Many Americans are accustomed to the phrase “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll”, and therefore the music industry can seem inextricable from the party lifestyle and misuse. So it’s no surprise that drugs and drunkenness have affected a number of our favorite musicians. But it’s not all suffering; with the assistance of friends, family, and healthcare professionals, it’s possible to beat addiction, however toxic your environment is.
Here are four musicians that successfully overcame addiction.
1. Lana Del Rey
Lizzie Grant may be a successful singer-songwriter who performs under the name Lana Del Rey. Grant is thought for her music’s cinematic quality and exploration of glamour and melancholy in eight best-selling studio albums. But Grant’s life wasn’t always filled with success and glamour; she talks openly about her struggles with addiction as an adolescent.
Grant battled alcoholism as a minor – a habit that began as recreational but quickly grew to eclipse other joys in her life. She describes alcoholism as mutually of the worst things that ever happened to her. This era in her life inspired her to jot down the critically acclaimed debut album Born to Die.
The artist overcame her addiction with the support of her family, who sent Grant first to a private school in Connecticut than to inpatient rehabilitation facilities. With the assistance of adult support groups, Grant has now been sober for over a decade.
2. Eric Clapton
Talented in vocals, guitar, and songwriting, Eric Clapton is an English blues and rock musician. As fame and success also brought a fair proportion of trouble to the musician’s life, Clapton is ranked on Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Artists of All Time list. Clapton struggled with drug addiction within the 1960s. As a serious warning call he ignored by telling himself the terrible lie that it had been not an issue since he could afford the addiction, Clapton describes the habit as costing him up to £12,000 ($16,000) every week.
The Rockstar was able to free himself from his white plague after three years of intense use but didn’t obtain full sobriety until a stay in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, like detox Phoenix AZ, in 1982. There he was ready to heal and live through addiction, finding strength that might enable him to stay sober even through his struggles later in life.
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3. Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks could be a singer-songwriter who rose to fame within the 1970s along with her band Fleetwood Mac. She has since enjoyed a four-decade-long solo career. Nicks’ poetic lyrics, distinctive vocals, and mystic stage persona have made her a cult hero, and one of the best-selling music acts in American history.
However, fame and also the pressures of the music industry weren’t always easy for Nicks to deal with. Nicks is open about her struggle with dependency, which began with the recreational use of illegal drugs like cocaine and later progressed to prescription medication like Klonopin. She describes her struggle with the latter within the 1980s as stealing eight years from the prime of her life and imaginative wasteland. Nicks has since been ready to overcome her struggle with addiction with the assistance of assorted in and outpatient treatment centers and a steely determination.
4. Eminem
Marshall Mathers, the nom de guerre Eminem, is one of the United States’ most famous hip-hop artists. Mathers grew up in poverty in Michigan and started rapping at a young age. The multi-talented musician has now also had success as a record producer and actor in his two-decade-long career and has found fame joined of the foremost controversial celebrities of the 21st century.
Mathers has told the story of his battle with addiction through his music, with albums like “Recovery” and “Relapse”. He first began his recovery journey after experiencing a near-fatal overdose in 2008. Mathers now wears a hoop to mark his sobriety, engraved with the words “unity”, “recovery”, and “service”, and therefore the inspirational phrase familiar to several on the road to recovery – “one day at a time”.
Arguing that it’s led to the brutal suppression of working-class people and fails to support people scuffling with addiction, Mathers has been publicly critical of the American governments’ failed war on drugs policy. He has also spoken scathingly about the inaccessibility of treatment facilities for America’s poor. For many, Mathers is a concept and an advocate within the battle against addiction.