Eminem has never been a man of many words on social media, which is why his recent photo sharing an update on his sobriety journey packs a real emotional wallop.
Taking to Instagram on Saturday (April 20), Em shared a photo of himself holding a coin that said, simply, “16.”
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He didn’t caption the post, but it was clear that he’d been celebrating 16 years of sobriety.
Check it out below.
Back in 2022, Slim Shady shared a very personal op-ed about his substance abuse struggles with XXL, admitting it was at its worst shortly after Proof died.
The diamond-selling MC nearly died in 2007 after suffering an overdose and has been on the road to recovery ever since. But there was a point when he never thought he’d be able to quell his demons.
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“Drugs became a part of the way I was living my life once I got signed,” he wrote. “When I first came out to L.A., me and some guys I was hanging out with used to go to Tijuana and we would buy drugs. Vicodin and that kinda shit. I don’t know how many times we did it, but it was so easy to go back and forth to do it.
“The last time we went, we’re second in line and this dude in front of us starts arguing with the guy in Customs, and they fuckin’ throw him down on the ground and start pulling pills out his pockets and shit. We were scared shitless, but we got through.”
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Had he been arrested that day, Eminem believes his rap career never would’ve happened: “I would’ve been done right then.”
It never occurred to him that he possibly had a drug problem, but he admitted he just “really, really liked” them. His drug usage went into high gear in 1999 with the release of The Slim Shady LP.
As he explained, he never tried “hard” drugs until he got famous. Up until then, he’d drink the occasional 40-ounce while freestyling with his friends, but it ramped up to a whole other level once he started making money.
Em began his recovery journey in 2005 when he went to rehab to seek help for a sleeping pill addiction. But in December 2007, he was taken to the hospital where doctors informed him he’d consumed the equivalent of four bags of heroin and was “about two hours from dying.”
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“It’s no secret I had a drug problem,” he told Vibe magazine in 2009. “If I was to give you a number of Vicodin I would actually take in a day? Anywhere between 10 to 20. Valium, Ambien, the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking.”
Eminem survived to see another day and has been committed to attending 12-step meetings to maintain his sobriety ever since.
