British blues-based guitarist Eric Clapton was both everywhere and nowhere for most of the 1960s and 1970s. He played with a series of legendary bands and musicians throughout that time, but ultimately jumped around from band to band as he struggled to deal with deep-seeded attachment issues and drug addiction.

The documentary on Showtime “Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars” illustrates the sad but ultimately redemptive story of the renowned guitarist.

Clapton had a troubled childhood: the people he thought were his mom and dad were really his grandparents, as his real mom (their daughter) had him at 16 after a one-night stand, and quickly moved to Canada to avoid the stigma. She left her baby Eric behind with her parents. By the time he found out the truth later in childhood, he felt angry and betrayed. And when his birth mother finally came to meet him, she rejected his request for her to be a mom to him.

Perhaps this childhood hurt and resentment, as well his general loner nature, fueled his attachment problems. He became immersed in the blues he heard on the radio and obsessed with the African American musicians who played it. At one point in his life, as he recalled in the liner notes of the Robert Johnson box set, he wouldn’t talk to anyone who hadn’t heard of the then-obscure and short-lived Mississippi blues player.

Like many in his musical generation, he parlayed a love of blues into British rock, first sweeping to fame with the Yardbirds. But he eventually left them for John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers once the Yardbirds got too “pop sounding” with mainstream hits like “For Your Love.”  He then left John Mayall for Cream, most famous for the hit “Sunshine of Your Love.”

But Clapton left Cream after getting in fights with his bandmates. He joined super-group Blind Faith with Steve Winwood, but then left them for a series of musical collaborations with groups like the Allman Brothers. Eventually, he went solo and wallowed in isolated and heroin addiction, followed by more than a decade of debilitating alcoholism. He was so drunk at some shows in the 1970s that he would cut short sets and berate fans from the stage.

His romantic life suffered, too. He became obsessed in the early 1970s with George Harrison’s then-wife Pattie Boyd, but she wouldn’t leave Harrison for him. So he wrote an album of lovesick songs about her with Duane Allman, including the classic “Layla” (see the live performance video below), based on the Persian poem “The Story of Layla and Majnun.” But after he played the finished album for her, a mortified Boyd still refused to leave George for him (she and George later divorced, and she later married and then divorced Clapton).

In the 1980s, he fathered a daughter with another man’s girlfriend, and she decided to raise the child without Eric, which was fine with him given his constantly inebriated state. But then his current girlfriend got pregnant with a son, Connor, in 1986, and that birth finally chased him into sobriety. He became by all accounts a devoted father to Connor.

But Connor tragically fell out of a New York City window in 1991 and died, running through the low-slung open window before anyone could stop him. Clapton decided to honor his dead son’s life by staying sober, and he wrote the beautiful acoustic tribute “Tears in Heaven” for him. His 1993 MTV album “Unplugged” of his big hits went on to win a Grammy for album of the year, and Clapton dedicated himself to raising money for a rehabilitation clinic for low-income substance abusers.

Clapton is now married and raising three children and appears content at this stage of his life, even reconnecting with his first-born daughter. He also continues to help promote the careers of many of the African American blues musicians who inspired his music.

While his life story is full of sadness, tragedy, and personality challenges, Clapton appears to have overcome many of the setbacks to lead a life of fulfillment. Throughout it all, he played with some of the best musicians of his generation, including Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles (including the legendary guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), Steve Winwood, Duane Allman, the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, The Who, and B.B. King, among others.

“Life in 12 Bars” is worth watching even for casual Clapton fans, as it’s a journey through some of the most inspired years of rock ‘n roll and some of its biggest hits as well. And this legacy of hit songs from Clapton, from his long-running career, continues to inspire fans around the world.