Star Magazine March 1992
Bee Gee Maurice Cleans Up His Act And Re-Marries His WifeRecovered alchoholic Maurice Gibb has renewed his wedding vows with his wife Yvonne, the person he credits with saving his life and bringing him back from the depths of despair.
"Staying alive would have been impossible without her," says Maurice, 42, who with brothers Barry and Robin as been a longtime heartthrob member of the Bee Gee rock group. "As an alcoholic, you can have no appreciation for your wife or your children's feelings, but I'm making up for that now. I'm winning my children's trust back.
"Without Yvonne, I wouldn't have beaten the bottle. I wouldn't have been here today- I'd probably be dead. Now we both feel we're starting life over - that's why we're renewing our vows."
Gibb met Yvonne nearly 20 years ago while he was performing at a club in England. They've been married 17 years and have a 16 year old son, Adam and an 11 year old daughter, Samantha. The kids stood as best man and maid of honor at their parents' Feb.23 wedding at their Miami home.
More than 100 close friends were on hand for the touching ceremony. Brother Barry gave Yvonne away, and guests toasted the joyous couple with non-alcoholic beverages.
"We thought it would be a good tome to celebrate not only our marriage but also my life as a non-drinker and non-drug user," says Maurice. "It was a fun thing, but it also marks our starting a new life together. It's very hard to find a lady like Yvonne."
Maurice revealed to STAR the extent of his long struggle with booze. "For 14 years, I'd been an alcoholic - often a really nasty person, wrecking new Rolls-Royces, even taking trans-Atlantic trips without knowing it!"
Once he boarded a Concorde supersonic jet at London's Heathrow Airport and was so drunk the captain had him removed from the plane. "My whole life - everything - was just a haze, a blur," Maurice says.
When youngest brother Andy died in 1988 of a massive heart attack brought on by drugs and alcohol, Maurice was in such a booze-induced haze that he found himself unable even to shed a tear. "It took me three years to cry over that--three years. When Andy died, I just drank to dumb my mind," Maurice says.
At the beginning of 1991, he joined a Miami program called New Life. "It's run by Dr. Jules Trop, a recovering alcoholic himsel," says Maurice. "one of the secrets is the follow-up program--you live with other patients for a few months, without drugs or alcohol.
"Whenever you need support, there's someone there for you. Finally, I found a program that's put my troubles behind me."
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