Remember the Pointer Sisters? Ruth Pointer has opened up about a cocaine addiction.
AS A chart- topping singer Ruth Pointer lived the high life — literally.
After US band Pointer Sisters scored their breakthrough pop hit in 1978 with the Bruce Springsteen penned Fire, the sisters (Ruth, Bonnie and Anita) followed up with He’s So Shy and their bedroom manual for men Slow Hand, then back to back early ‘80s hits including I’m So Excited, Jump (For My Love), Automatic, Neutron Dance, Dare Me and Baby Come And Get It.
However Ruth Pointer was living life particularly highly, with a raging cocaine addiction that only ended when she got sober in 1984.
Pointer has just released her memoirs, Still So Excited: My Life As a Pointer Sister, including brutally honest memories of putting cocaine before her career, her sisters and her children.
“There were definitely incidents where the drugs came first,” Pointer admits.
“In the 12 Step program they talk about how memories are like peeling back an onion. I’m still being surprised by the things coming back into my consciousness — “Whoa! I did that? That really wasn’t good’.”
Ruth Pointer became hooked on cocaine when it wasn’t considered dangerous.Source:Supplied
When the Sisters got famous it was the era of Studio 54 excess where a blizzard of cocaine and drug dealers swamped the entertainment industry.
“Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s cocaine was everywhere,” Pointer says. “It wasn’t helped by some publications proclaiming it wasn’t addictive. They’d say cocaine was no more dangerous than drinking a glass of milk. OK.
“Nobody tells you it’s going to beat up on your immune system because you’re not going to be eating the nutritional food, you’re not going to be really concerned how you nourish your body. Forget doing exercise or anything like that. You just sit lethargically and think you’re coming up with brilliant ideas to do stuff. And by the time the media has caught up and telling you it is dangerous it’s too late, you’re addicted.”
Pointer says she was a functioning addict for many years, and even delved into crack cocaine at the end of her addiction — that particular drug leaving her so ravaged she needed to get her mouth and teeth reconstructed.
“You think you’re controlling things,” Pointer says. “I remembered coming to certain decisions, OK, go on stage high, that didn’t feel good. So what I did was I made a decision, I’m not going to go on stage high, I’ll get high after the show. OK, great. Thinking I’m brilliant. I can’t sleep, I’m exhausted. It was just crazy. I never calculated how much money I spent on that junk. That would scare me to death. Oh Lord, it was ridiculous.”
Love you, feel you: The Pointer Sisters back in 1993. Ruth is now the only original member on tour.Source:News Corp Australia
Pointer talks about almost being sucked into Scientology when a boyfriend enrolled her into their rehab program.
“We’d ride around in limousines and I’d be doing drugs in the car and he’d say ‘I want to help you get off that stuff’. So I ended up doing Narconon, which was part of Dianetics.
“They helped me start, they had a really good program, it made me start to think about health. There were lots of saunas and nutritional foods. They monitored my behaviour. But it cost me a lot of money to belong to this program. The clearer my head got I thought the 12 Step program is free and it’s looking so good right about now!”
Now sober for over 30 years, Pointer, 69, hopes sharing her story — and recovery — will help others. Her friend Natalie Cole wanted to write the foreword for her book, but sadly passed away before she could finish it — she also had her own cocaine battles that ravaged her health.
“I just feel so blessed to still be able to perform, to still have a reasonable amount of health in spite of the way I beat my body up,” Pointer says. “I get more and more grateful when I see one of my colleagues passing on.
“It’s like ‘Wow, I’m still here, there must be a reason’. One of those reasons is to share with the world the need to try and take care of yourself. You don’t have to go down this road. Young people need to know health is important, there’s a way to do it without selling yourself.”
Not that there haven’t been health issues Pointer blames directly on her years of drug abuse.
“I contracted meningitis. I had to have spinal taps where they draw the fluid out of your spine, it is excruciating. I still have pain in the area that I believe are the scar tissues from the needles going into my spine. And that pain makes me think of those days I did the drugs. I had major problems with blood clots. You just never know what you’re doing to your body. When you’re young you think you’re so damn invincible and ‘Oh I’ll clean it up later ...’”
Too shy: Ruth Pointer, centre, and the latest line-up of the Pointer Sisters.Source:Supplied
The Pointer Sisters’ line-up has become so fluid that Ruth is now the only original member.
June Pointer was kicked out of the band in 2004 due to ongoing crack cocaine use. While she entered rehab she died in 2006 after a battle with cancer. Anita Pointer left the band after medical issues following chemotherapy left her unable to tour.
The Pointer Sisters circa 2016 is still a family affair filled with Pointer DNA but no longer actual sisters. Rather Ruth, who has five kids and has been married five times, is joined in the band by her granddaughter Sadako and her daughter Issa.
The group’s average age may have dropped but Ruth Pointer tours at her own pace these days.
“I’m almost inclined to call them top-up engagements not tours,” Pointer says. “We don’t do the tours like we used to do back in the day. We’ll leave that to the young folks, out on the road in buses for months at a time. We did that. That was good then, the young folks can have it. That’s hard, hard work. We still have a good time, we do a lot of corporate dates, a lot of casinos, special events, fundraisers, that’s our audience. We’re so glad they’re still relevant and people still want to hear them being sung and we love singing them. They bring back a lot of memories.”
June, Ruth and Anita Pointer in Sydney during an Australian tour in 1995.Source:News Corp Australia
THE POINTER SISTERS, Tivoli Brisbane May 27, Jupiters Gold Coast May 28, The Gov Adelaide May 29, Wrest Point Casino Hobart June 2, Palais Theatre Melbourne June 3, Enmore Theatre Sydney June 4. Tickets: metropolistouring.com
