It can be easy to become dependent on painkillers after taking them for an injury or after a surgery, while others turned to painkillers to try and escape their life. These 5 now recovered stars have all spoken on how they became addicted and later pulled through their addiction: some have even been close to death and were swallowing as many as 50 pills a day, while others checked into rehab once they knew they had a problem.
Caleb Followill
After being treated for a shoulder injury, Caleb became addicted to painkillers, and doesn’t remember a part of his career: “‘Only By The Night’ was the most messed up. That was the party record. I don’t remember a lot of it. I had surgery on my shoulder so they gave me pain pills which I kind of got hooked on.”
Paula Abdul
Paula became addicted after she underwent 15 spinal surgeries following a plane crash. Speaking on her withdrawal symptoms, Paula commented: “I was freezing cold, then sweating hot, then chattering and in so much pain. It was excruciating. But at my very core, I did not like existing the way I had been.”
Kelly Osbourne
Kelly is happy she didn’t die and made her way through her recovery, even though at the time she was trying to kill herself: “At the start I only took one (pill) every weekend. Then it was one every weekday, then two a day, then three. By the end I was taking so many pills I was on my hands and knees vomiting blood because the drug was ripping away my stomach lining. I was taking 50 a day, more than twice the legal dosage, and every day I took one more, hoping I wouldn’t wake up. If I hadn’t gone into rehab then, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here now. I feel very lucky because people die every day from taking painkillers like Vicodin, and I was taking much more than them. Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy – the list goes on. But I got a chance to fix my life.”
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie quickly became dependent on painkillers after she had a procedure on her eyes, and says her recovery makes her proud: “My recovery is the single greatest accomplishment of my life. And without that, the rest of my life would have fallen apart. Recovery and motherhood are the two single greatest things in my life. I too found painkillers after a routine cosmetic surgical procedure and I too became addicted, the morphine becomes the warm bath from which to escape painful reality. I was a lucky one. I was able to see that the pain had started long ago and far away and that finding the narcotic was merely a matter of time.”
Eminem
Rapper Eminem used to get through the day by popping painkillers: ”My everyday regimen would be: Wake up in the morning and take an extra strength Vicodin and it’d be Vicodin throughout the day. Then, as the evening crept up, I’d start with a Valium or two, or three, or four. And every hour on the hour, I’d pop four or five more.”
