Background
By the end of Dream Theater's tour to promote Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, former drummer Mike Portnoy considered his alcoholism and drug abuse to have gone out of control:
| “ | For so many years... I would never let my drinking and partying get in the way of my playing or my work with the band... For fifteen years straight I drank and drugged every single day. But it was always kind of responsible and was always at the end of the night... As time went on, I would start to have my first couple of drinks before the encore... Then Jose started giving me drinks in the keyboard solo in the middle of the show... Towards the end, I was drinking earlier in the day while the opening band were on, and I would get onstage already half-crocked. | ” |
Portnoy went through periods of taking other drugs, including marijuana, prescription drugs and cocaine, though he considered alcohol to be his "drug of choice". Bandmate James LaBrie noted that Portnoy was "drinking like a fish"; his drinking had become a source of tension within the band. Portnoy consumed his final alcoholic drink on April 20, 2000 after the final show on Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory tour. He found the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program (which he considers to have "saved his life"), and makes it a priority to attend meetings while touring.
Portnoy's struggle with alcohol was the subject of "The Mirror", a song from Dream Theater's Awake, released in 1994. After he stopped drinking, Portnoy decided to write a suite of tracks describing the twelve-step program which would span several albums. He views the Suite as one concept album, spread over five releases. Portnoy started with an initial lyrical idea for the entire Suite, but musically the band "approached it fresh" when writing each track. The Suite was planned as something which would eventually be performed live in its entirety. All songs are dedicated to "Bill W. and his friends".
Portnoy described the process of writing the tracks as "very therapeutic". Upon finishing the Suite in 2009, he reflected that he had "dug into a hole with it. It was a nice idea seven years ago... After a while it became like an obligation hanging over my head, like a homework assignment." He said that he "didn't know if would have done it" if he knew how big the Suite was going to be: "If I had realized what I was getting myself into five albums ago... I think maybe I would have written one song that encompassed all twelve steps."
Read more about this topic: Twelve-step Suite
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