Sneak Peek Magazine
Music Saved Me from Rehab Hell

You thought only one of the Backstreet Boys had problems? Think again. The band's heart-throb, Nick Carter, was hiding his own troubles.

The last few years have been the hardest of Nick Carter's life. He's had problems with his weight, a battle with the booze and he was arrested last January. You'd think the last thing he'd want now is a risky new solo career -- but you'd be wrong. "I coulda ended up like AJ," Nick confides to Sneak. "But my music saved me."

We meet up with Nick in LA where he's promoting his new album and is as happy as we've ever seen him. It's been a long journey but he's now fit, healthy and positive about his future. But to find the root of his problems, we've got to go back to the beginning...

Ruthless people

Nick's been a Backstreet Boy for a whopping ten years and in the spotlight for the last seven. He was 15 when the band released their first record and growing up in the music biz was not a good experience.

"You see some awful things and meet some of the most ruthless people," reveals Nick. "I've seen people who'll hurt someone just for money or for fame. Your trust is just blown out the window."

He found the only way to survive was to retreat inside himself. "I put up a barrier to protect myself," Nick says. "I withdrew into my shell." That shell would take seven more years to break.

So bad

As Nick grew up, his problems grew worse. Everyone knows what happened to his bandmate AJ -- when AJ's gran (who had helped raise him) died, his drinking and depression got so bad he ended up in a clinic. What people don't know is how close Nick was to following him. "It could easily have been met in rehab," Nick says. "God knows how I pulled myself out.

"I'd go on stage, then come off, drink and go partying -- that's what my life consisted of. I'd turned 21 (the legal drinking age in the US) and I didn't know what was going on. I just wanted to hang out and be like all the college kids. You see other people with a life and you think, 'I want that' -- and you party twice as hard." It was a vicious circle. The more Nick drank, the more depressed he'd get. Something had to give.

Arrest

"On the last tour there were low points," Nick admits. "The things that happened with my arrest (Nick was arrested for 'failing to move on' after an incident outside a club last January), what happened with AJ -- I was starting to go down that road."

And at the time when Nick needed the band's support more than ever, they were busy with other things. "It was difficult, 'cos some of the other guys had their wives [Brian and Kevin both got married last summer] and, naturally, they were trying to pay attention to their own lives. They had their own buses on tour, like a family thing, so I was pretty lonely. I was looking at myself and my health and I was worried. I didn't want to treat my body badly. I wanted to pull myself out of that."

Turning point

But Nick didn't end up in rehab. Which is why, toady, he's i a plush LA hotel by Santa Monica beach (think Baywatch) telling Sneak he's "happier than I've ever been."

So how did he do it? "I didn't stop the partying until I started recording my solo stuff," he says. "Suddenly, it hit me -- I'd found myself again. I'd found a way to release stuff I'd been holding in since I was a kid."

For Nick, putting his thoughts down in music was the turning point -- a way of breaking down the barriers he'd put up as a teenager. "It's been a therapy for me. It made me feel better and proud of myself again.

"I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone into the studio to write. It could've been bad. I could have ended up like AJ. Thank God I didn't."

Old Nick

Instead, Nick's on top of the world. "I got the old Nick back," he says, with a grin. "I'm happy, I'm energetic, I love what I'm doing and I'm ready to show the world what I've got. It's like I'm starting again." With that, he gives Sneak a beaming smile, like a man who knows he'd had a very lucky escape.