Gramm Lou – Juke Box Hero – My Life Decades in Rock ‘n’ Roll

Lou Gramm – Juke Box Hero – My Life Decades in Rock ‘n’ Roll

As 1996 drew to a close, I began waking up periodically with these splitting headaches that were far worse than any hangover I’d experienced during the years when booze and drugs ruled my life. There were mornings when it felt like someone had put my skull in a vise ... mornings when I thought my head was going to explode into a million pieces. The pain was beyond excruciating.

A friend mentioned that maybe the headaches were being caused by carbon monoxide in our house, so I called the local utility company, but their tests showed nothing out of the ordinary.

In addition to the headaches, I started experiencing bouts of short- and long-term memory loss. I’d go to call my parents and halfway through dialing my mind would go blank. Here was a number I had called thousands of times — a number that hadn’t changed in 20 years — and suddenly it was as if someone had erased the digits from my mind. I’d have to pull out my personal phone book and look up the number. Around this time, I also began forgetting the names of people I had known for decades. I’d run into close friends and relatives, and I would struggle to come up with their names. At first, I would try to make light of it. I’d joke that I had too many lyrics dancing around in my head or that I was experiencing a senior moment, even though I was only 46 years old.

Compounding matters, I began suffering from blurred vision. Yeah, I know, that was kind of ironic. Here I am, the guy who wrote and sang the hit “Double Vision,” suddenly having difficulties seeing clearly.