“In those days, people had no idea what to do with a kid who had dropped so much acid, so they sent me to the psychiatric ward of the Montreal Children’s Hospital,” he says. “They put me in there hoping it would help me, which, ultimately, it did not. But what did help is that while I was there I learned how to play music. They kept pianos and things around for the kids to use, and there was a guitar—a cheap Stella acoustic. So I said, ‘I’ll play this.’ It was really more a way to keep my mind off what was happening to me. Because what was going on in my head was terrifying.”
Marino spent a year going in and out of the hospital; during that time, he also became shockingly proficient on the guitar. “I progressed incredibly quickly,” he says. “At the time I didn’t understand why, but now I understand that, psychologically, if your mind is open enough and believing enough, what may take a few years to do can happen much faster. It’s not that strange if you actually think about it. It’s basically what people say when they say ‘Think positive,’ you know? Plus, in my state of mind, I hung onto that guitar the way a person would grab a piece of shipwreck if he was drowning in the ocean. It was a lifeboat for me.”
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