Donnie Vie’s stint in county jail in 2015 led to his sobriety and rekindled his passion for songwriting

Donnie Vie’s stint in county jail in 2015 led to his sobriety and rekindled his passion for songwriting

Former Enuff Z’Nuff frontman Donnie Vie was recently interviewed by Jim Barber for Music Life Magazine and spoke about his stint in county jail in Illinois back in 2015 that essentially led to him turning his life around.

Vie advised: “This was back in 2015, it was just the county lock up. In a way it was cool, and it was peaceful. And I got my spirit and my energy back out there and started writing songs again, which I hadn’t done for about four years. I constantly have ideas and God keeps putting these little ideas into my head and it’s my job to follow the song where it wants to go and try not to f*** it up. But leading up to that, I had battled for most of my life, because I had a lot of unresolved issues and in the band [Enuff] I was very frustrated and depressed. I found out later that I am a manic depressive bipolar and had functional autism, ADHD and shit like that. I come with a manual now. But I just found all that stuff out later, after 2015 and through some therapy to deal with my abusive childhood.”

Vie added: “I went off the radar for a while and then all the stuff I told you about happened. But that ended up being good. At the time, I was coming back from when I was in England and Europe, I was so miserable, and had broken my ankle and I started slipping and drinking a little more. And I was just so depressed. On the day I was coming home, I was just praying to God to either take me, or change this, and I didn’t care how he did it, and I didn’t. And he sure did the very next day – with the police waiting for me at the airport back home. So, you’d better be careful what you wish for. But it all turned out to be a great thing. It made a better man out of me, it changed my whole outlook and then when I got to the end of all this, I had my family back, I had my close circle of friends and not all these buffoons coming around me, and I just decided I am going to do this and get back to writing.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Donnie Vie at Music Life Magazine‘s website.