Answer Addiction

Tag: family history of addiction

  • Raphael Saadiq Explains How His Brother's Addiction Inspired New Album

    Raphael Saadiq Explains How His Brother's Addiction Inspired New Album

    “The record is not really about just Jimmy Lee. It’s more about everybody has a Jimmy Lee in their life, you know? It’s universal,” Saadiq said about his new album.

    An NPR profile of singer/producer Raphael Saadiq looked at the painful family history that informed his new album, Jimmy Lee.

    The solo release—the first in eight years for the former Tony! Toni! Toné! frontman/bassist, who’s also produced songs for John Legend, Mary J. Blige and Solange Knowles—is a “little darker” than previous efforts, according to Saadiq, who drew from his brother’s life and death from a drug overdose in the 1990s for its title and lyrics.

    In the interview with NPR, Saadiq hoped that his brother’s story might resonate with others in similar situations.

    “The record is not really about just Jimmy Lee,” he said. “It’s more about everybody has a Jimmy Lee in their life, you know? It’s universal.”

    Family Trauma

    As a feature on Saadiq in the New York Times noted, his family life was marked by repeated tragedies: an older brother, Alvie Wiggins, was murdered in 1973 during an argument with a family member, while another brother, Desmond, took his own life in 1987 after battling drug dependency.

    The album’s namesake, Jimmy Lee Baker, succumbed to heroin addiction after contracting HIV, while Saadiq’s sister, Sarah, was killed when her vehicle came into the path of a police chase in 1991.

    Though the album is titled Jimmy Lee, the songs “are a reference to everything,” Saadiq told the New York Times, adding, “I couldn’t name it after all of them.” It’s also a departure of sorts from the polished soul and R&B that has defined his body of work as a band member, producer and solo artist. “It’s probably the most honest record I’ve made,” he explained. “A lot of it relates to me. It was like a mirror.”

    But in titling the record Jimmy Lee, whom Saadiq spent more time with as a child than some of his other siblings—his father, a former boxer and blues guitarist, had 14 children by various women, including Saadiq’s mother, Edith James—the singer found a reference point for addressing a wider canvas of issues, from his own childhood to addiction and the war on drugs.

    “When I came along, Jimmy was, well, he was pretty much an addict at that time,” Saadiq told NPR. “But being a kid, you don’t know what an addict is. So, I saw him as being pretty normal. I might have thought maybe he was an alcoholic or something… I didn’t know anything about heroin.”

    Prison Visits

    Saadiq’s experiences with his brother, which included frequent visits while he was behind bars (“I just thought we were going to Disneyland on a weekend,” he recalled), gave him perspective on the subject of addiction and the narcotics trade, and how it still impacts people like his brother. This record, said Saadiq, was his chance to give others the tools and information that his brother lacked—and in doing so, to help put to rest some of his memories of his brother’s difficult life.

    “I feel like people are not educated at a young age to know, like, ‘Okay, you have a choice to go behind bars and become a number and for somebody to to profit off you for free labor, and it’s enslaving your brain, your mind,’” he said. “It’s just taking so much away from you.”

    Jimmy Lee is available now from Columbia Records.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Halle Berry Shares Message About Her Late Father's Addiction Battle

    Halle Berry Shares Message About Her Late Father's Addiction Battle

    Berry opened up about her late father in a recent Instagram post. 

    Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry posted a heartfelt message about her late father on Instagram, which outlined the difficulties in their relationship due to his alcoholism, as well as her understanding of those challenges.

    Berry, who currently stars in the box office hit John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, was estranged from her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, from an early age, and has detailed his abusive behavior towards her mother and sister in previous interviews. But Berry appeared to strike a note of forgiveness in her recent post, in which she noted, “I now understand how much he loved me and how vital he was and is to my life.”

    Berry has described herself in the past as a “victim of domestic violence” who witnessed the physical abuse meted out to her mother, Judith Ann Hawkins, and older sister, Heidi, by her father.

    At a 2015 event for unite4:humanity, where she was presented with an award for her volunteer work with the Jenesse Center, a domestic violence intervention program, Berry said that at five years of age, she witnessed her mother beaten “day after day after day,” which included being kicked down stairs and hit on the head with a wine bottle.

    Berry also spoke about her guilt in regard to the beatings on a 2007 episode of the Bravo series Inside the Actors Studio. “The hard part for me was he never abused me,” she told host James Lipton. “I was dealing with a lot of guilt because I saw my sister go through terrible beatings. I felt helpless and like a coward because I didn’t do anything and couldn’t do anything. I spent many of the early years of my life trying to make sense of all that and recover and find my self-esteem.”

    These experiences spurred Berry to give back to programs like the Jenesse Center. “I understand the good that it does and the lives that it changes and the impact it has on women and the children in our community,” she said in 2015.

    Berry was estranged from her father after her parents divorced, and said in 1992 that she “[hadn’t] heard from him since. Maybe he’s not alive.” Jerome Berry passed away in 2003. 

    In her Instagram post, Berry noted that “While I didn’t have much of a relationship with him while he was here, as he was alcohol addicted and that addiction robbed us of the relationship we were meant to have, I now understand how much he loved me and how vital he was and is to my life (sic)!”

    She continued by writing, “I miss you today daddy and wherever you are, I know you’re smiling down on me because I feel your love (sic).” The post included an image of a photograph of her father, which Berry noted was one of only two pictures she had of him, and which “has become family gold!” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Halle Berry Shares Message About Her Late Father’s Addiction Battle

    Halle Berry Shares Message About Her Late Father’s Addiction Battle

    Berry opened up about her late father in a recent Instagram post.

    Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry posted a heartfelt message about her late father on Instagram, which outlined the difficulties in their relationship due to his alcoholism, as well as her understanding of those challenges.

    Berry, who currently stars in the box office hit John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, was estranged from her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, from an early age, and has detailed his abusive behavior towards her mother and sister in previous interviews. But Berry appeared to strike a note of forgiveness in her recent post, in which she noted, “I now understand how much he loved me and how vital he was and is to my life.”

    Berry has described herself in the past as a “victim of domestic violence” who witnessed the physical abuse meted out to her mother, Judith Ann Hawkins, and older sister, Heidi, by her father.

    At a 2015 event for unite4:humanity, where she was presented with an award for her volunteer work with the Jenesse Center, a domestic violence intervention program, Berry said that at five years of age, she witnessed her mother beaten “day after day after day,” which included being kicked down stairs and hit on the head with a wine bottle.

    Berry also spoke about her guilt in regard to the beatings on a 2007 episode of the Bravo series Inside the Actors Studio. “The hard part for me was he never abused me,” she told host James Lipton. “I was dealing with a lot of guilt because I saw my sister go through terrible beatings. I felt helpless and like a coward because I didn’t do anything and couldn’t do anything. I spent many of the early years of my life trying to make sense of all that and recover and find my self-esteem.”

    These experiences spurred Berry to give back to programs like the Jenesse Center. “I understand the good that it does and the lives that it changes and the impact it has on women and the children in our community,” she said in 2015.

    Berry was estranged from her father after her parents divorced, and said in 1992 that she “[hadn’t] heard from him since. Maybe he’s not alive.” Jerome Berry passed away in 2003.

    In her Instagram post, Berry noted that “While I didn’t have much of a relationship with him while he was here, as he was alcohol addicted and that addiction robbed us of the relationship we were meant to have, I now understand how much he loved me and how vital he was and is to my life (sic)!”

    She continued by writing, “I miss you today daddy and wherever you are, I know you’re smiling down on me because I feel your love (sic).” The post included an image of a photograph of her father, which Berry noted was one of only two pictures she had of him, and which “has become family gold!”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Richard Pryor's Son Talks Addiction, Growing Up With The Comic Icon

    Richard Pryor's Son Talks Addiction, Growing Up With The Comic Icon

    “I would just do drugs over and over. It consumed me. Finally one night, I called my dad and told him I needed help,” Richard Pryor Jr recalled in a recent interview.

    Richard Pryor Jr, son of the iconic comedic legend, recently spoke out about his past addiction, and how he thankfully didn’t follow in his late father’s tragic footsteps.

    Pryor Jr spoke with Fox News on the eve of the release of his memoir, In a Pryor Life.

    “I’ve always been around drugs. Especially with my dad’s side of the family. There was always marijuana around,” he explained to Fox News. “I don’t remember when my dad was doing coke, but there were times when I would see bags, not really knowing what it was. And I’m not talking about little bags. I’m talking about sugar bags. In Hollywood, especially in comedy clubs, it was always present. It was always in your face.”

    By the time he was in his twenties, Pryor Jr had developed his own drug habit.

    “The very first time, I called him up with a needle in my arm,” he recalled. “I was shooting cocaine in my arms. I didn’t know what I was doing. But he was really calm about it. He was probably high himself during the same time…He was just like, ‘Son, it’ll be OK. It’ll be alright. Just trust me, it’s gonna be OK.’”

    By the late 80s, Pryor Jr was deep in the throes of addiction with his drug use becoming more dire during the filming of the movie Critical Condition in 1987. 

     “I was so far gone I was doing cocaine every single day and then Valium on top of it. I used cocaine to be productive, and Valium to bring me down. We filmed in this abandoned hospital and I remembered I had drugs hidden on every floor. I would just do drugs over and over. It consumed me. Finally one night, I called my dad and told him I needed help.”

    Pryor told Authority Magazine he struggled with drugs until he was in his late twenties. He says having a son inspired him to get clean. “I also decided I wanted more for myself. I knew I had the potential to do more and I knew I had it in myself to be something. I wanted to get out of the dark place I was living in and find strength and encouragement.”

    Pryor felt that if his father were alive today, “he’d be happy to see me in a good place where I can help others.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Shia LaBeouf's New Movie Highlights Father's Heroin Addiction Struggle

    Shia LaBeouf's New Movie Highlights Father's Heroin Addiction Struggle

    LaBeouf wrote the screenplay for the semi-autobiographical film while in rehab.

    Shia LaBeouf’s latest film, Honey Boy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25 to tell the world the story of the actor’s odd and tumultuous childhood that led to his struggle with addiction and mental illness.

    LaBeouf is known for his strange performance art as well as his acting and has been the subject of quite a bit of controversy during his long career.

    The boy who began as the star of the children’s TV show Even Stevens grew into the man who was twice arrested for disorderly conduct and conducted a performance piece in which he sat with a paper bag over his head and cried for six days.

    LaBeouf has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and has sought treatment for alcoholism, plus was ordered to attend an anger management program after going on a drunken tirade against the police who were arresting him for his second time.

    Honey Boy is a semi-autobiographical film that shows the verbal and emotional abuse which may have led to the actor’s PTSD. Fittingly, the actor wrote the script while he was in rehab in 2018, according to The Wrap. 

    LaBeouf himself plays James Lort, a clear representation of his real-life father, Jeffrey LaBeouf. James, like Jeffrey, is a Vietnam veteran and convicted sex offender with alcoholism who “pushed his son around while stumbling through a series of poor decisions,” according to film critic Eric Kohn of IndieWire.

    Meanwhile, Lucas Hedges plays a 20-something version of LaBeouf as his life quickly spirals out of control, culminating in a drunken car crash that lands him in jail and then rehab. While in therapy, he flashes back to the representation of LaBeouf’s childhood.

    Financial troubles result in a divorce between the representation of LaBeouf’s parents, ending in LaBeouf (“Otis”) living with his mother in a run-down motel and a world without warmth made worse by his “affection-averse” deadbeat dad.

    LaBeouf himself has opened up about his troubled past and his family’s history of substance abuse before.

    “When you’re 10 years old and watch your father going through heroin withdrawals, you grow up real fast,” he said in an interview with The Orange County Register. “You become the parent in the relationship. But I must give [Jeffrey LaBeouf] credit because he always told me that he didn’t want me to be like him.”

    The film’s director, Alma Har’el, told The Wrap that LaBeouf has “done the bravest thing anyone could do” by depicting his own father and called Honey Boy an “artistic exorcism” for all involved.

    “Obviously we all went through a lot of deep feelings while making the film, but nothing was too much. Everything was accepted. Whenever the demons came, we danced with them.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vince Staples On Why He Never Touched Drugs, Alcohol

    Vince Staples On Why He Never Touched Drugs, Alcohol

    Staples says staying sober wasn’t really a choice but more of a survival tactic. 

    When GQ interviewed musicians about their lives in sobriety, most of them talked about their past use of drugs and alcohol and how their lives changed when they got sober. Twenty-five-year-old rapper Vince Staples, however, explained how he has never been interested in using drugs or alcohol. 

    Staples said that his sobriety comes as a surprise to many people. 

    “They don’t expect this from a young black musician my age from where I come from,” he said. “Like, how could you end up being in the ghetto, went through this, went through that, and not experienced drugs, not experienced alcohol?”

    Staples said that his father used and sold drugs, but growing up in a tough situation made him realize that substance use wasn’t something fun or glamorous. 

    “People where I come from don’t use drugs in a recreational sense. We’re not at a party, or at the rock show, or at the rap show, doing lines in the bathroom,” he said. “Where I come from, life comes day after day after day, and people use these things to cope. People use drugs as a coping mechanism, and I’ve always held that reality. Reality hurts, but so does addiction—it’s just which pain you choose. That’s the reality of my situation.”

    Staples said that he knows choosing sobriety without a history of substance use disorder sets him apart from others, especially musicians interviewed by the magazine. 

    “I am very sure that I’m gonna think different answers than Steven Tyler or anyone involved in this piece. I’ve lived a completely different life,” he said. “What I’m saying is: The drug usage was the last thing on my mind. When you’re surrounded with death and dismay and poverty and all these things that happen every day, I didn’t have time to worry about using or partaking in certain things.”

    He said he’s not sure if his father’s substance abuse or the death of friends in high school contributed to his sobriety. 

    “All I know is that it’s not just one thing. Life isn’t one-sided. We all have different things that we go through, and different things that we see, and these things collectively go together to make us the people that we are today,” he said. 

    Although other hip-hop artists, like Future, have admitted they’re reluctant to talk about sobriety, Staples doesn’t shy away from the way that his past and his sobriety overlap. Staying sober wasn’t really a choice, he said, but more of a survival tactic. 

    “I’m a hundred percent sure it played some part, but I never had time to think about whether my father’s addiction issues led to me not doing drugs, because I was too busy trying to cope with the reality of people dying and people trying to kill me every day. That was really where my focus was. When you have to think about your next 15 minutes—you have to think about the walk to the store, you have to think about how you’re getting to school, you have to think about the bus ride home, you have to think about how you’re going to sneak a gun into the football game—the last thing I was thinking about was getting high.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Lisa Marie Presley Discusses Past Addiction Struggles

    Lisa Marie Presley Discusses Past Addiction Struggles

    “I was not happy. The struggle and addiction for me started when I was 45 years old. It wasn’t like it was happening all my life.”

    Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, recently spoke on the Today show about her personal struggles with addiction.

    Presley spoke with Jenna Bush Hager at Graceland on the eve of the release of Where No One Stands Alone, a new compilation album of her father’s gospel songs. (She co-produced the album and sings a posthumous duet with her father on the title song.)

    Lisa Marie, who is now 50, said that her struggles with addiction began five years ago.

    “I was not happy,” she said. “And by the way, the struggle and addiction for me started when I was 45 years old. It wasn’t like it was happening all my life. I have a therapist and she was like, ‘You’re a miracle. I don’t know how you’re still alive.’”

    In a 2003 interview with Paper magazine, Lisa Marie credited Scientology for getting her clean after one last bender.

    “I was on a 72-hour bender,” she said. “Cocaine, sedatives, pot and drinking—all at the same time. I never got my hands on heroin, but it’s not like I wouldn’t have taken it. I just couldn’t be sober. I don’t know how I lived through it.”

    In 2016, Us Weekly reported that Presley checked into a high-end rehab for an addiction to painkillers.

    Along with her father’s iconic music career, Elvis was also legendary for his own struggles with addiction. Lisa Marie was nine years old when her father died of a heart attack on August 15, 1977 at the age of 42.

    Elvis’s death was a big shock at the time, and is still a strong cautionary tale against the excesses of fame and prescription drugs. Elvis had a personal doctor, Dr. George Nichopoulos, who came under fire for prescribing too many drugs to the singer, and after several medical board inquires his medical license was permanently suspended in 1995.

    According to Biography, the toxicology report from Elvis’s death showed he had high levels of Dilaudid, Quaaludes, Percodan, Demerol, and codeine in his system.

    Yet in the depths of her despair, Lisa Marie reached out to the spirit of her father for help. “I’m not perfect, my father wasn’t perfect, no one’s perfect,” she told Today. “It’s what you do with it after you learn and then you try to help others with it.”

    When Hager asked what she would ask her father, Lisa Marie said, “I would want to know he’s there. Yeah, it would be pretty much, ‘I could use your help right around now.’”

    View the original article at thefix.com