Wow, he seems so positive... But he went through such hard times. 

Later, he would look back on this period and tell everyone that he’d almost had a nervous breakdown. From the outside, there appeared to be no “almost” about it.

For the first time in his life, he felt utterly worthless. Everything he had been since the age of fifteen had been wrapped up in the band. Now, even though he couldn’t tell the world, that period of his life was almost certainly over.

It was as if he’d suddenly and unexpectedly lost his job, been made entirely redundant. He was twenty-seven and of no use to anyone anymore. Even the money he’d earned up to this point was no comfort, made no real difference. This was an identity crisis in extremis: Who exactly was he if he wasn’t Beatle Paul McCartney?

On the mornings when he forced himself to rise, he’d sit on the edge of his bed for a while before defeatedly crawling back under the covers. When he did get out of bed he’d reach straight for the whiskey, his drinking creeping earlier and earlier into the day. By three in the afternoon, he was usually out of it.

“I hit the bottle,” he admits. “I hit the substances.”

He was eaten up with anger—at himself, at the outside world. He could describe it only as a barreling, empty feeling rolling across his soul.