Anders Osborne

Positive Vibrations HeartBeat Award (Musician):

When Anders Osborne started his Send Me a Friend foundation last year, he had a simple goal: He wanted musicians in recovery from substance addiction to continue working as musicians. Calling on his own experiences of returning to music clubs when he was newly sober, he began assembling a network where “friends” in different cities could look out for players who were returning to their old haunts or going back on the road.

When Osborne went through that experience, he felt he was being forced to choose between his sobriety and his art, not to mention his source of income. “What they tell you is that you should take a year off as you get deeper into recovery,” he told OffBeat last year. “And I remember thinking, What does that mean? Do you tell doctors this? You’re telling someone to just change their job. There is still a little bit of a preconceived idea that this is almost like a hobby that you’re doing this because you’re playing around and having fun. To me it meant that I could go to a seven-dollar-an-hour dishwashing gig, or I could continue to make decent money and take care of my family. And to do [the latter] I have to go back to music, which I’ve dedicated 30 years of my life to.”