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  • Willie Nelson Has Quit Smoking Marijuana

    Willie Nelson Has Quit Smoking Marijuana

    The 86-year-old country legend has a history of emphysema. 

    Country legend Willie Nelson, who smoked his first joint in 1954, revealed in a recent interview that breathing problems have forced him to stop smoking marijuana, his notable drug of choice.

    “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful,” Nelson told KSAT TV.“I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever. And that almost killed me.”

    Why He Quit

    Nelson, who has a history of emphysema, made the difficult decision to give up smoking marijuana.

    “I don’t smoke anymore – take better care of myself,” Nelson said.

    The 86-year-old singer told Rolling Stone back in April, “I’m kind of the canary in the mine, if people are wondering what happens if you smoke that shit a long time,” he said. “You know, if I start jerking or shaking or something, don’t give me no more weed. But as long as I’m all right…”

    While the country legend first tried marijuana in 1954, it wouldn’t be until over two decades later before he opted to make it his number one vice – a decision that the singer stands behind. 

    “I wouldn’t be alive. It saved my life, really. I wouldn’t have lived 85 years if I’d have kept drinking and smoking like I was when I was 30, 40 years old. I think that weed kept me from wanting to kill people,” he told Rolling Stone, “And probably kept a lot of people from wanting to kill me, too — out there drunk, running around.”

    Willie’s Reserve

    Though he may not smoke it anymore, he is still in the marijuana business. His medicinal marijuana brand Willie’s Reserve launched back in 2016 and is still going strong. 

    “This is a culmination of Willie’s vision, and his whole life,” said Michael Bowman, Nelson’s spokesman said in a statement about the launch. “Really, he wants it, at the end of the day, to envelop what his personal morals and convictions are.”

    Bowman continued, “Willie has spent a lifetime in support of cannabis, both the industrial hemp side and the marijuana side. He wants to be something that’s reflective of his passion. Ultimately, it’s his, but it was developed by his family, and their focus on environmental and social issues, and in particular this crazy War on Drugs, and trying to be a bright light amongst this trail as we’re trying to extract ourselves from the goo of prohibition.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kanye West Talks Porn & Sex Addiction

    Kanye West Talks Porn & Sex Addiction

    The Grammy winner has openly spoken about mental health, including publicly disclosing that he’s bipolar.

    Kanye West is back with his latest album, Jesus is King, and on the eve of its release, he candidly spoke with Beats 1 about being addicted to porn and sex.

    West started with a ritual many young boys go through, finding an issue of his dad’s Playboy, which he called a “gateway to a full on pornography addiction. It has impacted every choice I have made in my life from age five to now, having to kick the habit. And it just presents itself in the open like it’s okay and I stand up and say, ‘No, it’s not okay.’” 

    Drowning Himself In Sex — A Rock Star Cliché

    West saw himself living a cliché that many musicians fall into.

    “That was such a script out of a rock star’s life. You know that Playboy that I found when I was five years old was written all over the moment when I was at the MTV awards with the Timberlands, the Balmain jeans and the Hennessy bottle. My mom had passed a year before. And I said some people drown themselves in drugs, and I drown myself in sex.”

    West said that sex “fed the ego too. Money, clothes, paparazzi photos, going to Paris fashion week, all of that.” 

    Asking Employees To Abstain From Premarital Sex

    Coming to his realization about porn and sex addiction also affected how he crafted the Jesus is King album. “I was asking people to…this is gonna be radical what I’m about to say. There were times where I was asking people to not have premarital sex while they were working.” 

    West has openly spoken about his mental health issues, including publicly disclosing that he’s bipolar (he subsequently claimed he was misdiagnosed), and he’s used it as material for his lyrics as well.

    On the cover of his album Ye, “I hate being bipolar it’s awesome” is scrawled in neon green. And as he told radio personality Big Boy, “I am so blessed and so privileged because think about people that have issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that [music] and make you feel like it’s all good. I’d never been diagnosed and I was like 39 years old. That’s why I said on the album it’s not a disability, it’s a super power.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ronnie Wood Details Excesses, Sobriety In New Documentary

    Ronnie Wood Details Excesses, Sobriety In New Documentary

    Somebody Up There Likes Me explores the highs and lows of the prolific guitarist’s life.

    Veteran English rocker Ronnie Wood said that he was once so entrenched in his drug addiction that he would carry a personal burner to parties in order to freebase cocaine.

    The story and other harrowing incidents are detailed in a new documentary, Somebody Up There Likes Me, which explores the heights of the guitarist’s fame as a member of the Rolling Stones and Faces, as well as the lows experienced along the way, including dependency to drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and a bout with cancer.

    Nine Years Of Sobriety

    Wood told The Mirror that after getting sober nine years ago, he works daily to maintain his music career and new life as a husband and father to three-year-old twin daughters. “I probably like things too much, which is harmless for some things, like music, but harmful in ways like dope or drink.”

    Wood said that he “enjoyed the s—t out of” freebase cocaine and took his burner with him everywhere, including parties. “I would go, ‘Everybody try this,’ get a great big Bunsen burner out, the pipes, the works, freebase and everything. And people would be going, ‘You’re f—king crazy.’ But I would love it.”

    But the potency of the high and the novelty of the portable works fell away, and Wood was left with a crippling dependency on cocaine. “I had no control over it,” he recalled. “It’s incredibly powerful. It ruled everything. Getting high with that pipe was frightening. [You] do anything for it, and I can understand why people went out and killed for it.”

    Eventually, Wood realized that he could die as a result of his addiction—a fate that had befallen some of his friends. “I have seen enough people go over the top,” he said. “Some of them didn’t make it. It was a really horrible thing, and you would learn a lesson from that.”

    Intervention Time

    The intervention of friends and peers, like his band mates in the Rolling Stones, as well as artist Damien Hurst, helped to steer Wood into treatment. Hirst recalled receiving an urgent call from professional snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan—both of whom had recently binged on cocaine and alcohol—to take Wood to rehab.

    “I picked him up with his son, [English musician] Jesse [Wood], and of course, he’s drinking,” said Hirst. “We went out and we went to a local pub on the way.” Wood reportedly underwent treatment seven times before gaining sobriety nine years ago.

    Wood’s circle of friends and collaborators stated their relief at his life change in the documentary. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards—no stranger to dependency and recovery himself—said, “[Wood] has a great immune system. In fact, he is very like me, with a great pain threshold.” Drummer Charlie Watts—ever the sole of brevity—added, “If I was of some help, I am glad.”

    As for Wood, the work of remaining clean and sober is a daily requirement. “It’s very difficult, because you go through a period of dry, and you go, ‘I’ve done it. I’ve cleaned up now. I can have just one.’ And that is a big mistake, because you can’t have just one.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Andie MacDowell Details How Her Mother's Alcoholism Affected Her Life

    Andie MacDowell Details How Her Mother's Alcoholism Affected Her Life

    “I think I’ve felt responsible all my life. But I’m good at it. I’ve been in training for a long time,” MacDowell said.

    Actress and fashion model Andie MacDowell spoke on growing up with a mother who was addicted to alcohol and how that affected her own desire to consume intoxicating substances in a recent interview with The Guardian.

    The 61-year-old star of film classics such as Groundhog Day and Sex, Lies, and Videotape recalls being a young model in New York and being introduced to cocaine. Thankfully, she was not a fan.

    Cocaine Was Ubiquitous In Her Modeling Days

    “There was a lot of cocaine around,” she said. “I had a small experience at the very beginning and hated it. I hated it! It was only, like, a month. I really didn’t like the way it felt. It didn’t make me feel good and I couldn’t sleep.”

    The use of cocaine among models at the time was so common, and sober individuals so rare, that MacDowell almost ended her career at age 21, telling her agency that she wanted to go home. Instead, they introduced her to champagne heir Olivier Chandon de Brailles, who also didn’t care for drugs and alcohol, and the two started dating.

    “I don’t know if they prearranged the whole thing, but it sure did work out well for me. I started working non-stop and my whole life opened up.”

    As A Young Child, She Took Care Of Her Mom 

    MacDowell’s distaste for drugs and alcohol began at a young age, as she watched her mother, Paula Johnston, struggle with alcohol addiction. According to the actress, she would often wake up late at night to check to make sure her mom’s last cigarette was out all the way. 

    “There was this old-fashioned can opener attached to the wall and she’d be in the kitchen drinking and I’d clean the oil off the can opener and talk to her and ask: ‘Why do you drink?’” she remembered.

    “There were burn marks all over the floor and on the couch; it’s amazing we didn’t burn down,” she recalled. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a child, I say. I think I’ve felt responsible all my life. But I’m good at it. I’ve been in training for a long time.”

    However, she says she “always felt loved” and that she and her mother had a good relationship.

    At age 17, MacDowell appealed to doctors for help with addiction treatment, but options were limited. One doctor’s decision to prescribe Valium only made the problem worse.

    “That was a bad decision because then I couldn’t communicate with her,” she said. “And I communicated really well with her.”

    Her mother did finally get to a better place just one year before she died of a heart attack at age 53. 

    “She said she had quit drinking and that she was so proud of me. That was the last year of her life and I didn’t really get to be around it, which was super sad.”

    As a mother of three herself, MacDowell was fine with her daughters getting into the acting business in spite of the not-so-hidden drug culture within, trusting that they are as disinterested in that kind of lifestyle as she is.

    “We’re really kind of boring people. We barely want to go out… I’m a home body and I do yoga and I hike, that’s kind of it. No drugs and rock and roll!”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Aaron Carter Unleashes Twitter Rant About Brother Nick, Addiction

    Aaron Carter Unleashes Twitter Rant About Brother Nick, Addiction

    The 31-year-old singer took to Twitter to air his grievances about his family over the holiday weekend.

    Pop singer Aaron Carter issued a blistering fusillade of tweets over the Labor Day weekend, aimed at targets ranging from his brother Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, to addiction and their family, before appearing to recant and blame the Twitterstorm on being “in a bad place emotionally.”

    The initial round of tweets—now deleted from his account—were centered around his elder brother and in particular, Nick Carter’s son, Odin, whom the younger Carter alleged he had never met. From there, Aaron took swings at his brother’s wife, whom he described as a “recovering addict,” his brother’s memoir Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It, and other members of his family. 

    Emotional Tweets

    When fans suggested that photos of Carter and his nephew existed, Carter tweeted that the meeting may have taken place when he was struggling with addiction. One day after the online outburst, Carter took to Twitter to note that he was “in a bad place emotionally” at the time of the tweets, and hoped to see his “whole family dynamic heal.”

    Carter’s furious Twitter flurry kicked off early on Sunday (Sept. 1), as he was flying from Baltimore, Maryland to Los Angeles, California. After posting that he was looking forward to spending time with friends, Carter fired off a tweet demanding that someone post a photo of him with his nephew, Odin, who is Nick Carter’s three-year-old son and featured regularly on his parents’ social media accounts.

    From there, Aaron lit into his brother, whom he claimed was like a stranger to him (“Nick and I don’t know each other”) and exclaimed that he loved “Oden [sic] even though I might never know you.”

    Estranged Brothers

    Nick Carter’s issues with drug and alcohol addiction, which he addressed in his book, were the focus of his brother’s next round of tweets. “Both Nick and [wife] Lauren [Kitt] are allegedly recovering addicts and should know better,” he wrote. He eventually took on his entire family, whom he described as “all [having] had their own shortcomings and shuns me?! My mother?! My Sister Bobbie Jean?!”

    After advising that Nick “keep his families’ shortcomings out of books,” Aaron added that he may have met Odin, but “didn’t have him when I was sober… I don’t remember.” He concluded the tweets by noting that he was advised to “keep things off of social media, but Nick can write a book knowing his family, {BESIDES ME) can NOT defend themselves?”

    Response from Carter’s followers expressed sympathy for his grievances, while others stated, “It’s sad people feel like their [sic] entitled to attack others so they feel good about themselves.”

    On Monday (Sept. 2), Aaron posted that his anger was motivated by emotions, as well as a visit to their mother, Jane, from whom Nick is estranged. “I’m upset that Nick didn’t even seem to care and I had to be the man of the family and take charge,” Aaron wrote about the visit, before adding, “I’d still like to see the whole family dynamic heal.”

    Aaron Carter spent two months in rehab in 2017 for dependency on painkillers, though he later told media sources in 2018 that he still smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, which drew alarmed responses from addiction and mental health experts.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • DMX Reflects On Sobriety

    DMX Reflects On Sobriety

    In an interview from 2017, DMX got candid about addiction and rap’s relationship with drug use.

    Rapper DMX was just released after serving a year in prison, prompting the re-release of a 2017 interview from the radio show Big Boy’s Neighborhood, in which DMX reflects on his sobriety from cocaine addiction and how rap glorifies drug abuse. 

    In the interview, DMX discusses how rap glorifies drug abuse. 

    “They’re all promoting drug use,” he said, according to HotNewHipHop. “If that’s what you wanna do, that’s your business, but you ain’t gotta promote it like it’s cool and make it cool. Kids walk around like, I’m popping molly, I’m popping percs!” 

    Rather than pills, DMX said that his main drug of choice was cocaine. “Cocaine. Crack. I think we kind of knew that was the problem. I would get in trouble. It wasn’t worth it.” 

    Although the interview is from 2017, DMX said that at the time he was staying away from drugs. “I don’t do anything. I have a drink now and then, but that was never the problem,” he said. 

    On January 25, DMX was released from Gilmer Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia, where he had spent a year in prison after being convicted of tax evasion.

    At first, he was released on bail conditions that required him to stay clean and sober. He had told the judge that he needed to be able to keep touring in order to support his 15 kids. The judge, Jed Rakoff, said that DMX had promised to remain sober and travel with a sobriety coach, but that ultimately he wasn’t able or willing to do those things. The promise “was a great big lie, a repeated lie as it turned out,” Rakoff said.

    After failing drug tests, DMX was put on house arrest in August 2017. 

    Later that month he was spotted in New Hampshire, where he was apparently seeking treatment. However, he appears to have left that treatment facility in order to visit his daughter in New York, where he also visited bars, according to prosecutors in the tax evasion case. 

    In January 2018, DMX again failed a drug test and was held in jail until his March sentencing. At the time, he tested positive for cocaine, opiates and oxycodone. 

    Despite his claims of sobriety in the radio interview from around the same time, DMX’s lawyer said that his client wasn’t sober. 

    “He deals with problems by drugging himself,” the lawyer said at the time. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Michael Caine Details Alcoholism In Memoir: I Drank Two Bottles A Day

    Michael Caine Details Alcoholism In Memoir: I Drank Two Bottles A Day

    The iconic actor credits his wife with helping him overcome his alcoholism.

    Actor Michael Caine owes a lot to his wife of over 40 years, he says. The British star, famous for his cockney accent, was in a difficult place when he met model and actress Shakira Baksh.

    “By an immense stroke of good fortune, Shakira arrived in my life just in time,” he writes in his new book Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life.

    “The empty feeling vanished and she got on my case. Then, to top it all, she got pregnant and I was given a second go at fatherhood, and soon I got myself straightened out.”

    Around the time they met, Caine was in his forties and drinking too much. “I was never bombed on set, but I thought that a small vodka for breakfast was nothing to worry about, and in the early 1970s I was drinking two bottles of the stuff a day,” he wrote.

    Meeting Baksh was life-changing for the film veteran, now 85. “I gave up alcohol entirely for a year and now I never drink during the day, and with dinner it’s just wine. Shakira literally saved my life.”

    The couple married in 1973. The Italian Job actor also discussed his past life as a heavy drinker in a previous interview with the Radio Times in 2016. “I was a bit of a piss artist when I was younger. I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day and I was smoking several packs a day,” he said at the time.

    His habits were fueled by anxiety over working in film. “Am I going to get another picture? How will I remember all those lines? I’ve got to get up at 6 a.m. and I hope the alarm works.”

    Baksh was able to calm him down. “Without her, I would have been dead long ago. I would have probably drunk myself to death.”

    As for non-alcoholic vices, according to the Telegraph the actor didn’t care much for them.

    “He smoked a spliff once at a London party during the Sixties and got the hysterical giggles so badly, no taxi would take him home. He had to walk from Mayfair to Notting Hill and swore he’d never do drugs again,” the Telegraph reported.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Wendy Williams Promotes Addiction Treatment With New Billboard

    Wendy Williams Promotes Addiction Treatment With New Billboard

    Williams, who has battled cocaine addiction in the past, recently launched a campaign geared toward addiction-recovery through her nonprofit.

    Talk show host and actress Wendy Williams has launched a Times Square billboard promoting her talk show and her non-profit organization that provides grants for drug education, prevention and rehabilitation programs. 

    Williams has previously talked openly about her substance use disorder, and aims to “bring light” to the fact that addiction “doesn’t have to be your demise,” she told Page Six. 

    Williams has a history of cocaine addiction. She says that her substance abuse affected her life, even while she was successful. 

    “I lost a little over 10 years of my life regarding substance abuse, but I’m now going into Season 10 [of The Wendy Williams Show],” she said. “I’m married, I have a great career and a flourishing business … it’s not that you fall down, it’s how you rise. And if you rise, then you reach back. This is a reach back.”

    Williams has said in the past that she was able to abuse drugs while in the spotlight because she was so good at her job. 

    “I was a functioning addict though,” she said. “I would report to work on time and I walked in and all of my coworkers, and including my bosses, would know but instead of firing me, you see, I would grab my headphones and arrogantly walk into the studio and dare them to fire me because I was making ratings.”

    After her own experience with addiction and seeing her son take K2, or synthetic marijuana, Williams launched The Hunter Foundation to provide education and prevention programs. Earlier this year the foundation launched the Be Here campaign, which is focused on increasing access to treatment. 

    “We want to be here for the people who need us, and we want them to be here for the graduations, the first steps, the recitals, the laughs, the journeys and more,” the campaign’s website says. “Our goal is to support the treatment and recovery of those facing drug addiction, work towards creating lasting solutions through legislation and support innovative treatment.”

    Using statistics about the prevalence of addiction and overdose death rates, Williams’ organization insists “This is everyone’s problem.” 

    Williams hopes that by sharing her family’s experiences she can help others. 

    “I have seen addiction up-close,” she said. “As a mother, wife, daughter, and friend, I cannot stand by and do nothing while there are people struggling to overcome substance abuse. Life is too short and we need to come together to help others.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Lovato's Backup Dancer Denies Rumor That She Gave Singer Drugs

    Demi Lovato's Backup Dancer Denies Rumor That She Gave Singer Drugs

    Dancer Dani Vitale took to Instagram to refute claims that she provided the singer with the drugs that led to her apparent overdose.

    Dancer Dani Vitale has issued an impassioned statement that pushed back against allegations that she supplied singer Demi Lovato with the drugs that caused her apparent overdose.

    Vitale, who performs with Lovato and described herself as a friend of the singer, shared her thoughts on the overdose and Lovato’s condition on her Instagram page, where she stated that she has “NEVER touched nor even SEEN a drug in [her] entire life,” and added that she did not use drugs, encourage their use or supply them to “anyone I love.”

    Vitale also detailed how the rumors about her alleged involvement in Lovato’s overdose have impacted her life, stating that the “circulation of an UNTRUE story on the internet yanked my life, my reputation and everything I have worked so hard to stand for, out from underneath me.”

    In the post, written on August 16, 2018, Vitale wrote that she was celebrating her birthday with friends on July 23, only to wake up the next morning and discover that Lovato had suffered an overdose.

    “My whole being was ridden with sadness, confusion, love and hopelessness,” she wrote.

    However, Vitale was not prepared for the outpouring of criticism from social media circles, much of which placed the blame for Lovato’s overdose on her. To complicate matters, she claimed that companies with whom she had worked and individuals she considered friends began to distance themselves from her.

    “I wound up not leaving my house nor my bed for three weeks,” she wrote. “Terrified to open a blind or to get out of bed, my house remained just as dark as my mind daily. I thought if I stayed asleep, that was the time I didn’t have to be conscious living in this hell that was being forced upon me. And there were nights I would honestly hope I wouldn’t wake up the next morning so I didn’t have to live through this anymore and it would all go away.”

    Lovato has since recovered from the overdose, and posted a message to fans via Instagram on August 5. “I am forever grateful for all of your love and support throughout this past week and beyond,” she wrote. “I now need time to heal and focus on my sobriety and road to recovery.” Vitale’s life has also found a degree of stability; though she is again leading dance classes in Los Angeles, but the pain of the social media outburst is clearly still with her.

    “I’m still scared to touch my phone and open it, and trying to resume a ‘normal’ life has been brutally unbearable,” she wrote. “This UNTRUE narrative is damaging innocent people’s lives, mine included. We are so quick to point the finger with little to ZERO facts at all.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Friend Who Found Bobbi Kristina Brown in Tub Dies from Apparent Overdose

    Friend Who Found Bobbi Kristina Brown in Tub Dies from Apparent Overdose

    Prior to his death, Max Lomas had successfully completed three months in a rehab facility and had recently found a job.

    Max Lomas, who gained notoriety after finding the late Bobbi Kristina Brown unconscious in a bathtub in 2015, has died from what has been described as a “probable” drug overdose.

    The 28-year-old, who lived with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown’s daughter before her drug-related death in 2015, was found unresponsive, with a syringe by his side in the bathroom of a home in Saltillo, Mississippi on August 15, 2018. Lomas was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

    According to People, a cause of death has not been determined, but death investigation papers obtained by the publication list heroin overdose as the probable cause of death.

    People noted that prior to his death, Lomas had successfully completed three months in a rehabilitation facility and had recently found a job.

    “He really worked the program,” said a source close to Lomas, who reportedly spoke to him on a weekly basis while he was in treatment. “He had come so far. There was so much he wanted to do.”

    Lomas had been taken in by Whitney Houston as a teenager, and was briefly linked to Bobbi Kristina Brown before the relationship came to a halt when he was incarcerated in 2011 for violating his probation.

    Upon his release, he found that Brown was dating Nick Gordon, and the trio soon began living together as roommates in Roswell, Georgia. By Lomas’ account, he and the couple were “pretty bad into drugs,” and Gordon and Brown fought on a regular basis, “mostly about jealousy.”

    Lomas also claimed that Gordon was abusive towards Brown, a statement that has been decried by Gordon’s lawyers.

    On January 31, 2015, Lomas found Brown floating face down in a bathtub in the trio’s townhouse. “I saw the color of her face and that she wasn’t breathing. I called for Nick and called 911,” he stated.

    Gordon was subsequently blamed for Brown’s death by her family, who served him with a $40 million civil lawsuit over the alleged abuse. In 2016, he was found liable for Brown’s death and ordered to pay $36 million to her estate.

    As People noted, no charges were filed against Lomas, who told the publication in 2016 that he was sober and no longer friends with Gordon.

    “I’m in utter disbelief because I knew he had gone and gotten help in Mississippi,” said Garry Grace, a friend of both Lomas and Gordon, to People on August 17. “I didn’t have to worry about him because I knew he was safe.”

    View the original article at thefix.com