"I had a chainsaw and cut a nun's head off. You don't see that s--- at all anymore." --Vince Neil

In 1987, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx was briefly pronounced dead after a heroin overdose. His longstanding and spiraling addiction had reached its apex. Throughout the year, Sixx scribed his destruction in manic journal entries, now made public in the just-released memoir, aptly titled, 'The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star.' These days, Sixx, now six years sober, battles the industry that both made and broke him, helping his band sell more than 45 million albums worldwide, while simultaneously feeding -- or, at best, ignoring -- his addiction. It's a world away from his embattlement twenty years ago, but before Sixx can say for certain where he 's going, he revisits where he's been.

Warning: The following excerpt contains explicit language and detailed reference to drug use.

February 1987: When I'm Losing My Mind, the Only Thing That Can Save Me Is Heroin.

February 2, 1987: Van Nuys, 1 a.m.

When I'm losing my mind, the only thing that can save me is heroin.

I love the ritual of heroin. I love the smell, and the way it looks when it goes into the needle. I love the way the needle feels when it goes into my skin. I love watching the blood register and mix in with the beautiful yellowish-brown liquid. I love that moment just before I push ...

Then I'm under that warm blanket once again, and I'm perfectly content to live there for the rest of my life. Thank God for heroin ... it never lets me down.

I'm off the methadone. It didn't work.

Considering that he needs their services on a regular basis -- what with those bedpan changes and sponge baths -- you'd think that Vince Neil would do his best to stay on the good side of the nation's nurses. Well, the motley-est of the Motley has managed to screw up that relationship by deciding to dress the staff -- at least the female portion -- of his new Florida bar in nurse uniforms that look to be borrowed from the set of a soft-core porn flick.

There are plenty of situations when we wouldn't want to cross paths with Vince Neil -- getting in his way when he's headed for a return trip to an all-you-can-eat buffet for one -- but few are as fear-inducing as being cast adrift at sea with the generously proportioned rocker. Well, shades of Gilligan's Island, that seems to be the idea behind the Motley Cruise, a four-day fiesta that's supposed to set sail from Miami to Calica, Mexico next January.