Duff McKagan (DUFF McKAGAN'S LOADED, VELVET REVOLVER, ex-GUNS N' ROSES) is featured in a new interview with Nicki Gostin at The Huffington Post. An excerpt is available below:

Q: What was the hardest thing for you when you were newly sober?

Duff: "Number one, the hardest thing to come to grips with was, if you're going to drink, you're going to die and I didn't have sober people around me. I didn't know anything about AA. I'm stubborn and I work hard, so those were the two things I relied on. The first time I went into a supermarket, it was like being on acid ... I was sweating on the verge of a panic attack. I bought cigarettes and BBQ sauce. I guess I just wanted to go into the store and buy something."

Q: Why did you decide to go to college?

Duff: "Because those first months started to go by, and I did things to fill my time. One of them was that I had all the Guns N' Roses financial statements and I tried reading them. Personally, I had made a good amount of dough for a 30-year-old guy, but I didn't know a thing about money. I'm not a dumb guy but I couldn't figure them out. I didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond -- too embarrassed to ask and I didn't trust anybody -- so went and enrolled in a course. Now I have a Bachelor's degree in business."

Q: And now you have a financial planning company.

Duff: "When I started going to business school, I started getting calls from my peers asking for my help. I thought, 'Well, there are a lot of people like me who make a bunch of money and just get so scared of it and don't know what to do with it.' I just didn't want to be 60 years old and broke."

Click here for the complete interview.

McKagan's new book, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4th via Touchstone Books. The book has landed at #17 on the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction bestsellers list.

According to Gary Graff from Billboard.com, Duff McKagan promises that It's So Easy (And Other Lies) is "not the same story" as former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Steven Adler told in their memoirs.

"Mine's not really a Guns N' Roses book, where I think Slash's ('Slash') really was...and I haven't read (Adler's 'My Appetite For Destruction')," McKagan tells Billboard.com. "I'm not saying one's better than the other. This is just my story. It's really my demise into addiction and stuff, and then my way out and my journey into things. My Guns N' Roses story is my Guns N' Roses story. My Velvet Revolver story is my Velvet Revolver story. It's my rock story, from my distinct viewpoint."

McKagan acknowledges that "it was pretty gut-wrenching to write some of this stuff, just because I hadn't faced any of it until I had to write" the book. But while it's frank, he says the book is not a kiss-and-tell, either. "I didn't f*** around, but I didn't throw anybody under the bus, either," he notes. "There's some things you just don't break confidences on, even if you're warring with someone."

Check out the first 80 pages of the book here.