Eminem has been drinking and drugging since he was a teenager. “I don’t know exactly when it went from recreation to problem,” the 36-year-old rapper tells Vibe. But he thinks it was around 2002, while spending 18-hour days shooting his movie 8 Mile. Using Ambien and Xenadrin to take the edge off, Eminem graduated to handfuls of Vicodin, Valium, and other prescription pills. Despite blackouts and seizures, he was convinced he could handle it. “I was a functioning addict, which is the worst kind. I could walk around most of the time and hide it, or at least think I was hiding it.” During his worst days, Eminem would phone “the dopeman” for pills and tear his home apart looking for them. “I was so mean and vicious. If you were my friend and tried to address my problem, I’d say, I’m never gonna speak to you again.” Things hit bottom just before Christmas 2007, when Eminem overdosed on methadone. “I woke up in the hospital. They told me if I’d gotten to the hospital two hours later, I would have died.” The experience finally penetrated his denial, and with the help of detox, a therapist, and Narcotics Anonymous, he has been clean for a year. He intends to stay that way. “I definitely pray a lot more than I used to. I don’t feel like I’m crazy wacky religious. But I do believe in God, and I do pray.”
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