Country music star Keith Urban's new album, Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing, will hit stores tomorrow as the star battles alcohol abuse. Urban checked himself into rehab on October 19th, and the date of his return to the public spotlight remains uncertain.

Tonight, he will be up for a slate of trophies at the Country Music Awards, where he is the reigning "Entertainer of the Year."

I remember first seeing Urban perform on Austin City Limits last year, and was utterly blown away by the incorporation of rock guitar into his set. Having seen him live in Reno last December, it's even better in person. The biggest criticism I have of his recorded work is that it seems to suppress his rock sensibilities.

Those who don't follow country music probably best know Urban as the latest "Mr. Nicole Kidman," and the gossip mill speculates that Kidman served something akin to an ultimatum. Such speculation is predictable, and probably has about as much value as the pixels that comprise these words.

Having regularly perused some form of entertainment "news" vehicle since I was a child, one of the more fascinating and unanswerable questions that I've contemplated over the years is the following: what is it about the so-called "artistic temperament" that lends itself to substance abuse?

On the one hand, top-level celebrities who become name brands unto themselves must contend with the pressures and demands of keeping their career afloat, with the acknowledgment that one can only be "hot" for so long. In many respects, the ultimate paradox of living a public life is that it's the loneliest of existences.

That said, there are many creative people who aren't celebrities who struggle with substance abuse and sobriety for their entire life. Is it an acute awareness of self? Perhaps a unusual commitment to discovering and exploring what it means to be human in every aspect of life, come what may? Is a struggle with substances a reflection of the struggle with oneself?

The late Johnny Cash is but one in a long line of musicians who have battled various substances for decades on end. Having looked through Can't Find My Way Home recently, I was reminded that some of jazz great Charlie Parker's best work came when he was "dope sick," i.e., going through withdrawal.

Beyond good marketing and a fairly good biopic, Johnny Cash resonates with many beyond the country music world precisely because the wide swath of his life was an ongoing struggle where substance abuse played a major, definitive role.

Another Sun Records original probably takes top honors for living an outwardly glamorous life with all of the external accoutrements one could hope for, perhaps to compensate for the melancholy and isolation of being the world's most famous performer. When I visited Elvis's Graceland for the first time this past August, I was struck at how empty the place felt -- it is a theme park built upon the tragedy of his life, and the summer thunderstorms were an appropriate manifestation of that turmoil. One of the most uncomfortable moments of my visit came when a woman pointed to the King's handgun collection and told her husband, "See, if Elvis wanted to kill himself he would have used those." Recognizing that my powers of omniscience were about as good as hers (nil), I thought, "Elvis wasn't trying to kill himself -- he was probably trying to escape his celebrity." He surely felt the pervasive loneliness of celebrity, and in many respects his Graceland embodies that.

Is country music losing its once trademark emotional grittiness and dark psychological edginess, where the timeless lyric "I'm so lonesome I could cry," penned by one of the great American songwriters, endures as an artistic touchstone? An October 29 Los Angeles Times article on Keith Urban's struggle quotes music journalist Michael McCall on the expectations of the contemporary country scene:

"Stars are expected to be healthier, more fit and more presentable than they were 20 or 30 years ago. [C]ountry music is very image-conscious today. People are expected to work really hard. It's really hard to be drunk or strung out and do as much work as they have to do now."

However, McCall also notes that "going for treatment can be seen as a positive thing."

If only that were always the case, and not just in entertainment business circles. Despite the fact that substance abuse may be the most urgent health condition that an individual may face in life, most insurance providers fail to recognize such. Additionally, America's public policy remains more hell bent on putting drug abusers in jail than affording them real opportunities for treatment. Couple this with the lack of mental health treatment, including the lack of integration with substance abuse treatment, and it is little wonder why America keeps coming up short on the public health frontlines of its ruinous Drug War.

As noted above, artists are especially attuned to their own deficiencies and the struggles with (and within) themselves. Urban has publicly admitted to his prior problems with cocaine abuse, which he also noted in his song "You're Not My God":

Little white lies on a mirror
Cut neatly in a roll
Medicine that kept me from lookin' in my soul
I thought you were the answer
To all of my despair
And you almost had me six feet down
But I'm still breathin' air

'Cause you're not my god
And you're not my friend
You're not the one that I will walk with in the end
You're not the truth
You're a temporary shot
You ruin people's lives and you don't give a second thought
You're not my god

As a fan, I hope that he'll be back on the stage really soon, but also hope that he takes all the time that he needs. One of the great shortcomings of contemporary American society is the recognition, tacit and explicit, that life ought to be lived at full speed 24/7.

Apologies to those NASCAR fans out there, but sometimes life is best lived in first gear.

[Image from gactv.com]