“If It Were Not for You, I Would Be Dead”: How Stevie Nicks Honored the One Woman She Says Saved Her Life

Former Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and prolific solo artist Stevie Nicks once dedicated every song she wrote after 1985 to a single woman in particular. The decree came as a shock, considering Nicks has had no small shortage of interesting people and events to inspire her songs over the decades, including her ex and bandmate, Lindsey Buckingham.

But according to Nicks, without the one woman to whom she dedicated every one of her post-1985 songs, there would have been no songs in the first place—hence, the touching dedication.

The Betty Ford Center, 1986

If Stevie Nicks’ introduction to Fleetwood Mac and corresponding affinity for c*caine defined her 1970s, then the rock star’s time at the Betty Ford Center rehabilitation facility in Rancho Mirage, California, defined her 1980s. After Nicks’ c*caine use reached a critical and lethal point, she checked herself into the facility following her 1986 “Rock a Little” tour.

“I managed to save myself,” Nicks told country star Tim McGraw on an episode of Apple Music’s Beyond the Influence radio show. “I got through some pretty scary moments. But I saved me. Nobody else saved me. I survived my, my c*caine—I survived by myself. I checked myself into rehab. Nobody did that for me. I did it, and that’s like with my whole life.”

Nicks might have been the woman who checked the struggling addict into rehab. But the “Dreams” singer later credited the woman behind the facility for her continued creativity, career, and ultimately, her life.

Stevie Nicks Dedicated Every Post-1985 Song To This Woman

After Betty Ford, former first lady and founder of the Betty Ford Center, died in 2011, Stevie Nicks immediately released a statement to the press. In a conversation with CNN shortly after the news broke, Nicks said, “As far as I’m concerned, Betty Ford DID save my life. I went to Betty Ford at the end of 1985 [the exact year varies] for c*caine addiction. In those days, she would actually come to speak at Betty Ford two or three times a month.”

“So, I got to hear her tell the whole story on just the pressure of being in politics, being married to a famous politician, and getting addicted to whatever it was she was addicted to,” Nicks continued. “I thought, ‘God, if Betty Ford can come through this, I can come through it, too.’”

“A couple of years ago, I went to Betty Ford to speak, and she was there. She was so lovely, and I don’t think she really realized the impact she had on so many lives,” Nicks said. “I told her that night, I said, ‘If it were not for you, Betty Ford, I would be dead. Absolutely. So, all the songs that I have written since I was here, I dedicate to you. All the songs and all the poems and the shows and all the amazing things I got to do between 1985 and now is because of you.”

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