the Beatles.

In 1962 Ringo Starr joined the Beatles and bandmates John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison: the Fab Four. Success and international fame then came quickly, with Beatlemania exploding in the UK and USA in 1963.

During these years Starr was credited as a drummer, songwriter, and singer, usually providing lead vocals for one song on each Beatles album, including the legendary “With a Little Help from My Friends.” 

His merchandise was some of the bestselling in the Beatles’ collections, and he was even the inspiration for Cher’s very first single “Ringo, I Love You.”

Alcohol, Marijuana, & Cocaine

Ringo recalls these years as a blur. He would later recount, “I lived in nightclubs for three years. It used to be a non-stop party.”

But the showbiz lifestyle and international fame took its toll, ending his marriage to Maureen Cox after ten years in 1975 following Starr’s repeated affairs. Starr was now drinking heavily and was known to also use marijuana and cocaine.

In 1970, Ringo would officially exit the Beatles, launching a solo career as a musician, actor, and director. He would also join the Hollywood Vampires, a Los Angeles binge drinking club founded by Alice Cooper that also counted Keith Moon, Micky Dolenz, and Harry Nilsson among its members.

As Starr would later put it, “We weren’t musicians dabbling in drugs and alcohol [anymore]; now we were junkies dabbling in music.”

Enabling Relationship

In 1980, Starr would first encounter former Bond girl and American actress Barbara Bach on the set of the flop movie Caveman, with whom he would fall madly in love and marry in 1981. 

However, each would enable the other, together using ever increasing amounts of alcohol and freebasing cocaine to the point where Ringo would drink a bottle of champagne for breakfast, unable to go even an hour without an additional drink during the day.

According to his stepdaughter, Francesca, “Their troubles made me a better academic. I was always hidden away in a room, reading, because Mum and Dad were out of it.”

Worsened Alcohol Use

Starr himself has since been quoted as saying, “I’d be at London movie premieres with my bow tie on and a bottle of cognac in my pocket mixed with Coca-Cola, so people would think it was just soda. It got really sad.”

Starr has also gone on record that alcohol took entire years from his memory. “I’ve got photographs of me playing all over the world but I’ve absolutely no memory of it… I played Washington with the Beach Boys, or so they tell me. There’s only a photo to prove it.”

Recovery & Getting Sober

One Friday afternoon in 1988, Starr’s staff told him that he had drunkenly trashed his home so badly they thought it had been done by burglars. And what was worse, he had violently attacked his second wife Barbara so badly they were worried she was dead.

The shock was so bad that Starr and Bach would come together to make a change, ultimately spending six weeks in inpatient rehab in Tucson, Arizona while receiving treatment for alcohol addiction.

It was Starr’s first-time attempt at recovery, and it was difficult, especially during the moments after a show, when Starr would “have to sit on the [drum] seat and just hold [still]… holding on because all my sinews and veins and brains were like, ‘Let’s get f*cked up.’ But I didn’t. That’s how it works.”

Now 82 years old and officially knighted, Sir Ringo Starr remains sober and committed to a better path.

Recovery Is Possible

Substance abuse and addiction remain pervasive problems today, but recovery is possible with a combination of family support, professional services, and ongoing care.

To learn how we make recovery possible in both inpatient and outpatient treatment settings, please contact us today.