Headbangers Blog has issued a new Guest Blog in which ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian discusses his love hate history with the "demon drink". The following is an excerpt:

"“Beer, the cause of and solution to all life’s problems.”

"That quote is from one of the world’s most famous philosophers, Homer Simpson. And who better to take advice from? If I would’ve known this as a teenager, life would have been so much easier!

My relationship with booze is an odd one. In the throes of my youth, booze was what my mom drank before she would turn into the Wolfman and break my G.I. Joe stuff and howl at the world. She’s since worked all of that out and we get along fine. Love you mom!

As a post-Bar Mitzvah man without a clue (with that never-been-shaved dirty upper lip) at 14 in New York City in the ’70s, my first forays into drinking were clumsy and strange. My friends and I would forage through our parent’s liquor/drug supplies and imbibe on the city bus at eight in the morning on the way to school. There would be crappy weed (although at the time, what did we know?) and some idiot would always bring cough medicine with codeine or a random pill. I stayed away from that stuff. I later found out that the pills were Quaaludes. The real Rorer 714 Ludes of legend. I never tried one because the guys that were taking pills were already known as the “burnouts.” 14 - 15 year-olds sleepwalking through junior high, listening to the Dead was way to mellow for me, man."

Read more at Headbangers Blog.