Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It Read online

  BAGGAGE INSPECTION

  Bear in mind, the factors that may have had a negative influence on you could have occurred at any stage in your life, so it might help to make a list of the good and bad things from as far back as you can recall. Before you do that, though, you need to get your mind clear. That means no alcohol or drugs or any substances that cloud your thinking. Once you’ve cleaned up, whether that takes professional rehab or just self-discipline, then you can take an inventory to see what events and experiences are causing self-destructive behaviors.

  Once you’ve written down the important events and experiences, try to understand how each one affected you. After you’ve done that, you can begin the healing process.

  If you have difficulty taking this inventory, it might help to review your life in blocks of time, including your years in pre-school, grade school, high school, college and your post-graduate years, too. You can also look at the influences of family members, friends, teachers, coaches, bosses, teammates, co-workers, and others who might have had an effect on your thinking.

  In general, look for key moments and the most emotional times you can remember. Our actions also can be greatly influenced by tragedies or the loss of a loved one, or by experiencing fear and stress over long periods of time.

  You may want to first identify the most damaging and self-destructive behaviors you seem to repeat and then try to trace those back to when you first practiced them or where you first learned them. Remember, you can’t move ahead if you are stuck in the same patterns that have blocked your progress so far.

  I finally came to the realization a few years ago, with the help of my therapists, that I needed to examine what I’d been through and who I’d become. Call it soul-searching or self-assessment; it’s all about increasing your self-awareness, which has been just huge for me.

  Self-awareness includes understanding why you do what you do, what triggers your anger, what makes you do self-destructive things, or why you repeat the same unproductive behaviors over and over again.

  Have you ever found yourself wondering: Why did I do that? How could I have said that? What was I thinking? We’ve all been there. The goal is to think and reflect before you act so that you aren’t just acting on impulses without considering the repercussions and consequences of your actions.

  Building greater self-awareness can save your life, or your career, or your relationships. Being more aware of the triggers that set you off might just keep you from being the drunk driver who killed some innocent person, or from killing yourself, or hurting someone you love.

  NO LONGER A VICTIM

  There is another aspect to self-awareness that I’ve found very helpful: it’s actually taken me out of the victim mode that I mentioned earlier. For the longest time, I blamed other people and my past for my problems. I can’t tell you how joyful it makes me to stop feeling like a victim and to take responsibility for my own life. A victim has no hope. A victim can’t see better days ahead. A victim lets other people or events determine the course of his or her life.

  I never want to be the victim again. I am so lucky to be out of that mindset. I broke free of it after finally becoming aware that I had to change some things. I had to accept that I needed help, that what I’d been doing wasn’t working. Blaming wasn’t working. I needed to get in position to take control. If I hadn’t made changes and if I don’t stick with them, my life could easily become a tragedy like Leslie’s or like so many others who’ve fallen to drugs, alcohol or despair.

  A key point for me came when I asked a few simple but critical questions:

  • Is this really who I am?

  • How did I get to be this way?

  • Who do I really want to be?

  • How do I become that person?

  A VICTIM CAN’T SEE BETTER DAYS AHEAD.

  You and I can choose the lives we want. Each of us has that power, but we have to act upon it. We can’t put it to use if we are caught up in the blame game. Sure, maybe we’ve had some bad breaks. Maybe you’ve been abused, or neglected, or have been subjected to violence. Terrible things may have happened to you and I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered and endured. But remember, whatever has happened to you does not define you. You still have the ability to write your own story. It may not come easy. You may have a lot of work to do. But many, many people have overcome terrible events and gone on to do great things. If you want to have a better life, you have to dedicate yourself to pursuing it. That may mean admitting that you don’t have all the answers. You may have to educate yourself, just as you are doing by reading this book, or may have to ask for help.

  LIVING THE DREAM

  Challenges pop up now and then for all of us—sometimes they even occur daily. There may be times when you feel like troubles are just coming at you one right after the other. One positive way to look at this is to keep in mind that dealing with tough times is part of life. In fact, it’s part of being alive.

  Think about it: The only time you won’t have some sort of challenge is when you are dead and buried. As long as we are alive and breathing, we’re going to have to deal with bills, sickness, tough jobs, and relationship troubles. Those challenges are just part of life so you might as well accept them, deal with them, and move on.

  Stuff happens. The good news is that when bad stuff happens, you have a choice in how you deal with it. You can let it send you into a downward spiral, throwing you into that dreaded black hole of despair, or you can rise to the occasion and handle it in a positive way that may very well lead to the best days you’ve ever known.

  Remember the opening scene I described in the introduction? I was standing on stage in Central Park singing with the reunited Backstreet Boys to kick off our 20th reunion tour. Thousands of people were cheering. The sun was shining. Kevin was with us again. The harmony was back, LOL, (no pun intended).

  YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH WHAT I WENT THROUGH.

  I wanted to drop to my knees and scream with joy and gratitude. That great moment would never have happened if I had not finally stopped to examine my life and ask myself what was making me put my entire future at risk. It’s sad that I had to hit bottom before I asked myself the tough questions and made the changes that were truly necessary in my life. But sometimes you have to learn where the bottom is so you can recognize that you don’t want to stay there. Hopefully you will bounce back quicker than I did. I really do believe the best way to learn is through experience, but you should learn in a safe and healthy, non-destructive manner.

  You don’t have to go through what I went through. And believe me, you don’t want to.

  You may have heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over while expecting different results. If you don’t examine your past, acknowledge those things that have held you back, and commit to moving forward, you will very likely find yourself stuck in your own insane cycle of unproductive behavior.

  I sure did. I spent most of my teens and twenties sabotaging my career, and my life in general, by self-medicating with drugs and alcohol as a way to deal with my insecurities, anger and fear. Through therapy, the guidance of friends and working to educate myself and make smarter decisions, I began to make some positive changes. I came to realize that instead of running from my past or trying to numb myself to it, I needed to examine and understand it.

  I had to look back and really comprehend where I’d been and how certain events and circumstances affected me before I could move forward to where I want to be. It’s like planning a trip. If you go to Google Maps on the Internet, you first have to establish where you are before you can map out where you want to go. In this case, though, we’re not just talking geography or your physical location. We’re also looking at where you have been mentally and emotionally, and maybe even spiritually if you want to go there too.

  AN HONEST APPRAISAL

  It’s important to be very honest here because you are basically looking at what’s been wrong with your life so
that you can actually make it right. That means telling the truth about your past and acknowledging the bad as well as the good. If you take your car to the repair shop, you don’t hide the fact that the engine is leaking oil, or that the brakes are shot. You give your mechanic the list of everything that’s wrong so he can fix it. The same holds true when looking at your past. You can’t skip over anything that’s uncomfortable to deal with because those negative issues are probably the most important to examine and understand.

  You can’t go back and make things better either. And you certainly can’t fix everyone in your life. But you can fix yourself and that should be your focus. You deserve the best life has to offer. You may want to help others and that’s a noble concept. First, though, you have to be strong enough yourself.

  I tell myself all the time that to help and lead others, I have to serve as a positive example. I’m not always successful, but my goal is to get my act together, keep it together, and inspire others to do the same. I’ve done it physically, and I’m working on it mentally and emotionally every day. I figure if my brother and sisters and others I care about see that I’m healthier, making better decisions, and am more hopeful and optimistic, they’ll want to be the same way. And they’ll know if I got my act together, then it must be possible for them to do it too.

  TEARING DOWN THE WALLS

  For a long time I tried to hide from my problems rather than fix them. One of the things I did was push bad memories back into a corner of my brain where I hoped they would stay locked away. Psychologists and psychiatrists say that repressing memories can sometimes be a good thing, especially in the case of really traumatic events that might overwhelm us or cause us to react in negative ways. But sooner or later, for better or worse, we have to deal with even the most traumatic events because the mind becomes overloaded if we don’t. Deep negative memories will surface and sometimes their resurfacing can trigger self-destructive behaviors like self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.

  REMEMBER, TO GET BETTER, YOU HAVE TO BE BETTER.

  You may need help dealing with repressed memories. Many people do, including me. If you’re worried about opening the door to something you can’t handle, please find a professional therapist, a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, clergy member or at least a good friend or family member whom you trust to be there for you. I’m very glad that I’ve had professional help sorting through the skeletons in my closet, so I encourage you to find the same.

  Once you’ve acknowledged the past and all of the good and the bad it holds, you should commit to leaving it behind you, adopting healthier behaviors and perspectives, and moving ahead in a more positive direction. This may also require forgiving those who wronged you, and even forgiving yourself for your mistakes or foolish and self-destructive actions.

  Remember, to get better, you have to be better. You have to clean up your act if you want to clean up your life. I’m working on that now and I anticipate working on it the rest of my life. I don’t expect to achieve perfection, but I’m determined to make it my target so I’ll keep striving each day, month and year.

  I try not to have regrets because it’s important to keep looking ahead, but I know in my heart that there were many years when I could have done more with my life. I’ve had a lot of opportunities that I didn’t make the most of. I wasted way too much time partying, getting drunk and getting high on one drug or another.

  I was carrying on a terrible family tradition. I have friends, including some of my fellow BSB members, who grew up in families where the emphasis was on things like faith and education. Honestly, I didn’t know those sort of families existed until I met upstanding people like BSB members Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson.

  DON’T BE STUBBORN LIKE ME.

  In the pages ahead, I’ll tell you more about these two cousins. They are humble guys who’d be the first to assure you that they aren’t perfect. They’d probably even say they’ve made mistakes in life too. I look up to them and admire them because, for the most part, they’ve built on the strong foundations, principles and values their parents wisely provided them.

  RISING ABOVE

  While my parents didn’t teach me much in the way of values and life principles, I did learn those things from reading books and witnessing the examples of friends like Kevin and Brian. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I began to see how important it was to have guideposts to live by. I could’ve avoided a lot of problems and been spared many war wounds if I’d been taught them at a younger age. If you haven’t found your own values and principles to live by yet, please learn from my mistakes. Don’t be stubborn like me. Set guidelines for yourself. They could very well save your life.

  Without them, I became a product of my environment. But at least now, I’m determined not to be a victim of that environment. I am committed to rising above the life I was handed, so I can create the life I want. You can do the same. You have the power to choose how you will spend the rest of your time on this earth.

  Are you like me in that you’ve wasted too much time drinking and doing drugs? If so, you can change all of that by figuring out why those vices seemed like a such good idea in the first place, then deciding you don’t believe any of the myths that those bad habits were built on anymore.

  Maybe you haven’t been motivated to go after your dream job. Or maybe you are in a relationship that hasn’t worked out. Think about the last time you were truly happy and excited about your present and your future. What was going on then? How can you get that back? What could you be doing that would fulfill you and make you want to jump out of bed every day? Look within yourself and ask what’s kept you from making a change, then look for new and more powerful ways to motivate yourself to take a positive step toward that change. Next, we’ll look at one very good way to do that. Once you’ve figured out what has made you weak and unable to claim the life you want, you’ll be ready to identify and build on your strengths.

  PERSONAL NOTES

  CHAPTER THREE

  MY BSB FAMILY

  MUSIC WAS A great escape from the chaos at home when I was a kid. I had a small radio with silver knobs and a chrome casing. At night, I listened to rock and R&B stations and somehow the songs made me feel better. One of my favorites was “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order. I could tune out my parents’ arguments, get lost in a melody and disappear into my own world. Music was a comfort for me even before I realized that I could build my life around it.

  MUSIC WAS A GREAT ESCAPE FROM THE CHAOS AT HOME WHEN I WAS A KID.

  The stress and lack of nurturing at home took a toll on all the Carter kids. Our schoolwork suffered and we were often in trouble for acting out in class. My sister BJ started as the best student in our family. Because she’d earned straight A’s, she was picked for the honored position of student patrol officer. In that role, she would help kids cross the street before and after classes. I was jealous of BJ and the other school patrol members, mostly because they got to wear super cool neon-colored safety belts. As things got worse at home though, BJ became rebellious and her grades dropped.

  I, on the other hand, was never much of a student. While the teacher talked, I’d find myself daydreaming. The studies seemed beyond my grasp. I felt lost and very insecure. I was never in the advanced classes with the smartest kids. My classroom was one of those portable units that always seemed reserved for the worst students. I felt like an outcast. It was as if they put us in there so we wouldn’t infect the smart kids with our contagious stupidity.

  All in all, school wasn’t a great experience for me. I was bullied some, especially at the bus stop. The street we lived on in Tampa—131st Avenue—was in a pretty tough neighborhood. One kid terrorized me even though our sisters were friends. He beat up most of the kids who rode our bus, so I guess it wasn’t personal. I just tried to stay off his radar or at least out of his reach.

  Studying and doing homework were difficult for me, especially when there was so much drama between my warring parents.
When Nintendo video games came out, I spent hours playing them. My mother tried to pry me away, but that was pretty hard to do. The one thing we both liked was music so that became something we shared. There was always a radio or stereo on in our house. My parents may have cashed in on the disco era when they owned the tavern but they were mostly big fans of the golden oldies of rock and roll from the sixties and seventies—what my mom called real music.

  She liked harmonies and strong vocals. In fact, one of her favorite songs when I was little was “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. She bought a cassette tape with the song and played it all the time, so I knew it by heart. When I was eight years old, Mom was working in the kitchen one day and she heard me singing that song in the backyard.

  I often sang while bouncing on the trampoline, but this time I was on solid ground pretending to be on stage at an outdoor concert. I imagined the blades of grass were my audience. (It was a very green crowd.) Mom suspected that I planned this as a performance for her benefit since I was belting out a song she loved, but I was singing for the fun of it.

  My parents always said that I was a natural born ham. Mom has written that sometimes she feared I was overly needy and starved for attention. When I think about it, there may be some truth to that as she and dad worked so hard they weren’t around very much. If I was hungry for affection and attention, singing that song sure did the trick.

  Mom—who genuinely thought of herself as an unbiased observer—immediately decided that I was destined for stardom when she heard me singing that day. She was so impressed, she dragged me into the house to sing for my dad too.

  This was the first time my parents realized I might have marketable talent, though Dad was less convinced of my greatness than Mom. He wanted a second opinion, and probably a third.

  I INHERITED DAD’S BLUE-COLLAR WORK ETHIC AND DRIVE...