In a new documentary by producer Bert Marcus, called How To Make Money Selling Drugs, rapper Eminem comes clean about his addiction to prescription medications.
“When I took my first Vicodin, it was like ‘Ahhhh…’ Everything was not only mellow, but I didn’t feel any pain. It just kind of numbed things. I don’t know at what point exactly it started to be a problem, I just remember liking it more and more.”
Eminem joins other celebrities like Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon, Fifty Cent, and Russell Simmons in the film, which also features Freeway Ricky Ross, the man commonly thought to have introduced crack cocaine to the West Coast.
Eminem reveals that he would hear from close friends that he had a drug problem. He reasoned that there was no way that could be right because he wasn’t doing street drugs.
“They know nothing about my (expletive) life. I’m not out there shooting heroin. I’m not out there putting coke up my nose. I’m not smoking crack.”
He came to realize that it was a matter of control.
“Just struggling with the argument of ‘Do you have a problem, or do you not have a problem? Can you control it,or can you not?’ And I literally thought I could control it.”
It got to the point where the rapper did not even question what particular pills he was taking. It looked like a pill. It looked like something he would be taking. So he took it. Eventually, his body revolted.
“If I had got to the hospital about two hours later, I would have died. My organs were shutting down. My liver, kidneys, everything. They were gonna have to put me on dialysis, they didn’t think I was gonna make it. My bottom was gonna be death.”
Even after such a close call. He went right back to the pills.
“Within a month, I had relapsed and shot right back up to the same amount of pills I was taking. I was walking around my house and thinking every single day, ‘I’m gonna (expletive) die.’ Coming off of everything I literally was up 24 hours a day for three weeks straight. I had to regain motor skills. I had to regain talking skills.”
Losing one’s talking skills has to be a scary prospect for someone who makes a living rapping.
(NSFW: for language)
http://youtu.be/2cei0zAsZnk