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Tag: celebrating sobriety

  • Jack Osbourne Celebrates 16 Years Of Sobriety

    Jack Osbourne Celebrates 16 Years Of Sobriety

    The son of heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne took to Instagram to celebrate his sober milestone. 

    Jack Osbourne, son of legendary metal madman Ozzy Osbourne, and his sister Kelly, have been open about inheriting the struggle of addiction from the family genes. Now Jack has hit social media to celebrate 16 years of sobriety.

    On his Instagram, Osbourne posted the image of an overcast blue sky, with the following stats:

    Twelve Steps

    You’ve been sober for: 16.00 Years, 192.00 Months, 5,845 Days, 140,263 Hours.

    Osbourne, who also lives with MS, wrote, “By far this has not only the toughest year of my life, but also the toughest year of my recovery. I have learned so many things about myself. Some good, some not so good. But I continued to do it sober even in the face of legit pain and sadness.”

    Osbourne went through a divorce from Lisa Stelly, his wife of seven years, had to adjust to raising three young girls as a single dad, and had to be there “for my family when they have needed support at the post.” (Papa Ozzy recently had a bout with pneumonia and has canceled all concert appearances for the year.)

    Jack went to rehab at the age of 17 for an OxyContin addiction, and as he continued in his Instagram post, “If at 17 someone told me where I’d be at 33 with 16 years of continual sobriety, I would have laughed and told you to fuck off. Even though this last year of sobriety was filled with so much pain it all led to some fantastic personal growth.

    “I would love to tell you I managed this by being some kind of spiritual giant who roams the halls of recovery meetings, but it’s not the cast,” Osbourne continues. “I’m here writing this today sober because of the friends in my life who showed up for me when I needed support the most. I will be grateful for all you did.”

    Looking back on going in to rehab at 17, Osbourne told Blabbermouth, “I took myself out of the picture for a second and I looked around at every single person in the room, at who they were, how old they were and what they had going on in their lives. A lot of them were near 30, unemployed, living off their parents. They were heroin addicts, they were the world’s biggest couch potatoes. And it was like, ‘I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want my life to be controlled by a drug…I was really loaded and I just sat on my mom’s bed and said, ‘I am going to go pack my bags, I’m in, I’m ready to go. I want to go, I need to go.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Eminem Celebrates 11 Years Of Sobriety

    Eminem Celebrates 11 Years Of Sobriety

    The iconic rapper took to social media to celebrate his sober milestone.

    Hip-hop superstar Eminem marked a milestone of sobriety on Instagram with an image of a medallion and the tag “11 years-still not afraid.”

    The rap veteran has spoken in depth about his struggle with and recovery from a dependency on prescription medications, which he described in 2013 as “dark times… mostly due to taking a lot of pills and f—king drooling on myself.”

    Since then, he has rebounded both personally and professionally, as evidenced by the reception for his most recent album, 2018’s Kamikaze, achieving the highest U.S. sales for a hip-hop album and ninth best-selling album globally for that year.

    Eminem told Rolling Stone in 2011 that his dependencies on Vicodin, Ambien and Xanax began while he was filming the semi-autobiographical, Oscar-winning 8 Mile in 2002.

    “We were doing 16 hours on the set, and you had a certain window where you had to sleep,” he recalled. Ambien “knocked [him] the f—k out,” which led to a prescription and constant use combined with the opioid painkiller Vicodin.

    “I was taking so many pills that I wasn’t even taking them to get high anymore,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was taking them to feel normal. I want to say that in a day I could consume anywhere from 40 to 60 Valium. And Vicodin… maybe 20, 30?”

    In 2007, Eminem tried methadone, which he was told was “just like Vicodin, and they’re easier on your liver.” He soon began consuming large quantities of that drug as well. “My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin,” he told People in 2009.

    In late December of that year, Eminem suffered a catastrophic overdose that left him unconscious for two days. 

    But after only a week in the hospital, Eminem returned home, where weakness and exhaustion led to a torn meniscus, which in turn led to a relapse, seizure and a return to the hospital. “That’s when I knew,” he recalled. “I could either get help, or I am going to die.”

    With the aid of a rehab counselor, a rigid exercise schedule and the support of friends and fellow addicts like Elton John, whom Eminem described as “like my sponsor,” he gained sobriety and in 2018, celebrated a decade of clean and sober living. 

    The experience has given Eminem perspective on the addictions that have run throughout his family – his ex-wife, Kim Mathers, was involved in a 2015 DUI, and her sister, Dawn Marie Scott, succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2016 – and his career, which remains both prolific and successful.

    “Rap was my drug,” he told People. “It used to get me high, and then it stopped getting me high. Then I had to resort to other things to make me feel that… now rap’s getting me high again.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Scott Stapp Credits Family For His Hard-Fought Sobriety

    Scott Stapp Credits Family For His Hard-Fought Sobriety

    “It was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that’s about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to,” Stapp said.

    Scott Stapp, lead singer of the post-grunge band Creed, gave a lot of credit to his family for lifting him out of a period of substance abuse in a recent interview with Detroit radio station WRIF.

    Stapp recently hit his five-year sobriety anniversary after years of struggling with alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

    “My wife and my kids were critical in helping me get sober,” he told DJ Meltdown. “It got to the point where it was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that’s about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to. So they were critical.”

    In addition to his family, the singer recently gave a shoutout to MusiCares, a non-profit established by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences that provides support to musicians who have fallen on hard times.

    According to Stapp, MusiCares helped educated him and his wife on the nature of addiction, helping them understand that it’s a disease that requires ongoing treatment.

    “I still have a lot of music ahead me and without MusiCares, that wouldn’t have been possible,” said Stapp. “They provided support and helped educate my wife and I on what we were going through, that it was a disease, and if I did my part, it could be treated and recovered from. Thanks to MusiCares and my family, I’m going on five years sober.”

    Stapp also suffers from bipolar disorder, which went undiagnosed for years and may have fueled his addiction disorders. He has spoken out about multiple suicide attempts and near-attempts, including an incident in 2006 in which he jumped off of a balcony in Miami and fell 40 feet.

    He survived after being discovered by rapper T.I. with a fractured skull and a broken nose and hip. Later that year, he admitted to Rolling Stone that he had been fighting addiction to Percocet, Xanax, and prednisone.

    It wasn’t until 2015 that Stapp told People he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder after suffering what he called a “psychotic break.”

    “I had a psychotic break that was brought on by alcohol and drug abuse,” he says. “I was hallucinating. I drove around the United States for a month, following an angel that I saw on the hood of my car.”

    During the WRIF interview, Stapp explained how his naiveté going into the world of music set him up for “going down that wrong path.”

    “I just had so much in front of me, and being so naïve, walking into it, I just didn’t know how to handle it, and it got a hold of me,” he said. “And around the same time, I had my first onset of depression. And you combine that with self-medicating, with alcohol and whatever else you can find, and it’s a bad scenario, man.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Lena Dunham Celebrates Sober Milestone

    Lena Dunham Celebrates Sober Milestone

    The “Girls” creator took to Instagram to celebrate her first sober birthday.

    On April 10, Lena Dunham, the creator of the groundbreaking show Girls, marked a year sober in an Instagram post.

    Giving the thumbs up in her Instagram photo, Dunham told her three million followers, “Today I’m in the miraculous position of being one year sober. I’ve done a lot of cool things in this life, but none has brought me the peace, joy and lasting connections of being part of a sober fellowship.”

    “Life is full of problems,” she added, “but the cool thing about this one is that there is a solution: in ever city, in many countries, you can find a group of people who are working hard to live sober, accountable lives, and want to support you on your quest to do the same.”

    Dunham had previously taken the anti-anxiety medication Klonopin, and didn’t realize an addiction was creeping up on her. “I didn’t know I had an issue with drugs for a long time,” she writes, “because they were doctor prescribed, because I was outwardly successful and not a wild in da club party chick. But wouldn’t you say that hurting people you love is an issue? Wouldn’t you say feeling lost and lonely much of the time is an issue?”

    Dunham also realized that sobriety doesn’t solve all your problems. “Life is still challenging,” she continues. “That’s the nature of the game. But every day I am surprised by the richness and depth of, well, reality. I don’t need to escape this beautiful carnival. Instead, I’m on the ride.”

    Dunham ended her post by telling the world, “Please remember you are never too far gone, too broken or too unique. There are people in plain sight waiting to help you. Let’s do this.”

    Dunham had previously confessed her struggles with Klonopin on the Dax Shepard podcast “Armchair Expert” when she hit her six-month sober mark. “My particular passion was Klonopin,” she explained. She started taking the medication when she was battling severe anxiety, but then she was taking it more and more often.

    “It stopped being ‘I take one when I fly,’ to ‘I take one when I’m awake. I didn’t have any trouble getting a doctor to tell me, ‘No you have serious anxiety issues, you should be taking this. This is how you should be existing.’”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Former Lawyer Dedicates Life To Helping Others Into Recovery

    Former Lawyer Dedicates Life To Helping Others Into Recovery

    The man was inspired to help others after a sober mentor helped him into recovery for his addiction to meth and opioids. 

    Lewis Blanche’s rock bottom wasn’t the day in 2009 when he almost blew himself up cooking meth. That time, he ended up in the hospital being treated with opioids, but quickly returned to using street drugs. It wasn’t until a year later, on March 4, 2010, that Blanche vowed to get serious about sobriety. 

    “I was living out of my car. I was riding around making meth. It was midnight, and I had to pull over at a McDonald’s because I hadn’t slept for a month,” Blanche told The Advocate. “A Baton Rouge Sheriff’s deputy saw me, and he realized what was going on, so he made me get out of my car and take my clothes off. They were scrubbing me with a brush from a fire engine because they were worried about contamination from the meth lab. All this was happening while people were coming in and getting their coffee … it was absolutely horrible … but it was also the date I got sober.”

    At that point, Blanche’s addiction to meth and opioids had taken everything he had. Despite using drugs since his teen years, Blanche went to law school and ran a successful practice for a time. 

    “I decided to open my own firm. Things went well at first, and it was easy to get clients with my dad being a lawyer,” he said. “But the pressure to be right, to run a law practice … that made me start dabbling with opioids again. This time it was Oxycontin. I was buying prescriptions from people who were selling them.”

    In 2005 he had to give up his law license when his addiction got out of control. That, he said, sent him “off to the races.”

    However, after being scrubbed down in the McDonald’s parking lot, Blanche connected with a sober mentor who was able to help him get into recovery. 

    “He picked me up and said, ‘I need two things from you: wake up every day and find someone to do something for, without expecting anything in return, and when anyone asks you to do anything here for the first year, your response needs to be OK.’ The idea of me saying OK put an end to the most corrosive element in my life: me trying to control everything.”

    After maintaining his sobriety, Blanche didn’t start practicing law again, but decided to help others get into recovery. Today he runs three sober homes and is a partner in a detox center. He says that learning to give up control and focus on recovery has changed his life. 

    “I started floating down the stream of life instead of swimming upstream – and it’s changed everything,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kristin Bell Celebrates Dax Shepard’s Sober Birthday

    Kristin Bell Celebrates Dax Shepard’s Sober Birthday

    Shepard says Bell “spoils the hell” out of him on his sober birthday.

    Each year Dax Shepard knows he can expect a great gift from his wife, not on his actual birthday, but on the day he got sober. 

    “The nicest presents she’s gotten me are always on my sober birthday. In fact, my real birthday … still haven’t gotten a present,” Shepard told People, adding that Bell “spoils the hell out of me” on his sober birthday. 

    Bell, who has two daughters, ages 4 and 5, with Shepard, said that she prioritizes his sobriety milestones because that is what allows them to be a family. 

    “I’m very happy he was born so I celebrate his birthday, but I’m extraordinarily [happy] that he has stayed sober because that’s what allows me to have him in my life as a husband and as a father,” she said. 

    She also knows how much effort Shepard puts into maintaining his recovery, even after 14 years. 

    “I know how much effort has to be put into staying sober. I don’t mean that to be like, I come home and see him shaking and looking at a whiskey ad or something, [but] there are different elements you have to deal with when you’re staying sober,” Bell said. “It’s a ton of mental control and evolution.”

    Bell and Shepard have been together 12 years, so she wasn’t his partner when he was actively using. Still, the couple has spoken openly about how Shepard’s sobriety has shaped their family life. 

    Last year, Bell wrote a touching public tribute to Shepard’s sobriety, which she shared on Instagram on his 14th year sober. 

    “I know how much you loved using. I know how much it got in your way. And I know, because I saw, how hard you worked to live without it,” she wrote. 

    This week, Shepard joked about how the post went viral, overshadowing his accomplishment of 14 years sober. 

    “I scrape together 14 years of sobriety, and she writes a little flowery thank you. Now there’s headlines all over the country about Kristen’s accomplishment of writing this letter. I’m like, ‘Just like you to steal my thunder!’” he said. “I’m the one that went to 10,000 AA meetings. At no point was the message of any of the stories like, ‘Good job, Dax.’ It was like, ‘Can you imagine being loved by a woman like Kristen Bell?’”

    Joking aside, Shepard said that the message of support “was crazy sweet and I loved it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Lena Dunham Praises "Sober Queens"

    Lena Dunham Praises "Sober Queens"

    Dunham has been sober since May 2018.

    Actress Lena Dunham, who has been sober since May 2018, went on Twitter to acknowledge the celebrities who had recently opened up about their sobriety. 

    “First Lala Kent and now Wendy Williams—so proud of all these strong sober queens,” Dunham wrote on Twitter. “It’s a bumpy path for us all, but admitting you need help is the beginning of true freedom. Sometimes it’s stronger to be weak for a moment.”

    Last week, talk show host Williams announced that she is living in a sober home. 

    “For some time now, and even today and beyond, I have been living in a sober house,” she said on The Wendy Williams Show. “And you know, I’ve had a struggle with cocaine in my past and I never went to a place to get the treatment. I don’t know how, except God was sitting on my shoulder and I just stopped.”

    Also this month, reality television star Lala Kent of Vanderpump Rules publicly said that she was in a 12-step program for alcoholism. She had previously mentioned that she was getting sober, but didn’t talk about having a substance use disorder. 

    “Five months ago, I came to the realization that I am an alcoholic, and I am now a friend of Bill W., which you will never know how much this program means to me [and] has given me new life,” Kent wrote on Instagram. 

    Dunham, writer and director of the HBO series Girls, is familiar with the struggles of early sobriety. She spoke on Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert in November about how she has been adjusting to life without anxiety meds. Initially, she said, the medications made her feel “like the person I was supposed to be.” 

    “I was having crazy anxiety and having to show up for things that I didn’t feel equipped to show up for. But I know I need to do it, and when I take a Klonopin, I can do it,” she said. 

    However, over time, she realized that her drug use was becoming problematic. 

    “It stopped being, ‘I take one when I fly,’ and it started being like, ‘I take one when I’m awake,’” she said at the time. “It stopped feeling like I had panic attacks and it started feeling like I was a living panic attack. During that time I was taking Klonopin, it wasn’t making it better but I just thought, ‘If I don’t take this, how much worse will it get?’”

    At the time, she said her brain was still adjusting to its new normal. 

    “I still feel like my brain is recalibrating itself to experience anxiety,” she said. “I just feel, literally, on my knees grateful every day.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ringo Starr And Joe Walsh Discuss Long-Term Recovery, Becoming Sober

    Ringo Starr And Joe Walsh Discuss Long-Term Recovery, Becoming Sober

    The rock star brothers-in-law got candid about addiction, recovery, and Tom Petty in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

    Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh are not only rock legends, but they have also both been in recovery for many years. Now they are both speaking about their journeys to sobriety, and how they helped each other get there.

    Eagles guitarist Walsh received a humanitarian award for his work in the recovery community at the 74th annual gala for Facing Addiction with NCADD last October. His friend and former Beatles drummer, Starr, presented him with the award.

    When Walsh went to rehab in 1995, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever play guitar again. Eventually, Starr brought him back to music and became a sober buddy. (Starr is also Walsh’s brother-in-law.)

    “I got sober because of a fellowship of men and women who were sober alcoholics,” Walsh told Rolling Stone. “After a couple years, I talked about [my sobriety] with other alcoholics and tried to help them. The only person who can get somebody else sober is somebody who’s been there and done that. I realized that I do more good showing people that there’s life after addiction.”

    When Starr got sober, he put together Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, which included Walsh on guitar. Starr, too, was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to play once he got sober.

    “I thought I don’t know how you do anything if you’re not drunk,” he said. “I couldn’t play sober, but I also couldn’t play as a drunk. So when I did end up in this rehab, it was like a light went on and said you’re a musician, you play good.”

    Rolling Stone asked Walsh about the opioid crisis, given that a lot of musicians his age have been taking painkillers to deal with the rigors of performing.

    “I don’t think America’s aware of how bad it is out there,” Walsh replied. “I’m talking about addiction across the board. Opiate addiction, it’s killing young kids by the hundreds—by the thousands.

    “The problem is if you hurt physically, you can get prescription pills for that,” Walsh continued. “The problem is that after that pain is gone, whatever substance you used very subtly convinces you that you can’t do anything without it and then you have to deal with that. And people don’t know that.”

    Starr then reflected on a fellow musician who succumbed to opioid abuse, Tom Petty, who died in 2017 at the age of 66.

    “The discussion is very difficult, because we did as much as anybody did and we’re still here and we’re sober… I don’t know why Tom’s gone and I’m here. It’s unanswerable.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Five Finger Death Punch's Ivan Moody Is One Year Sober

    Five Finger Death Punch's Ivan Moody Is One Year Sober

    “I’m speechless man. A lot of people didn’t think I’d make it 24 hours. To be honest with you there were times I didn’t either,” Moody said.

    Ivan Moody, the lead singer in the rock band Five Finger Death Punch, celebrated one year of sobriety over the weekend, according to his bandmate. 

    “I’m speechless man,” Moody said in an emotional Instagram video. “A lot of people didn’t think I’d make it 24 hours. To be honest with you there were times I didn’t either.” 

    He took time to acknowledge the people who are fighting to stay sober. 

    “I’m with you every step of the way, whether you have 24 hours or 24 years,” he said. “Keep the fight man.” 

    Chris Kael, the group’s bassist, recently achieved his own year of sobriety, and he took to Instagram to help acknowledge Moody’s accomplishment. 

    “Join me in celebrating @ivanmoody today on his One Year Sober Birthday! Roughly 75 percent of those who start the path to sobriety don’t make it a full year,” he wrote. “I’ve seen firsthand the work that Ivan has done through 365 consecutive days to get himself to this HUGE milestone. I’ve seen the amazing, positive changes in him over this past year that have gotten closer and closer to the man we all knew he could be. I’m proud of you, my friend. As are countless people you have inspired along the way. Keep that shit up! #ShitYesSon #SoberAsFuck #PresentAsFuck #IvanAsFuck”

    Moody had tried to get sober before, but always found himself relapsing, according to Blabbermouth. 

    “Recovery, you have to be committed; it’s an honest program, and I wasn’t being honest with myself at the time. I’m very, very proud of the progress I’ve made,” Moody said on a radio appearance last September. 

    Moody said that he could count on fellow sober rockers when he needed fellowship. 

    “Rob Halford [of Judas Priest] is the person that I called a lot of the time when I was in recovery,” he said. “I think he’s been sober now for going on 40 years — maybe, I think, a little longer than that; I could be wrong. But Jamey Jasta [of Hatebreed] — another one. Jamey’s been sober now for 18 years; Jonathan Davis [of Korn]; so on and so forth. So these were all people that I looked to when I was struggling, and I was very, very lucky and blessed to have them on my team.”

    Moody nearly died from alcohol at one point, and he said that since he’s been sober it’s like he’s living a new life. 

    He said, “I feel I took a nap for about four years and I woke up one day and I saw somebody else wearing my skin. It was like Rip Van Winkle; it was really odd. I feel better than I felt in years, which is really… it’s a plus.”

    In addition to Moody and Kael, Five Finger Death Punch’s former drummer Jeremy Spencer is also sober. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • American Idol Contestant Celebrates Sobriety With Demi Lovato Song

    American Idol Contestant Celebrates Sobriety With Demi Lovato Song

    Contestant Logan Johnson shared his journey to sobriety with American Idol’s panel of celeb judges. 

    Eight months ago Logan Johnson, 20, was living in active addiction to opioids. Now he is bound for Hollywood after a heartfelt audition for American Idol, during which he sang Demi Lovato’s relapse ballad “Sober.”

    “Growing up, music was everything to me, but the path to get there wasn’t always an easy one,” Johnson said in a video for the singing contest. 

    When Johnson was growing up in Boise, Idaho, he saw his older brother struggle with addiction. 

    “It was pretty hard for me to live with,” Johnson said. “I thought I would learn from his example, but unfortunately I really got into painkillers.”

    Despite knowing the pain of loving someone with addiction, Johnson found himself following in his brother’s footsteps. 

    “I looked at what he was doing and I told myself that I was better than what he was. But the truth of the matter was I was doing the exact same things — lying to my loved ones, to everyone in my life. I really feel like I’ve put my family though a hell that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone,” Johnson said. 

    However, Johnson and his brother were both able to get help. 

    “I just got to a point where I had to change. It was really, really hard to finally come clean and say I’ve got my own issues too and I need help,” Johnson said. “I really look up to my brother and all the things that he’s had to face. We have been able to connect on another level and to really be there for each other.”

    Johnson’s mother, Nanette, said that American Idol could be the win that the family needs after many years of hardship. 

    “I don’t think most people, unless they’re living with addiction in their family, I don’t think they know how hard it is,” she said.  

    Standing before judges Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan and Katy Perry, Johnson was open about his addiction experience. 

    “I’m grateful today that I have 8 months of sobriety. I just know that I have a lot to share with my music,” he told them, before launching into “Sober.”

    When he finished, the judges praised Johnson’s voice before calling his family in to watch them unanimously vote “yes” to sending him to Hollywood. 

    “One day at a time,” Perry told Johnson. “Congratulations. You’ve worked really hard and you should be proud of your clarity that you’ve given yourself. You’ve earned this.” 

    Richie told him, “You now have three more people on your support team.”

    Watch Johnson’s full audition below:

    View the original article at thefix.com