Editing Stevie Ray Vaughan (section)

==== Drugs and alcohol ====
In 1960 when Vaughan was six years old, he began stealing his father's drinks. Drawn in by its effects, he started making his own drinks and this resulted in alcohol dependence. He explained: "that's when I first started stealing daddy's drinks. Or when my parents were gone, I'd find the bottle and make myself one. I thought it was cool&nbsp;... thought the kids down the street would think it was cool. That's where it began, and I had been depending on it ever since."{{sfn|Milkowski|1988}} According to the authors Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Crawford: "In the ensuing twenty-five years, he had worked his way through the ''[[Physicians' Desk Reference]]'' before finding his poisons of preference—alcohol and [[cocaine]]."<ref name="Patoski Crawford 201">{{harvnb|Patoski|Crawford|1993|p=201}}</ref>

{{quote box|quote= Stevie and I reached this point where we had to have the drugs and alcohol all the time. If the phone would ring in the morning and wake us up, we couldn't answer the phone before we had some alcohol.{{sfn|Hopkins|2011|p=137}}|source=—[[Tommy Shannon]]|width=23%|align=left|style=padding:8px;}}

While Vaughan asserted that he first experienced the effects of cocaine when a doctor prescribed him a liquid solution containing it as a nasal spray, according to Patoski and Crawford, the earliest that Vaughan is known to have used it is in 1975, while performing with the Cobras.<ref>{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=232}}; {{harvnb|Patoski|Crawford|1993|pp=85–86}}</ref> Before that, Vaughan had briefly used other drugs such as [[cannabis]], [[methamphetamine]], and Quaaludes, the brand name for [[methaqualone]].<ref>{{harvnb|Patoski|Crawford|1993|p=201}}; {{harvnb|Hopkins|2010|p=62}}</ref> After 1975, he regularly drank [[whiskey]] and used cocaine, particularly mixing the two substances together.<ref name="Patoski Crawford 201" /> According to Hopkins, by the time of Double Trouble's European tour in September 1986, "his lifestyle of substance abuse had reached a peak, probably better characterized as the bottom of a deep chasm."<ref>{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=144}}</ref>

At the height of Vaughan's substance abuse, he drank {{convert|1|USqt|L|sigfig=2}} of whiskey and used {{convert|1/4|oz|g|sigfig=1|spell=in|adj=pre|of an}} of cocaine each day.<ref name="Hopkins 2011 146">{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=146}}</ref> Personal assistant Tim Duckworth explained: "I would make sure he would eat breakfast instead of waking up drinking every morning, which was probably the worst thing he was doing."<ref>{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=139}}</ref> According to Vaughan: "it got to the point where if I'd try to say "hi" to somebody, I would just fall apart crying. It was like solid doom."<ref name="Paul 99" />

In September 1986, Double Trouble traveled to Denmark for a one-month tour of Europe.<ref>{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|pp=144–148}}</ref> During the late night hours of September 28, Vaughan became ill after a performance in [[Ludwigshafen]], Germany, suffering from near-death dehydration, for which he received medical treatment.<ref name="Hopkins 2011 146" /> The incident resulted in his checking into [[The London Clinic]] under the care of Dr. Victor Bloom, who warned him that he was a month away from death.<ref>{{harvnb|Patoski|Crawford|1993|p=213}}; {{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=147}}</ref> After staying in London for more than a week, he returned to the United States and entered Peachford Hospital in [[Atlanta]], where he spent four weeks in rehabilitation, and then checked into rehab in Austin.<ref>{{harvnb|Hopkins|2011|p=150}}</ref>