30 Years Married To A Rolling Stone
by Jo Wood (wife of Ron Wood) C 2013
!t books - an imprint of HarperCollingsPublishers
Book Review By Sister at NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS - AN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY
It's not easy to write a memoir and write it so every chapter advances your story. Jo Wood did that, and she had a hell of a lot of life to select scenes from. No doubt I was attracted to this book because Jo Wood is not just an ordinary woman in a hellish, dysfunctional marriage, but because women like her keep men like Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood happy for a long long time, that is until a life long alcoholic and drug user who has NEVER GROWN UP, decides he has to womanize before he dies, and dumps his no longer co-dependent wife!
I used to study at a coffee house that was owned by members of AA and frequented by members of AA (and other 12 step groups attempting to resist addiction.) Several times I met men who were flirtatious and generally attractive to me but they never seemed to follow through. Perplexed, I brought this subject up to others there, and I learned well one thing:
A person who lives their life for years on substances, be that drugs or alcohol, who basically AVOIDS life by being high, partying a lot, etc, DOES NOT GROW, DOES NOT MATURE, and so, when they finally join a 12 Step Program and get off their substance, they are the age they were when they started avoiding life... Jo was a hard partier and addict herself, which was attractive to Ron, but it was she who had to be a bit more sensible because she was the one having children, raising them, and keeping some sanity in her own and their lives.
Therefor, when they met he was about her age (20) as a human and 30 years later, she had matured to be maybe 30 something, while he was still 20 something and having affairs with 20 year olds. That's my explanation.
Now, if Ron Wood were NOT a Rolling Stone, if there were not drugs, travel, excitement, fame, money (to be earned and invested unwisely and lost), would Jo have stuck in there and had three children with him? My guess is that there are a lot of more ordinary people who are in these hellish marriages, with and without children, in which people met as partiers or drug addicts and remained so.
Jo portrays Ron as selfish, self-centered, capable of verbal abuse and unable to imagine how he hurts others, and clearly she made a lot of excuses for him and did a lot of compensating. Nearing 50 she dared to move her organic lifestyle into a product line, and she used the book to promote that a bit.
She stays clear of what their financial settlement was, though I'm sure most readers would like to know what she got (earned) after 30 years of loyalty and faithfulness.
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Speaking of drug and alcohol use and abuse, there are people who can use without becoming addicts. There are people who can keep it to 2 drinks or 20, people who can keep it to weekends, people who never drive themselves when they are using. Still, when you choose to be out of control regularly, even if scheduled, or at home, you may be self treating for a emotional or mental issue.
People are often wondering so I will tell you that I'm all for MEDICAL MJ and have been for years, ever since a professor at my college talked about how it would have saved her father's eyesight, and since I've met ovarian cancer survivors who used it and ate and didn't waste away. I think alcohol may be worse than MJ. However, I don't use MJ or any other illegal drug and drink very little and then usually with a meal, like dinner out, or a special occasion like a birthday. So it is really hard for me to relate to drug addicts.
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