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Tag: sober celebs

  • Steve-O Describes Rescue Dogs' Role In His Long-Term Recovery

    Steve-O Describes Rescue Dogs' Role In His Long-Term Recovery

    “Caring about something other than me is fundamentally helpful for recovery,” Steve-O said in a recent interview.

    In a recent interview, Jackass alum Steve-O said that having his rescue dogs had a positive impact on his long-term recovery, by giving him something to care for other than himself.

    While playing a round of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? with Loudwire, Steve-O (born Stephen Gilchrist Glover) addressed whether statements found on his Wikipedia page were truth or fiction.

    When asked if he “credited his two rescue dogs, Walter and Bernie, with helping him to maintain sobriety,” as it is stated on his page, Steve-O replied, “I credit them with contributing to it, sure. It’s said that alcoholism and addiction in general is driven mostly by selfishness and self-centeredness. It’s a disease that’s centered in the mind. And selfishness and self-centeredness is at the root of all of our problems.”

    He added, “So to have rescued my first dog, it was a meaningful exercise in dedicating myself to a priority which wasn’t me. So caring about something other than me is fundamentally helpful for recovery.”

    Hitting Rock Bottom

    Steve-O committed to recovery in 2008 following a dramatic hospitalization that became the starting point of his journey.

    “When I got to the hospital, I was spitting on people, I was just generally so unlovely,” he told Loudwire in a separate conversation. “They had me for two weeks… It was time. My life was a disaster. I decided about seven days in that I not only wanted to go into treatment, but that I didn’t want to waste my time in treatment.”

    He expanded on this moment in a 2011 interview with The Fix: “Basically, I took an honest look at myself and at my actions, and was horrified and felt like I couldn’t forgive or live with myself. The answer was to stop doing the shit that made me feel bad and create a new history.”

    Since then, Steve-O has been consistent in his recovery. Last year he celebrated a decade sober, and thanked his Jackass family including Johnny Knoxville for pushing him to get help.

    “Hard to believe it’s been an entire decade since I’ve had a drink of booze or any drug stronger than Advil,” he said on social media. “I just can’t put into words how grateful I am for @johnnyknoxville and the rest of the guys who locked me up in a psychiatric ward on March, 9, 2008, where this journey began. Thank you, dudes, I love you.”

    It’s not always easy to stay the course, Steve-O admitted. “Certainly, I’ve had plenty of periods of discomfort,” he told Loudwire. “It’s always pretty scary, but you’ve just gotta stay plugged in and do the deal.”

    These days, Steve-O is active on his YouTube channel and is currently on tour in the U.S. and Canada until late November.

    He and fellow sober Jackass alum Brandon Novak have been vocal about supporting their friend Bam Margera, another member of the Jackass family, who has garnered a reputation for his erratic behavior amid a reported battle with bipolar disorder and substance abuse. As of Thursday morning, Margera was back in a treatment facility after being arrested in Los Angeles early Wednesday.

    “Us sober people love it when you reach out for help,” Steve-O told Loudwire. “Join the pack, find someone who’s already sober and let us show you the way.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix Talks Addiction, Childhood Trauma

    Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix Talks Addiction, Childhood Trauma

    The Papa Roach singer revealed his struggles with addiction and expressed sympathy to those suffering from trauma.

    Jacoby Shaddix, the lead singer of Papa Roach, got candid about his struggles with recovery in a conversation with Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM. Shaddix touched on his own sober journey, the childhood trauma he experienced, and how he feels for others who have had their lives affected by trauma.

    The rock star is now sober, but he said that the path to clarity was not an easy one for him, nor one he could have walked alone.

    “I had a mean struggle with it, man. I tried to get sober for the first time when I was 27 and struggled with it for years and fell off and got back on,” he recalled. “Then I finally found a support group of other musicians that were traveling the road and living the life that I was living, ’cause it’s quite unique, in a sense. And I found a way to do it and a way to find some peace.”

    Rock Bottom

    Shaddix was inspired to get sober after hitting rock bottom. In a moment of clarity, he realized he was only hurting himself and others.

    “My behaviors and my actions and the ways that I was treating myself and my loved ones, it was just not acceptable. I was just drinking to numb my feelings and try to escape it, but the problem was always there,” Shaddix admitted. “I was like, ‘Alright, it’s time to face it.’ I don’t wanna repeat this cycle of broken family and broken children.”

    His own struggles with substance abuse stems from his own traumatic experiences as a child.

    “I grew up and didn’t know how to deal with my emotions and my feelings of the dark experience that happened to me as a child and the brokenness that I carried from that,” Shaddix said. “Trauma, it’s real. Trauma affects people in a lot of different ways, and you’ve gotta find a way to deal with it. I’m still unpackaging all this stuff from my youth and coming to peace with it.”

    Trauma & Addiction

    Now that Shaddix is sober, he is sensitive to the trauma of others, especially military vets.

    “You see a lot of U.S. military veterans are coming back and they’ve experienced just horrific traumas… and my heart just goes out to them,” he said. “I did a bunch of research on homelessness in America, and a large portion of our [homeless] population are U.S. military veterans.”

    His own father was a Vietnam veteran who passed his trauma onto Shaddix.

    “My father was a Vietnam veteran and he had that experience and I saw how that played out in his life,” he revealed. “Man, the horrors of war… the trauma doesn’t end on the battlefield, people carry that trauma home. Soldiers got families, and you see how it affects the family and the kids.”

    Shaddix urged anyone listening to seek help if they feel like they need it.

    “The struggle for people is real, and I just encourage anybody that’s out there struggling, if you’ve got these demons that you’re dealing with, I guarantee there’s somebody around you that wants to help you, and do not be silent about your struggle,” he advised. “If you’re alone in this, it’s gonna take you out. If you don’t speak up, it’s just gonna take you down farther and farther and farther. So speak. Call a hotline if you’re struggling with life itself. There’s a lot of avenues for people to go out there and get help.”

    If you or someone you know may be at risk for suicide, immediately seek help. You are not alone.

    Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255)

    Call 911

    Send a text to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. This free text-message service provides 24/7 support to those in crisis.

    Call a friend or family member to stay with you until emergency medical personnel arrive to help you.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kelly Osbourne Celebrates Sober Milestone: I'm Overwhelmed With Gratitude

    Kelly Osbourne Celebrates Sober Milestone: I'm Overwhelmed With Gratitude

    The singer posted a tribute on Instagram to all the people who have supported her in her sober journey.

    Kelly Osbourne celebrated two years sober in a post on Instagram on Friday. The 34-year-old singer and TV personality broke down exactly how long two years is in smaller units: 24 months, 731 days, or 17,529 hours. In her caption, she thanked everyone who stuck with her for those 63 million seconds.

    “I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. I can’t even put into words how much my life has changed over the last 2 years,” she wrote. “To the friends and family that have supported me on this Journey thank you I love you all so much. If you are new to sobriety stick to it life really does get good.”

    Sober Journey

    The road to sobriety hasn’t been without its hiccups for Osbourne. Her IG post celebrates two years since her relapse in 2017. Last year, she posted on Instagram to celebrate one year sober and captioned it describing the struggles she faced in sobriety.

    “This past year has been one of the hardest years of my life and I feel it’s time [I] share that with you guys,” she posted. “To cut a long story short things got really dark. I gave up on everything in my life but most of all I gave up on myself. Life on life’s terms became too much for me to handle. The only way I knew how to function was to self-medicate and go from project to project so I never had to focus on what was really going on with me. Something had to give… and it did.”

    She also addressed why she had to disappear from the public eye for a time.

    “I have [spent] the past year truly working on my mind body and soul! I had to take a step out of the public eye away from work and give myself a chance to heal and figure out who the f— I really am without a camera in my face,” the singer revealed.

    Osbourne has long struggled with substance use. Her first encounter with drugs came when she was just 13 years old when she was prescribed liquid Vicodin after a medical procedure.

    Chasing Confidence 

    “I had my tonsils taken out, and they gave me liquid Vicodin,” she told People in 2009. “I found, when I take this, people like me. I’m having fun, I’m not getting picked on. It became a confidence thing.”

    Osbourne began to chase that confidence boost any way she could.

    “I have crazy anxiety. I was walking around with a constant sweat moustache,” she says. “So what’s the first thing you do? Go to a doctor. They give you Xanax, Klonopin, Valium. I’d start off taking them as prescribed. Then I’d be like, ‘These are magic pills! Take 10!’”

    After four rehab stints, six detox stays, and one stint at a mental institution, she finally pulled it together and made the choice to get sober.

    “For me, it was either I was going to die, or I was going to get help,” Osbourne said. “I decided that I wanted to live, that life is worth living and that I have an incredible family and friends and why am I allowing myself to be so miserable?”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Jeff Goldblum Details Past Drug Use: I Had Interesting Trips

    Jeff Goldblum Details Past Drug Use: I Had Interesting Trips

    “I took mescaline three times with people from the Playhouse…That same year I took acid, and it was the last time I did anything like that,” Goldbum revealed.

    The ever quirky and wonderful Jeff Goldblum smoked “grass” and dabbled in psychedelics back in the day, but these days, he does not even indulge in so much as caffeine.

    The 66-year-old actor—who appeared in Jurassic Park, The Fly, Independence Day and many more—described his early drug experimentation as a young thespian in a recent conversation with Vice.

    Jazz Cigarettes

    While discussing his film The Mountain—in which Goldblum plays Wally, a traveling salesman type trying to prove the legitimacy of the transorbital lobotomy—he was asked if he has ever smoked a “jazz cigarette.”

    Goldblum’s candid response revealed that he was no stranger to “grass” even at an early age. “My mom kind of had a left-out feeling of youth culture as the kids came into the late 60s, wherein things started to happen,” said Goldblum. “So she not only tried starting to smoke grass herself, but started to grow it in our backyard in Pittsburgh and would give it to us and everything.”

    While he did not “smoke with her much,” Goldblum was introduced to hash by his older brother. “The first thing I ever smoked was hash and a pipe. He was going to college and had this funky apartment, and I went over. He put on The Beatles… and we smoked the stuff. It was just fantastic.”

    After moving to New York at the age of 17, Goldblum smoked grass “here and there” starting in his first year at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. That summer, he got his first professional job in the theatre at Shakespeare in the Park.

    “I took mescaline three times with people from the Playhouse… That same year I took acid, and it was the last time I did anything like that. But I had interesting trips all of those times.”

    This was the extent of the actor’s drug experimentation. “Never did cocaine, ecstasy or mushrooms.”

    He had a brief relationship with alcohol, but gave that up along with caffeine and any other “enhancement,” as he called it.

    Straight As An Arrow

    “Since then, I just experimented with drinking as a kind of freedom enhancer here and there, but it quickly ran out of steam,” he said. “In my life and in my work, I’ve gone straight as an arrow. I used to drink coffee in the last decade or two to kinda, you know, get ready for a thing like this even. But about five years ago, I gave that up entirely and religiously and don’t have any caffeine or anything. All my steam you see now is from my own imagination and my own having gotten a night’s sleep. I like to have a nice night’s sleep and a nice breakfast. And then I figure out how to put some attention on the challenge and opportunity at hand and see if I can solve it that way. I don’t do it with any enhancement.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Elton John Celebrates 29 Years Of Sobriety

    Elton John Celebrates 29 Years Of Sobriety

    The icon shared a pic of his sobriety coin on social media to mark the occasion.

    Sir Elton John has reached another sober milestone. On Monday (July 29) the iconic singer-songwriter celebrated 29 years of sobriety.

    Sharing a photo of his sobriety coin on social media, he said in the caption, “29 years ago today, I was a broken man. I finally summoned up the courage to say 3 words that would change my life: ‘I need help.’ Thank you to all the selfless people who have helped me on my journey through sobriety. I am eternally grateful.”

    The music and style icon struggled with drugs and alcohol as a young rising star. He described being in a “drug-fueled haze in the ‘80s” before he realized it was time to stop.

    “I always said cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people,” said John in a 2012 interview with NPR. “But then it became the drug that closed me down.” Ultimately cocaine would cause the musician to isolate himself, “which is the end of the world, really.”

    Meeting Ryan White

    In his memoir Love Is the Cure, John detailed how meeting Ryan White, a young man who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion, encouraged him to quit using drugs and alcohol.

    “It got me to realize how out of whack my life was,” said John. “I knew that I had to change. And after he died, I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, ‘I’ll get help’… And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, ‘I need help.’”

    John acknowledged how his mindset has transformed in recovery.

    “What I couldn’t do when I was an addict was communicate, except when I was on cocaine I thought I could but I talked rubbish,” he said, according to Variety. “I have a confrontation problem which I don’t have anymore because I learned if you don’t communicate and you don’t talk about things then you’re never going to find a solution.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Lovato Inspired "Real Housewives" Star Luann de Lesseps' Recovery 

    Demi Lovato Inspired "Real Housewives" Star Luann de Lesseps' Recovery 

    The singer’s candidness about her recovery journey helped de Lesseps feel like she wasn’t struggling alone. 

    Luann de Lesseps is nearing 90 days of sobriety, and says one of her main inspirations is singer and actress Demi Lovato. 

    The 54-year-old Real Housewives of New York City star first sought treatment for alcohol use disorder in 2017, according to the Daily Journal. This was after an incident in which she was charged with “disorderly intoxication, battery on an officer/firefighter/EMT, resisting arrest with violence and threatening a public servant.”

    She pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

    Then, the Daily Journal reports, she again entered treatment the following year. 

    De Lesseps tells Access Hollywood that Lovato has been an inspiration when it comes to her own recovery. 

    “You know who’s really been inspirational also is Demi Lovato, because she’s been very public about her struggle and I think it’s important,” she said. “It’s kind of a private thing. But there’s a lot of celebrities at meetings, and so I don’t feel so alone.”

    Lovato has long been open about her own struggles with substance use disorder. In July 2018, after more than six years of sobriety, Lovato overdosed in her Hollywood Hills home. She was hospitalized and then sought treatment. 

    In the time since, Lovato has spoken publicly about the overdose and appears to be back on track with her recovery. On March 15, which would have been Lovato’s seventh sober anniversary, she took the time to speak to her fans via Instagram . 

    “Today I would’ve had 7 years sober,” Lovato shared at the time. “I don’t regret going out because I needed to make those mistakes but I must never forget that’s exactly what they were: mistakes.”

    “Grateful that AA/NA never shuts the door on you no matter how many times you have to start over,” she added. “I didn’t lose 6 years, I’ll always have that experience but now I just get to add to that time with a new journey and time count.”

    “If you’re alive today, you can make it back,” Lovato concluded. “You’re worth it.”

    Rough Couple Years

    In her interview with Access Hollywood, de Lesseps also noted that she has a sponsor and touched on some of the stressors in her life that may have contributed to her struggles.  

    “The last couple years [have been a whirlwind] — married, divorced, jail … It’s been a rough couple of years for me,” she told Access Hollywood.

    She added that she’s “at the end of the tunnel now.”

    “I can see the light now, it’s all good,” she said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • David Crosby's Surprised He’s Still Alive After Addiction Battle

    David Crosby's Surprised He’s Still Alive After Addiction Battle

    Given the singer’s substance-soaked history, prison time, and medical problems, Crosby is unsure of how he’s still here.

    Singer-songwriter David Crosby, 77, says he’s about as surprised as anyone that he’s lived to such a ripe old age. Crosby has been addicted to drugs, did hard time in prison, and survived heart attacks and a liver transplant foisted upon him by hepatitis C.

    “Nobody has any clue why,” said Crosby. “A whole lot of my friends are dead. I think my new motto is gonna be ‘Only the good die young.’”

    He will be celebrating his 78th birthday on August 14.

    An upcoming documentary, entitled Remember my Name, will cover the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s “checkered history.”

    “I’ve done some great things, some terrible things. Of course I remember that s—,” Crosby revealed. “All I had to do is be willing to tell the truth… But considering how old I am, I should be fading off into the distance politely and sort of getting ready to sit down and shut up.”

    Crosby has entrusted the telling of his life’s story to producer Cameron Crowe, who he’s known for a good while.

    “I’ve known him since he was 15,” Crosby said. “He was a very, very bright young man, and everybody liked him. I thought he was terrific, and we became friends. He’s been my friend ever since. And he knows, he really knows [about me].”

    One of the tales from Crosby’s life featured in the film is the story of how Joni Mitchell dumped him via song. Despite Mitchell going on to date Crosby’s bandmate, the two have stayed friends.

    “I do see her and talk to her,” Crosby said. “I had dinner with her at her place a couple months back. And I do still love her. Our relationship has always been thorny but good.”

    Prison Was The Turning Point

    Crosby’s life took a dark turn when he became addicted to heroin and cocaine, which culminated in drugs and weapons charges in 1983. After at first fleeing, Crosby turned himself in and served five months in prison in 1986. Here, he says, was where he was able to get off drugs for good.

    “It’s the only thing that really worked,” he recalled. “I had tried going into treatment and it didn’t work. I went into prison, and it worked. It was a s —y way to do it.”

    These days, life is pretty good for Crosby—with the exception of one thing: the 45th President of the United States.

    “I’m pretty happy almost all the time—unless I think about the president,” he says.

    He’s so passionate, he might even reunite with his old band, Crosby, Stills & Nash, if it could help beat President Donald Trump.

    “I would like to do some get-out-the-vote stuff in this coming year,” he said. “I really want this guy out of the White House. So if they wanted to do that, I’d probably do it with them.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Macklemore: Sobriety Brought Me Closer To My Mother-In-Law

    Macklemore: Sobriety Brought Me Closer To My Mother-In-Law

    Macklemore took to Instagram to celebrate his improved relationship with his mother-in-law. 

    Rapper Macklemore has seen an improvement in his relationship with his mother-in-law ever since getting sober, as chronicled in an Instagram post of the pair hanging out in Paris together.

    “Out here in Paris with my mama in law. Glowed up. Grown up. She used to not trust my ass at all, as I’d sneak in and out of her house to visit @baba_g on the late night,” he wrote in the caption of his post. “Now we in Paris eating appetizers, shopping, walking the city and looking out the window at the Eiffel Tower. Life is good. Change is good. I love her beyond words. And I think she likes me now.”

    The musician was referring to his spouse, Tricia Davis, who goes by the handle @baba_g on Instagram.

    Cynical voices descended on Macklemore’s post, pointing out how convenient it was that his mother-in-law seemed to get along now that he’s dropping tons of cash on her on an expensive trip to France.

    “Amazing what a few million dollars can do,” wrote one such commenter.

    It Wasn’t About The Money

    However, the “Thrift Shop” singer insisted it wasn’t the money that changed things.

    “Although money is nice, it unfortunately can’t keep you sober. And when I got sober that’s when our relationship changed. Money had nothing to do with it,” he clarified on the post. “(But yet, Paris is hella expensive and these euros adding up)”

    Macklemore has spoken openly about his troubled relationship with drugs, which began as early as 14 years old and only got worse as he became more famous. “There was a rapid transition and to have the world’s eye on me all at once with back-to-back number ones, and all the accolades that came with it—I didn’t know how to deal with it,” Macklemore said in an interview last year. “I didn’t know how to adjust, so I escaped.”

    Since then, the singer has become sober and has advocated for the recovery community, including headlining the first ever Recovery Fest 2018 as well as earning a MusiCares award in recognition of his advocacy work.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Rolling Stones Guitarist Ronnie Wood Talks Sobriety, Mick Jagger’s Surgery

    Rolling Stones Guitarist Ronnie Wood Talks Sobriety, Mick Jagger’s Surgery

    “I don’t think I’m missing out on anything. I’m just seeing it a bit more sensibly now. I’m high enough and I’m grateful of that,” Woods says.

    Ronnie Wood, the famous Rolling Stone guitarist, gave an interview with The Sun in the wake of Mick Jagger’s heart surgery, and the band’s No Filter tour.

    Jagger had been told by his doctors that he would eventually need heart surgery; the infamous headliner thought he had plenty of time to complete the band’s tour before being sidelined with heart surgery.

    Three weeks before the U.S. leg of their tour was to begin with 17 separate shows, Mick (72), Keith Richards (75), Charlie Watts (78), and Wood (72) all met in a hotel room.

    Wood shared with The Sun, “He called us to his room and said, ‘I’ve got to do this now.’ He felt so bad about it. We sad, ‘Don’t feel bad, if it’s got to be done, do it, then we can carry on rocking.’ And now we are ready to rock – luckily.”

    “The doctor’s said they’ve never operated on an athlete at 75 before – we had a really good laugh about that. He’s just so fit, he sets aside three hours a day to do exercise and that’s done him plenty of favours in later life. He’s superhuman really.”

    On Jagger’s current condition, Wood remarked, “Oh God, he’s even harder to stop now. It’s like, ‘Mick, come here, I want to talk to you, and he’s like all over the place. He’s in really good form.”

    Wood, like Mick Jagger, has a big family with many children, the youngest being toddlers. Wood has two-year-old twin girls, Grace and Alice, while Jagger’s youngest is Deveraux, also two-years-old. Deveraux is Jagger’s son with 32-year-old ballerina, Melanie Hamrick. Wood points out his hair is still grey-free despite his age and the demands of parenting and the road.

    Wood feels he had a new start late in life with sobriety. He told The Sun, “Since my sobriety, it’s like having a second chance at life, seeing everything with clarify, gratitude. It’s unbelievable. I feel so good. And I have these little blessings is the icing on the cake.”

    Woods continued, “With the momentum of youth, you were always chasing a high. The music was high anyway and you want to get higher and higher, so you have a drink, or whatever. You never used to think about it – it was like keeping the high going. But now I can sit back and go, ‘My body is going to collapse if I keep piling it on and do it like you used to.’ I’m still very happy. I don’t think I’m missing out on anything. I’m just seeing it a bit more sensibly now. I’m high enough and I’m grateful of that.’

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Florence Welch Discusses Sobriety And Anxiety While Touring

    Florence Welch Discusses Sobriety And Anxiety While Touring

    “Most of the things in my life have got exponentially better from not drinking, but it’s lonely being sober on big tours,” Welch revealed. 

    Florence Welch, frontwoman of the indie rock band Florence + The Machine, recently opened up about the loneliness of touring while sober and the anxiety that comes at the beginning of every tour. Though it’s not easy on her, Welch says that it’s the fans that get her through it and eventually get her to enjoy the shows.

    “Most of the things in my life have got exponentially better from not drinking, but it’s lonely being sober on big tours,” she said in an interview with ES Magazine. “But really it’s the people at the shows that save me.”

    Welch has been open about her issues with alcohol use, as well as her depression and anxiety, for years. In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, she spoke on how she used alcohol in order to cope with the stress of touring.

    “That’s when the drinking and the partying exploded as a way to hide from it,” she explained. “The partying was about me not wanting to deal with the fact that my life had changed, not wanting to come down.”

    However, by her 10th year as a high-profile singer, Welch had decided that she didn’t want to go down that path anymore. Like an increasing number of people, she decided to go sober even though she didn’t necessarily have a severe addiction. Thankfully, she found that becoming sober from both drugs and alcohol has significantly reduced her overall anxiety.

    “I think I’ve probably had it low-level, and sometimes extreme, for as long as I can remember,” she told ES. “Stopping drinking and taking drugs has had a hugely helpful effect.”

    Welch, a self-described introvert, said that she feels like she’s “going into shock” during the initial days of any tour — an experience that keeps her up at night and drives her to call her manager to say “I just can’t do this. This is the last one.” Thankfully, she soon gets into the flow and by the end, she “can’t wait to go back and play.”

    Mental illness and substance use disorders often overlap. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “it isn’t unusual for people with social anxiety disorder – or other anxiety disorders – to drink excessively to cope with symptoms or try to escape them.”

    Approximately 20% of individuals suffering from social anxiety disorder also struggle with an alcohol use disorder, compared to 6.2% in the general population.

    View the original article at thefix.com