Having brushed aside accusations that he had a drug problem on the grounds that he wasn’t shooting heroin or smoking crack, the rapper fell dangerously deep into a substance habit that included Vicodin, Valium, and Xanax. At the height of his career, while he was producing award-winning albums, he was battling alcohol and drug addiction. He even had an overdose that nearly cost him his life.
“I feel really, really good, and support from the fans and everything has been really, really good.” The now-51-year-old admitted he was able to downplay his addiction until it had gotten out of control, like when he was unable to answer questions during interviews. And it only got worse after friend and fellow rapper Proof died in 2006. In 2007, Eminem was at the height of his fame.
I would take a little to perform, which you would think doesn’t make sense, but Ambien is a mind eraser. So, if you don’t go to sleep on it, you get in this weird comatose state. I see what you’re saying, and I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t comprehend. If you watch back to that interview now, you can notice it.
- People obviously didn’t know it yet, but I was starting to realize inside that it was happening, and I always tried to keep it on the low and keep it together as much as I could.
- By the time he left rehab, Eminem weight had ballooned to 230 pounds.
- So, I look for the younger generation to push me.
- “I had what I call a white light experience where I saw myself either dead or losing everything that meant anything to me,” he continued.
- Em goes on to recount one story from that time period, when he performed for BET’s 106 & Park with 50 Cent and G-Unit and was interviewed afterwards.
Eminem Admitted It Took His Brain ‘A Long Time’ to Recover After His 2007 Overdose
“So at a certain point, I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have a party for one,’ and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life.” “I remember when I first got sober and all the s–t was out of my system,” he reflected on the Paul Pod podcast in September 2022. “I remember just being, like, really happy and everything was f–king new to me again.” Loved ones couldn’t help but share their excitement about the occasion, with longtime manager Paul Rosenberg writing, “Sweet 16. So proud of you.” Younger brother Nathan Mathers commented, “Greatest Influence and Mentor.” The “Without Me” rapper, 51, shared on Instagram that he has been sober for 16 years. He marked the anniversary without comment, posting a photo of himself holding a recovery chip that reads, “Unity, service and recovery.”
“For the last eight weeks maybe, I don’t really know…I’m on them all day,” he said on his Armchair Expert podcast. “And I’m allowed to be on them at some dosage because I have a prescription and then I’m what was eminem addicted to also augmenting that.” “I would fake back injuries. I would fake migraine headaches. I had eight doctors going at the same time,” Perry said in a 2022 profile in The New York Times, marking 18 months of sobriety. His battle began during the height of 1D mania.
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Eminem opened up about the way his struggle with drug addiction was a constant, if unseen, presence throughout much of his early career in a new as-told-to in XXL. A near-death experience from an accidental methadone overdose back in 2007 ultimately led Eminem to get sober for good. In 2007, Eminem consumed the equivalent of four bags of heroin in the form of methadone, and was rushed to the hospital.
As he later explained on Today, he grew up in the ’60s and ’70s when “there was a completely different attitude” towards the drug. She said her friends at the time “kind of cosigned” her drug use and “it just kind of becomes this dark pit, bottomless pit.” But, during the pandemic, Cyrus said she was noticing challenges and felt she wasn’t emotionally present. “I was completely nodding off and falling asleep,” she recalled. “And unable to keep my head up or keep my eyes open, because I was so far gone.” Cyrus shared in 2022 that she’s been in recovery for her Xanax addiction since 2020. “It gave me so much structure in the time that I really needed structure, because I didn’t want to just be sitting around and stirring in my brain,” she told Rolling Stone.
Eminem is 11 years sober
His harrowing revelations form just one small piece of director Matthew Cooke’s wide-ranging documentary on the drug trade and its participants. The film, which was co-produced by Entourage‘s Adrian Grenier and also features interviews with 50 Cent, Woody Harrelson, Freeway Rick Ross, and The Wire‘s David Simon, opened in theaters this week. Eminem opened up about his accidental overdose to The New York Times in 2011, and said his addiction was at one point so bad that he was taking up to 20 pills a day. He has since replaced “addiction with exercise,” he told Men’s Journal in 2015. Eminem has been sober for 13 years, and has been in the rap game for even longer.
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His organs—liver, kidneys, and everything else—were already shutting down. As it was, his medical attendants did not think he would survive. After an incident in Newport Beach where the Olympic swimmer tried to kick in his own hotel room door, Lochte made the decision to seek treatment in 2018. “Ryan has been battling from alcohol addiction for many years and unfortunately it has become a destructive pattern for him,” his rep told E! “He has acknowledged that he needs professional assistance to overcome his problem and will be getting help immediately.” The Parent Trap actor battled a cocaine addiction throughout the ’80s that sent him to rehab in 1990.
Encore took a whole fuckin’ different trajectory because Encore was during my addiction. I was realizing I’m getting addicted to these fuckin’ pills. I was just coming off The Eminem Show and the 8 Mile soundtrack and I started recording and had about seven or eight songs that were very much in the vein of what I do. But we ended up putting them out as a fuckin’ bonus disc because the songs leaked.
His addiction struggles began at age 14, when he started drinking Budweiser and Andrès Baby Duck, before he started dabbling in drugs like Vicodin, Xanax and OxyContin. “I didn’t take anything hard until I got famous,” he continued. “I was experimenting. I hadn’t found a drug of choice. Back then you went on tour and people were just giving you free drugs. I managed it for a little while. And then, it just became, I like this s–t too much and I don’t know how to stop.” Eminem’s provocative lyrics, littered with homophobic and sexist rhymes and profanity-laden attacks on all manner of public figures, caused a scandal. He transformed this controversy into a platform for his alter ego, Slim Shady, who became one of the great antiheroes of his time.