By Regina R. Robertson
The Associated Press

Smokey Robinson's professional accomplishments have been celebrated for nearly four decades, his name and signature falsetto becoming synonymous with classic songwriting and timeless music.

Dating back to his early days at Motown Records, where he penned hit songs including "Shop Around," "Ooh Baby Baby," "The Tracks of My Tears" and "My Girl," Robinson has been credited as an architect of R&B music. Bob Dylan once called him "America's greatest living poet."

But the details of his personal struggles have been far less public. He began using drugs during the 1980s, and what started out as recreation with friends eventually overtook him for a two-year period.

"I was dead," he says. "I was ashamed of myself because it wasn't like (drug addiction) happened to me as a teenager or a young man. I was a full-fledged adult and my life was going exactly as I would have written it, but drugs don't care who you are or what you're doing."

After his close friend Leon Issac Kennedy took Robinson one day to a storefront church in Los Angeles, Robinson says he quit cold turkey after the service.

"I turned it over to God," he says of his recovery. "I never went to rehab or a doctor or psychotherapy. The Lord freed me that night and when I came out of there, I was healed."

Now Robinson is taking his first step into the gospel world with Food for the Spirit, released in April on his own Robso Records. Prior to recording the nine-song album, he'd been writing inspirational songs with the intention of shopping them to other artists.

"There are so many people who don't know that I have a wonderful, wonderful relationship with Christ," he says. "As human beings, we are conscious of our physical selves, but I don't think that the majority of us are thinking about developing our spiritual selves. I called the album Food for the Spirit because I want (listeners') spirits to be fed."

The father of three and grandfather of eight, Robinson is "very happy" with his family life today.

"I've been blessed enough to have a job that I love and it's by God's grace that I'm doing what I'm doing," he says. " ... I give him the accolades. I'm living beyond my wildest imagination."