Life's Pleasures Quote by Ron Wood

There is a quiet swagger in the way Ron Wood frames sobriety as performance gear, not moral redemption. “Straight as a die” lands like tour-bus slang with a gambler’s edge: clean, sharp, and oddly masculine. The line resists the usual recovery-script pieties; he’s not confessing so much as reporting a new stage condition, like switching amps and noticing the room suddenly has different acoustics.

The interesting tell is the word “hiding.” Wood isn’t just admitting dependency, he’s naming the function of it: alcohol and dope as camouflage from scrutiny, from feeling too much, from the relentless exposure of being watched while you play. In rock mythology, intoxication is often sold as fuel for spontaneity. Wood flips that myth without preaching. “Focused was... good” is hesitant, almost embarrassed by its own sincerity, as if “good” is too plain a word for a culture that prizes danger and excess. The ellipsis does the work of a flinch: he’s allowing himself to like clarity, but he knows clarity doesn’t sound very rock-and-roll.

Context matters because Wood is a Rolling Stones lifer, a band whose brand was built on chaos that looked effortless. Aging, survival, and the modern expectation of accountability have changed the backstage economy. This quote sketches a new bargain: you can still deliver the myth onstage, but you don’t have to destroy yourself to do it. The subtext isn’t purity; it’s control.