Clapton is Good.

The second "o" is critical. Back in the 1960s, when London graffiti proclaimed "Clapton is God," the brilliant British guitarist was descending into a personal hell. Eric Clapton traded a heroin addiction for alcoholism, suffered disastrous love affairs, contemplated suicide while armed with a bottle of vodka, a gram of blow and a shotgun.

At 62, Clapton has 20 years of sobriety, a happy marriage and three young daughters. It's a good time to consider an extraordinary life, as the rock Hall of Famer does with "Clapton: The Autobiography."

Unlike many rock star efforts, this one includes no Zeppelin-esque tales of debauched groupies or ghostwritten revisions of musical and personal history. Clapton delivers a brutally honest and unsparing look at his life, near-death and recovery, interspersed with tales from an unparalleled music career.

Clapton, sipping a bottle of water in an office at National Public Radio before doing a radio show, said he deliberately shied away from the usual type of celebrity memoir.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin, to do that," Clapton explains. "I don't even know what that means, to be honest with you. Celebrity has lost whatever meaning it did have. I really tried to find out for myself where I'd been."

Initially, Clapton planned to sit down for a series of interviews about his life, leaving a collaborator to handle the tweaking and organization. But a perusal of the first manuscript led the guitarist to get more hands-on.

"I realized this was not what I wanted to do at all," Clapton says. "So I rewrote that, and then I thought, 'I'll have to write this myself.' "

Clapton's six-string inspiration, Robert Johnson, sang of a single hellhound on his trail; Clapton had a whole pack nipping at his heels until a second trip through rehab changed his life in 1987. Johnson was dead by age 27, and there was a time when Clapton was convinced his life wouldn't last much beyond that.

"I entertained that notion when I was young and I was trying to identify with those guys," Clapton says of Johnson and other legendary bluesmen. "That is kind of a built-in fantasy that goes along with addiction, a way of justifying my need to get stoned: 'Well, that's what my heroes did.' "

Through it all, Clapton created an indelible musical legacy that spanned genres while inspiring generations. The autobiography's chapter titles provide a road map through his life's work:

"The Yardbirds."

"Cream."

"Blind Faith."

"Derek and the Dominos."

Clapton, from his early days with the John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, quickly assumed a position in the center of the music universe. He hung out with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, jammed with Muddy Waters and Duane Allman, influenced Stevie Ray Vaughan, Derek Trucks and untold thousands of other guitarists.

He confesses, without embarrassment, that he can't remember all of what happened.

"My memory of the late '60s right through the early '80s is severely hampered," Clapton says. "I wrote from what I could remember, and I needed nudging, too."

Clapton's book is not totally devoid of tabloid-worthy material. He recounts how Mick Jagger once stole his girlfriend — an Italian model — setting off homicidal fantasies in the late 1980s.

"I went on a rampage, mentally," Clapton recalls.

"I wanted to kill him. I spent quite a long time plotting ways to undermine or just do away with (him) — the kind of mad fantasies a drunk in recovery can have."