An "Old" Painting | Fab forum

It's a matter of coming through it, I think. McCartney's love for weed seems to have endured, but I think Ringo's been sober for a couple of decades now. Those two do seem to be taking care of themselves nowadays, but there's probably only so long you can live like Keith Richards (unless you're Keith Richards).

I'm not sure about George but I suspect he was fairly clean living in later years, particularly after his first cancer scare – which he attributed to smoking cigarettes. Didn't he have a bit of a coke thing in the 70s? I don't know much about his life after The Beatles.

Lennon may or may not have ever kicked the heroin habit for good, depending on whose biogs you read, but in 1980 he said he'd stopped taking LSD some years before (a little peyote now and then wasn't beyond his scope, I think he said). He certainly drank and took a lot of cocaine in the 1970s, particularly during the Lost Weekend. As I understand it the macrobiotic lifestyle may have been something of a front, particularly in 69/70, and he remained a bit of a fiend throughout. Obviously, though, we don't know how he'd have looked in later years as he died at 40.

Some of those who knew Lennon in 1967 have said he looked dangerously ill at the height of his acid binge, and one quote I read – I forget from whom – said it looked like he'd become a full-on casualty and could be next to drop out or even die. I think this was around the time of the Sgt Pepper launch. In the light of that, it's probably a good thing Maharishi came along when he did and they cut down the intake for a while.

I'd say Harrison and Lennon were the biggest acid heads, and Starr and Lennon had the wildest 1970s (mainly drink-related).